PhD project areas
Childhood Anxiety
Project 1
To be conducted in collaboration with the Rheumatology Department at the QLD Children’s Hospital. Aims: examine the prevalence of anxiety disorders; and implement and evaluate the acceptability and effectiveness of a parenting program for anxiety in children with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis.
Project 2
Parenting in the context of childhood anxiety and evaluating parenting intervention to assist in managing anxiety.
Project Supervisor: Vanessa Cobham
Parenting and the development of gender roles
Gender role stereotypes play an important role in all areas of human development. They affect our emotions, choices, and behaviours in multiple contexts, and set the stage for prejudice and discrimination. While adult gender roles may have changed over the last few decades, most children are exposed to a continuing barrage of stereotyped gender roles from birth: from parents, the media, and peers, and these stereotypes have not changed significantly over time. Many parents express an interest in raising their children in a way that deemphasizes gender, yet there no existing evidence-based approaches focused on minimising the effects of gender role stereotypes in early childhood. This research aims to:
- Provide a longitudinal description of the early home environment and its influence on infants’ gendered development, with a particular emphasis on the role of parents and specific parenting strategies.
- Assess the efficacy and mechanisms of change of a brief parenting program delivered prenatally in promoting an early learning environment that deemphasises the role of gender via a randomised controlled trial evaluating proximal program outcomes in the first year of life.
Project Supervisor: Alina Morawska
Healthy habits: Parenting and the development of health behaviours in the first years of life
Parents’ ability to guide their children in developing ‘healthy habits’ is key to supporting children’s short- and long-term health and wellbeing. Establishing healthy behaviours in early childhood can lay the foundation for a lifetime of healthy habits and may have greater impact on long-term health than attempting to change entrenched adult behaviour. This program of research aims to establish the key facilitators and barriers to for children and their parents to engaging in healthy habits, and evaluate interventions to promote the development of early health behaviours in young children.
Project Supervisor: Alina Morawska
Evaluation of Family Life Skills Triple P
This project will evaluate Family Life Skills Triple P (FLSTP). FLSTP is a variant of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program focusing on assisting vulnerable parents with trauma history including family of origin adverse childhood events. The project will used mixed methods including a randomised trial methodology and qualitative methods to explore the effects of a 10 module program on child, parent and family level outcomes.
Project Supervisor: Karen Turner
Evaluation of an online version of the Triple P Professional Training program
This project will involve comparing an online and an in person professional training program for practitioners learning to implement the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program. The project will examine effects of both training modalities on practitioner clinical consultation skills, self-efficacy, program satisfaction and subsequent implementation of the program with families. The evaluation will include a cost effectiveness analysis.
Project Supervisor: Cassandra Tellegen
Parenting and ecologically sustainable living
This project will involve an evaluation of a family-based, school and community based intervention (Our Place; Our Future) focusing on helping children and families developed ecologically sustainable patterns of family living linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Project Supervisor: April Hoang