In order to address complex adaptive problems such as child maltreatment, school dropout, and youth crime, systemic approaches like collective impact initiatives are required. Within these methodologies multiple sectors work collaboratively to address agreed goals that are measurable, and are supported by a backbone support organisation. However the collective impact movement neglects the extensive research in prevention science, especially as it relates to schools and human services. This project explicitly aims to remedy this defect. The overall project objective is to implement a Prevention Translation and Support System (PTSS) in Communities for Children (CfC) sites in NSW, Queensland and Tasmania, and to evaluate its impact on measures of child wellbeing, educational performance, and behaviour, as well as on family-school engagement and the quality of functioning of local partnerships involving schools and community agencies. The PTSS incorporates electronic tools and resources, and the services of trained Collective Impact Facilitators in each community. The research design involves extending the CfC partnerships of NGO service providers to include primary schools and state government funded family support services, supported by state departments of communities and education as project partners. Evaluation will focus on community level change in child wellbeing, as well as on changes amongst children attending clusters of primary schools in the most needy parts of CfC communities. In addition, in one CfC community in each of Queensland, NSW and Tasmania, evaluation will be conducted at the individual level through data linkage and integration involving schools, the CfC partnerships, and state government funded services.

Professor Ross Homel AO is Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. He has served as Director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance, he was founder and director of the Griffith Institute for Social and Behavioural Research (now the Griffith Social and Behavioural Research College); he has served as Head of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice; as a Commissioner of the Queensland Criminal Justice Commission; and in the early 2000s worked with Fiona Stanley and others to establish the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth and its associated ARC research network. He is a former Board member and Vice-President of the Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and former member of the Academy executive committee.

Ross has attracted more than $7 million in research funding, and has published three monographs and eight edited books or special journal issues, as well as more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and high impact government reports. He has won many awards for his research on the prevention of crime, violence and injuries and the promotion of positive development and wellbeing for children and young people in socially disadvantaged communities. His accomplishments were recognised in January 2008 when he was appointed an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AO) “for service to education, particularly in the field of criminology, through research into the causes of crime, early intervention and prevention methods.” In May 2008 he was recognized by the Premier of Queensland as a ‘Queensland Great’, “for his contribution to Queensland’s reputation for research excellence, the development of social policy and justice reform and helping Queensland’s disadvantaged communities.” In December 2008 he was shortlisted for 2009 Australia of the Year, in 2009 he received a Distinguished Service Award for Alumni, Macquarie University; in 2010 he received the Sellin-Glueck Award from the American Society of Criminology for criminological scholarship that considers problems of crime and justice as they manifest outside the United States; and (with Dr Kate Freiberg and Dr Sara Branch) won the Norman Smith Publication in Social Work Research Award for the best paper in Australian Social Work in 2014.