Sarah Wise

Child Care Choices: A Longitudinal Study of Children, Families and Child Care in Partnership with Policy Makers.

Child Care Choices is an example of new early childhood research based on a relationship between policy makers and researchers. It is also an example of large-scale longitudinal team-based research into early childhood in Australia. The ongoing study addresses the professional problem for practitioners and policy makers of the increasing use of multiple care settings and changes to care arrangements in the early years and their possible impacts on child development. The project will follow an initial sample of 693 families with a child aged from birth to three years over a three-year period. An ecological framework is used to include the influences on child development of characteristics of the children and their families, their city or country location, as well as their childcare history and current care arrangements. Development is measured in terms of children’s health, motor development, social and emotional development, language and communication as well as emerging literacy and numeracy. The article discusses the unique features of the project in Australian early childhood research, its history, preliminary findings, and the potential of this kind of large-scale, longitudinal team-based research conducted in partnership with policy makers to contribute to policy as well as to theoretical debate.

Using Looking After Children to create an Australian out-of-home care database

There is a paucity of publicly available information on Australian children in out-of-home care. Data on the characteristics of children in care, their experiences during placement, and the services provided for them are badly needed to monitor service effectiveness, to identify where service improvements can be made and to ascertain how to improve the allocation of resources. This paper provides a rationale for using information collected on the ‘Looking After Children’ (LAC) schedules to generate an Australia-wide database on children in out-of-home care, as well as identifying some of the problems to be overcome if the LAC schedules are to be used to collect aggregate data.

Early impacts of Communities for Children on children and families: findings from a quasi-experimental cohort study

Background There have been few evaluations of national area-based interventions. This study evaluated the early effects of Commmunities for Children (CfC) on children and their families and whether the effectiveness differed for more disadvantaged families. Methods A quasi-experimental cohort study in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in Australia. Mothers of children aged 2–3 years participated at wave 1; 1488 children in CfC communities and 714 children in comparison communities. Outcome measures included child health and development, family functioning and parenting, and services and community. Results After controlling for background factors, there were beneficial effects associated with CfC. At wave 3, in CfC areas children had higher receptive vocabulary (mean difference (MD) 0.25, 95% CI −0.02 to 0.51; p=0.07), parents showed less harsh parenting (MD −0.14, 95% CI −0.30 to 0.02; p=0.08) and higher parenting self-efficacy (MD 0.11, 95% CI 0.00 to 0.21; p=0.04). Fewer children living in CfC sites were living in a jobless household (OR 0.56, 95% CI 0.32 to 0.95; p=0.03) but childrens physical functioning (MD −0.26, 95% CI −0.53 to 0.00; p=0.05) was worse in CfC sites. For children living in households with mothers with low education there were reduced child injuries requiring medical treatment (MD −0.61, 95% CI −0.07 to −1.13; p=0.03) and increased receptive vocabulary (MD 0.57, 95% CI 0.06 to 1.08; p=0.03). Conclusions CfC showed some benefits for child receptive vocabulary, parenting and reducing jobless households and two adverse effects. Children living in the most disadvantaged households also benefited.

Keeping a child's donor sperm conception secret is not linked to family and child functioning during middle childhood: An Australian comparative study.

Controversy exists as to whether children conceived using donor sperm should be told about their origins and the possible deleterious effects of secrecy.

Childcare Policy to Promote Child Wellbeing

This article reviews current evidence on the impact of childcare on child development and discusses the implications for current and future childcare policy in Australia.

Developing outcomes-based data from Looking After Children case records completed for children in care in Victoria, Australia

The possibility of deriving reliable outcomes data from the Looking After Children (LAC) Assessment and Action Records (A&ARs) was tested in a recent project undertaken in Victoria, Australia. The paper describes the methodology for obtaining completed A&ARs from non-government placement providers, the process of selecting and constructing 29 outcomes measures from the many data items included in the A&ARs as well as the findings on these outcomes. Whether this process can form the basis of a sustainable system of outcomes monitoring is discussed in terms of the number and representativeness of A&AR returns, data quality and the usefulness of the outcomes findings for policy development.

Does Child Care in the First Year of Life Pose a Risk for Concurrent and Future Ear Infections

ABSTRACT Child care centre attendance is associated with an increased risk of concurrent ear infections, but what is less clear is whether there are any positive or negative long-term effects of early child care attendance on the incidence of ear infections in later childhood. This research assessed the impact of early child care attendance on concurrent and long-term risk of ear infections. Complete sets of relevant wave 1–5 data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children were available for 3513 children (1822 boys) who had a median age of 9 months (M = 8.7, SD = 2.6) at wave 1, 34 months (M = 33.8, SD = 2.9) at wave 2, 57 months (M = 57.5, SD = 2.8) at wave 3, 82 months (M = 81.8, SD = 3.5) at wave 4, and 107 months (M = 107.1, SD = 3.6) at wave 5. At waves 1 and 2, children who attended child care centres had a significantly increased risk of concurrent ear infections than children with exclusive parental care. The longitudinal analyses found no evidence of increased (or decreased) long-term risk of ear infections in subsequent waves associated with attending a child care centre in the first 12 months (or the first 30 months) of life. However, having ear infections at wave 1 was a significant risk factor for ear infections at subsequent waves. Future research is needed to design and investigate appropriate interventions to ameliorate these increased risks.