Children & young people
Beyond conversation: What the evidence tells us about centring children and young people
15 SEPTEMBER 2025
Estimated read time: 5 minutes
National Child Protection Week 2025 called on all of us to shift from words to action.
At ANROWS, we’re turning to the evidence, especially the voices and experiences of children and young people, as a compass for change.
Why centring children matters
The 2025 theme for National Child Protection Week, “Every Conversation Matters: Shifting Conversation to Action” was a challenge to listen differently, act responsibly, and ensure that children are not sidelined in the systems meant to keep them safe.
At ANROWS, our research has consistently shown that children and young people experience domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) in complex and direct ways.
Yet too often, systems respond to the adults around them, while overlooking their voices, agency and needs.
Here are just three examples of ANROWS-funded research projects that produced child-centred frameworks for practice, moving us into concrete and evidence-based action:
1. Healing our children and young people: A framework to address the impacts of domestic and family violence
Lead organisation: Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak (QATSICPP); lead researchers Garth Morgan and Candice Butler
This framework to support healing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people impacted by domestic and family violence was developed through participatory action research led by First Nations community researchers.
It recognises the strength and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities, and embeds culturally grounded, evidence-informed healing responses for children who have experienced DFSV.
Why it’s important
The practice framework is designed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations and for mainstream services that support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities. This is a tool for the frontline that:
- Centres children’s voices and lived experiences
- Upholds self-determination and cultural safety
- Supports local, place-based healing
2. Connecting the dots: A strengths-based practice framework for responding to the needs and priorities of children and young people with disability who experience domestic and family violence
Project lead: Professor Sally Robinson
Research project: Connecting the dots: Understanding the DFV experiences of children and young people with disability within and across sectors
Too often, children and young people with disability fall between service cracks when seeking help for domestic and family violence. This framework equips practitioners to centre their voices, priorities and safety needs.
Why it’s important
- Children with disability make up around 30% of children who experience DFV, yet they face unmet service needs when seeking help
- Current systems often focus on adult caregivers, leaving children invisible in responses.
- The framework highlights how to centre children’s perspectives and rights in practice, including communication and decision-making support.
- It provides practical, actionable steps practitioners can use immediately, not just long-term reforms.
- By guiding services to work across sectors, it helps reduce fragmentation and ensures stronger, safer pathways for children and families.
3. AVITH Collaborative Practice Framework
Project lead: Elena Campbell
Research partner: Drummond Street Services
Research project: WRAP around families experiencing adolescent violence in the home (AVITH): Towards a collaborative service response
“This work is really, really trying to centre young peoples’ experience and really trying to, you know, affirm that young people are primary victims [and] survivors in their own right, and when they’re using violence, that’s telling us something that’s giving us information about what their experience has been [and] their development …” (Practitioner)
Adolescent violence in the home (AVITH) – the use of violence or harm by children and young people against family members – is shaped by complex drivers such as trauma, disability, and past or ongoing adult-perpetrated violence.
Despite growing recognition of AVITH as a distinct and specialised issue, families experiencing AVITH continue to face fragmented, inconsistent inappropriate service responses.
This framework helps practitioners, organisations and governments build clarity, coordination and accountability across systems to better support young people and their families.
Why it’s important
This framework:
- Centres young people and families by adopting trauma- and risk-informed, culturally safe, and flexible practice principles.
- Provides role clarity across systems (police, child protection, courts, schools, DFV services) so young people don’t fall through service gaps.
- Emphasises whole-of-family approaches, acknowledging that adolescents’ use of violence is often connected with broader experiences of trauma and harm.
From conversation to co-design
At the ANROWS Conference 2025, young advocates called for governments, researchers, and services to move beyond consultation and toward genuine co-design.
They asked for:
- Less jargon, more honesty
- Fewer one-off engagements, more structural inclusion
- Recognition of their lived expertise as essential, not optional
We heard them. And the evidence backs them.
⭐️ Learn more about ANROWS’ upcoming work
At ANROWS, we’re strengthening the evidence base through projects that engage young people, especially boys, on their use of violence, and through studies that explore how to work with men, including fathers, in place-based and culturally responsive ways.
2023–2027 Research program: People who use violence
⭐️ Learn more about ANROWS’ work with and for children and young people
Explore our child and youth-focused research collection: Children, young people and parenting
For further information please contact:
Emmagness Ruzvidzo (ANROWS)
M: 0468 322 800 | E: [email protected]
About ANROWS
Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) is a not-for-profit independent national research organisation.
ANROWS is an initiative of Australia’s National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010–2022. ANROWS was established by the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments of Australia to produce, disseminate and assist in applying evidence for policy and practice addressing violence against women and their children.
ANROWS is the only such research organisation in Australia.