Sleep disturbances such as bed refusal and resistance, sleep-onset delay, night waking with crying, and unwanted co-sleeping with parents affect 15% to 25% of families during their infant's first two years. A program is described that involves structured pre-bedtime activities, putting the child into his or her own bed awake at a regular time, and responding to subsequent waking and crying with planned ignoring and minimally-arousing checks when necessary. This programme was demonstrated in four families and shown to resolve infant sleep disturbances to a clinically significant degree and to the satisfaction of the parents.

Australian children's interests groups are campaigning for legislation to prohibit adults from using physical punishment with children. In this study, 100 South Australian children, early childhood university students and parents were questioned about their personal experiences of physical punishment in childhood. All three groups had strong negative recollections of being smacked. All of the adult subjects agreed that physical violence is damaging to children's psychological development and they knew that smacking is banned in South Australian state schools and pre-schools. Nevertheless a significant number (79%) used physical punishment for disciplining their own children. Furthermore, 80% of parents and early childhood education students opposed State legislation to ban hand-smacking and only 50% approved legislation to ban adults from hitting children with an implement. Although the university students had been taught and used positive child management techniques in schools and pre-schools, 65% said that they would smack their own children for ‘naughty’ behaviour. The study suggests that early learning (even learning of a negative nature) can take precedence over professionally gained knowledge and professional practice. Advocacy groups would be advised to press for community education encouraging the use of alternative child management techniques before introducing changes to legislation.

Analysis of the issue of abuse in care reveals that common structures and processes for response to allegations operate within a paradigm of minimalist child protection and that this paradigm is inadequate to the effective management of the problem. The paper will argue that a shift of paradigm is required. Concepts of individual pathology and deficiency, conflicts of interest in reporting and investigation and tolerance for all but seriously inadequate care for children must be replaced. A paradigm of duty of care would result in policy and procedure which embraced agencies' moral and legal duties towards children and assessed allegations or harm from this holistic perspective.

This paper addresses the question: Are the consequences of child sexual abuse moderated or exacerbated by the family, the legal system and other support structures which are involved following disclosure? To answer this question, the present study employs a methodology which enables the young women to discuss their experiences and feelings in each of these areas. Through a four stage interview process, in- depth data was gathered from five young women whose cases had been dealt with through the legal system, and from their mothers.

Given that little research has been undertaken in this area, particularly in Australia, the current work focuses on the ability of these groups to provide acceptance and validation subsequent to disclosure, and the resulting responses of the young women. The study concludes with a discussion on the effects of the response of the family, the legal system and other support on the young women, and raises some issues crucial to addressing societal response to child sexual abuse. Suggestions for further research are also offered.

The article is one of a number of articles stemming from a Ph.D research project researching learning and emotional difficulties amongst year eight students at a State High School in Adelaide. Twenty students identified as having learning and behaviour difficulties are participating in an alternative program for two days a week. The program involves camping, outdoor education and a good deal of intensive ‘direct instruction’ in basic literacy and numeracy. It is anticipated that this program will serve as a model for other state schools developing alternative programs for disaffected adolescent students.

Christine Hallett is Professor of Social Policy and Chair of the Department of Applied Social Science, University of Stirling, Scotland. She has written extensively in the area of child protection policy, child inquiries and inter-professional communication. In 1992, in conjunction with Elizabeth Birchall, she completed a major review of the literature on the issue of co-ordination in child protection work. It has formed the basis for a research study funded by the Department of Health Into inter-agency and professional co-ordination in the practice and policies of child protection.

This interview was conducted whilst I was on a study tour of Great Britain supported by a Creswick Foundation Fellowship in Family Relations and Child Development and the Department of Social Work, Monash University. In the interview, Christine discusses her views about the efficacy of co-ordination, its drawbacks and the policy implications for emphasising the importance of inter-agency co-ordination in protecting children.

With attention focussed on child abuse and measures for child protection in many countries around the world, efforts have been made to understand something of the nature and dimensions that lie behind abuse. Now the time has come to look at domestic violence in its other manifestations - not only parent to child as in child abuse, but also husband to wife or cohabiter to cohabiter. What, however, has been missing from this widening of concerns has been a focus on parental behaviour toward their children which involves the use of physical punishment in child rearing but which may fall short of the legal definition of abuse. This gap is about to be considered with the emergence in Australia of the EPOCH campaign in which Oz Child is to be a leading participant.

The following two papers, which were provided to Children Australia by Meredith Kiraly. were given at a one-day Conference in London on 12 July 1994 entitled Residential Child Care: Into the Next Century. The Conference was convened by the National Children's Bureau of the United Kingdom.

Peter Dale is the principal author of Dangerous Families, which was first published in 1986. In it, he described an assessment and therapeutic approach to working with child abuse developed by the Rochdale Special Unit of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in Britain. In 1986, Peter became the Manager of the NSPCC Child Protection Team in East Sussex. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow in Social Policy and Social Work at Sussex University. He is currently completing a PhD study at the University of Brighton entitled: Clients' and therapists' perceptions of the psychotherapeutic process: A study of adults abused as children.

This interview was conducted whilst I worked as part of the East Sussex NSPCC Team for three months in 1993. This experience was made possible with the support of a Creswick Foundation Fellowship in Family Relations and Child Development and the Department of Social Work, Monash University.

In the interview, Peter discusses the changes in his thinking and practice since the publication of Dangerous Families.