Professor Dorothy Scott

Dorothy Scott is the Foundation Chair in Child Protection and the Director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia. Before taking up this appointment in 2005 she was the Head of the School of Social Work at the University of Melbourne, and prior to that, the Executive Director of The Ian Potter Foundation, one of Australia’s largest philanthropic trusts. Dorothy’s career in child welfare began when she was a seventeen year old child care worker at the Allambie Reception Centre in Burwood, Victoria. Moved by the suffering of children who were admitted to State care, she studied social work at the University of Melbourne in the early 1970s and then worked for the then Social Welfare Department in the area of foster care and adoption. She then worked in the field of mental health, becoming Senior Social Worker in the Family Psychiatry Department of the Queen Victoria Medical Centre in Melbourne. There she helped establish specialist services for women experiencing post-partum psychiatric disorders, and services for women and children who had been sexually assaulted. In the 1980s she began an academic career, lecturing social work students at the University of Melbourne, and conducting research in areas including maternal depression and child welfare. Since then she has conducted numerous reviews and inquiries in Australia in the field of child protection and served on Ministerial advisory bodies in several States and Territories.

http://www.unisa.edu.au/childprotection/

BA (Hons) Melb

Grad Dip Social Studies (Melb)

MSW (Melb)

PhD (Melb)

• Prevention of child abuse and neglect
• Child protection policy and practice
• Inter-professional and inter-organisational collaboration
• Maternal mental health

Scott, D. & O’Neill, D. Beyond Child Rescue, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1996

Scott, D. & Swain, S. (2002) Confronting Cruelty, Historical Perspectives on Child Protection, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne 2002

Darlington, D. & Scott, D. (2002) Qualitative Research in Practice, Allen & Unwin/Open University Press

Scott, D. (2001) “Building Communities that Strengthen Families”, Family Matters, 58, 76-79

Scott, D., Brady, S. & Glynn, P. (2001)“New Mother Groups as a Social Network Intervention: Consumer and Maternal and Child Health Nurse Perspectives”, Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 18, 4, 23-29

Scott, D. (2002) “Adding Meaning to Measurement: The Value of Qualitative Methods in Practice Research”, British Journal of Social Work, 32, 7, 923-930

Scott, D. (2002) “A Promise Unfulfilled on Child Abuse”, Editorial on World Report on Violence and Health – exploring Australian responses”, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 26, 5, 415-416. Scott. D. (2005) “Inter-organisational Collaboration: A Framework for Analysis and Action”, Australian Social Work, 2, 132-141 Scott, D, (2005) “Philanthropy and Mental Health Research: Potential for Partnerships”, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 39, 31-35

Scott, D. (2002) “Legislation and Professional Practice in Child Welfare”, Developing Practice, Autumn, 9-11.

Salveron, M., Arney F., Scott D. (2006). Sowing the seeds of innovation: Ideas for child and family services. Family Matters, 73:39-45.

Cashmore,J., Higgins, D.J., Bromfield, L.M., and Scott, D.A. (2006) Recent Australian child protection and out of home care research: What’s been done and what needs to be done? Children Australia, 31(2) 4-11.

Scott, D.A. (2006) Towards a public health model of child protection in Australia, Communities, Families and Children Australia, 1(1) 9-16.

Lewig, K., Arney F., Scott D. (2006). Closing the research-policy and research-practice gaps: Ideas for child and family services. Family Matters, 74:12-19.

Scott, D.A., Salveron, M., Reimer,E., Nichols, S., & Sivak, L., Positive Partnerships with Parents of Young Children, ARACY, West Perth, ISBN 978-1-921352-10-2

Stanley, F.J., Scott, D.A., & O’Donnell, M. Interventions to Halt Child Abuse in Aboriginal Communities: Letter to the Editor, Medical Journal of Australia, Vol 187, No 8, pp472.

I am able to provide media comment in the following areas of expertise:

Discipline:

• Child Protection, child abuse and neglect.