This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Australasian Child-Welfare Conference run by the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare’s precursor, the Children’s Welfare Association of Victoria. To celebrate, the Centre invites you to attend this special occasion to celebrate 100 years of child welfare advocacy in Victoria.
It will acknowledge creative leadership that improved the lives of children and young people, and showcase agitators – those who changed how Victorians cared for the most vulnerable, who perceived new ways of working and challenged the habits and dogmas of the past. And it will pay tribute to the late Neale Molloy, a pioneer of children’s welfare policy and practice who was instrumental in the de-institutionalisation of children in care.
Emeritus Professor Dorothy Scott AM will deliver the keynote address ‘Transformational Reform in Child and Family Services’. By exploring exemplars of transformational change, we can better understand the preconditions for effective reform in the face of contemporary challenges.
Emeritus Professor Dorothy Scott AM is an honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and at the University of South Australia. It is 50 years since she first volunteered as a teenager to assist children in state care at the Allambie Reception Centre in Burwood. After graduating in social work at the University of Melbourne in the 1970s, she was involved in developing pioneering programs in the fields of sexual assault and maternal mental health for which she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia. As a researcher and policy advisor, she has influenced child protection in Australia. In 2011 she co-conducted the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry. Professor Scott is the Patron of the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare. In 2017 she was made a member of the Order of Australia for her contribution to education and children’s rights.
When: Friday 7 December. 1:00pm-4:00pm
Where: Gryphon Gallery, Melbourne University
