Congratulations to Professor Daryl Higgins and the team behind the landmark Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS) who have won a Queensland Child Protection Week Award.
Professor Higgins, the Director of ACU’s Institute of Child Protection Studies, accepted the prestigious award on behalf of the ACMS research team at a ceremony at Parliament House.
“This award really shows how important this research is beyond academia,” Professor Higgins said.
“It’s tangible evidence of the way that governments, policymakers, and service providers see our data as being vital for informing their strategies to better prevent, and respond to, the widespread problem of child maltreatment and its impacts.”
The ACMS surveyed 8500 Australians about their experiences of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and exposure to domestic violence during childhood.
Among the key findings, the Australian-first research revealed 62.2 per cent of Australians aged over 16 experienced child maltreatment, with almost two-thirds of those impacted experiencing more than one type of abuse.
Ongoing analysis of the ACMS, which was led by QUT School of Law principal research fellow Professor Ben Mathews alongside chief investigators Professor Higgins, Professor Rosana Pacella, Professor James Scott, Professor David Finkelhor, Associate Professor Franziska Meinck, Dr Holly Erskine, Dr Hannah Thomas, Professor David Lawrence, Professor Michael Dunne and project manager Dr Divna Haslam, continues to make groundbreaking revelations.
Professor Higgins said he hoped the award would reinforce the need for governments, service providers and individual practitioners across a range of sectors to commit to the goal of child maltreatment prevention.
“The ACMS sheds a light on where we need to invest our time, our resources, and our skills to ensure that future generations of children and young people grow up safe in their families, the organisations they encounter, their communities, and online,” he said.
“I hope we can see child maltreatment, in all its forms, as a preventable problem.”
