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In June 2009, the Commonwealth Attorney General in Australia announced a Family Relationship Centres/ Legal Assistance Partnerships Program, (the 'Better Partnerships' program). Its aim was to assist separated or separating families, 'by providing access to early and targeted legal information and advice when attending Family Relationship Centres' ( Mc Clelland, 2009). After contextualizing this significant shift in policy and practice, the present paper reports on largely positive key results of an evaluation of the program by the Australian Institute of Family Studies. The paper concludes with reflections on future challenges and possibilities regarding ongoing collaboration between Australia's legal and family relationship sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the Australian Institute on Family Studies' Housing Across the Life Course project. This paper set out to illustrate how the key concepts of a risk society might become manifest in contemporary Australian housing careers. This led to a consideration of whether entry to home purchase shows signs of increased differentiation and disconnectedness. Analysis reveals no evidence of increased differentiation; on the contrary, the age-related norm of entry to home ownership appears to be strengthening. That is, entry to home ownership by later cohorts is increasingly likely to have been attained within a narrower span of years than earlier cohorts. The data suggest that if individuals have not entered home ownership by their early thirties, they are increasingly unlikely to do so. With regard to disconnectedness, analysis found that entry to home ownership is becoming increasingly disconnected from other life course events. The paper has provided brief illustrations of the manifestation of risk society concepts and what they might mean for our understanding of family life.

Presents an edited version of a paper presented to the Sixth Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference "Changing Families, Challenging Futures," held in Melbourne, Victoria on 25-29, November 1998, concerning low pay and family poverty in Australia. To be in paid work but poor used to be a contradiction in terms in Australia's "wage earners" welfare state. In the early 1970s, the Commission of Enquiry into Poverty estimated that less than 2 per cent of families with an adult in full-time employment could be described as poor. In the 1990s, however, having employment is no longer a guarantee of staying out of poverty. The ACTU's Living Wage Case attempted to put working poverty on the public agenda by expressly linking the question of low pay with that of household deprivation. Yet many low-paid workers live in better-off households, and the links between individual and family income status are complex. A study in progress at the Social Policy Research Centre suggests that a trend towards working poverty has accelerated in the 1990s, and this article draws on the research to trace the links between individual low pay and family poverty.

The article presents an edited version of a paper presented to the Sixth Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference "Changing Families, Challenging Futures," held in Melbourne, Victoria on 25-29, November 1998, concerning attachment theory and marital adjustment. Pre-marriage education has a long history in Australia and there is a wide range of pre-marriage and relationship education programs offered by religious and secular organisations. Some of these programs, through raising awareness and teaching relationship skills, aim to prepare young couples for marriage, while others provide opportunities for married couples to identify their strengths and develop ways of dealing with current and potential problems. Practitioners in both the education and counselling fields draw on a vast body of theory and knowledge about relationships which provides both descriptive and explanatory information, and experiential learning tools and resources. A rapidly expanding field of research, attachment theory, provides a framework for explaining how relationships form, develop, and break down, and offers educators and counsellors tools for informing and challenging those preparing for, and experiencing difficulties in, marriage. INSET: Attachment theory and research..

The article presents information on trends in family studies in Australia. It monitors trends in the literature, both published works and unpublished papers such as conference and research papers and other non-commercial literature from universities and non-government agencies. The database also makes possible the identification of organisations and individuals working in particular subject areas. The database is divided into 70 broad subject categories. This structure makes it possible to analyse the amount and type of literature indexed in each category and to make observations about the attention or concern different social issues receive in a given time period. The majority of categories are surprisingly stable, mostly recording a slight increase each year, or occasionally a small decrease, in numbers of documents indexed. This year, 25 categories recorded more than 50 new documents; 13 with between 50 and 99 documents; nine with between 100 and 199 documents; and three categories with more than 200 documents.

The article provides updates on "Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC)." The third round of interviews for LSAC have been underway for most of 2008. Meanwhile, the paper "How Important is Marriage to Australians' Health, Wealth and Happiness?" has been presented by Linda Bencic. Furthermore, a paper on "Determining the Effects of Housing Costs on the Well-Being of Australian Families" has been presented by Sebastian Misson.

The article reports that the Australian Institute of Family Studies, in partnership with RMIT Publishing has launched a new database, Family & Society Plus. Family & Society Plus is based on Australian Family & Society Abstracts, the database produced by the institute since 1984, but has a much higher proportion of full text material, especially journal articles normally available only on subscription. For busy researchers, service providers, and policy makers, Family & Society Plus provides instant access to online versions of the latest journal literature, conference papers, government reports, academic working papers and research reports. Family & Society Plus was launched by the Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Professor Alan Hayes, at the Family Services Australia Conference in Sydney on October, 24 2004.

This article presents information on features of Web sites of the Australian Institute of Family Studies on the family. The Institute's Annual Report 1998-99 and a number of new Institute papers can now be accessed from the Publications page at: www.aifs.org.au/institute/pubs/pubsmenu.html. The Institute has recently established two email discussion forums to support discussion and networking in the fields of child abuse prevention and marriage and relationship education, and an Institute announcements list. Childprotect aims to promote the exchange of information and ideas between Australasian and other professionals working in the field of child abuse prevention and child protection, including child protection workers, other health and welfare service providers, people working in the criminal justice system, in education and training or in policy and service planning, researchers and information providers. Marriage and Relationship Education aims to establish a network of marriage and relationship education researchers and practitioners, and to provide a forum for discussion of issues related to the research, practice and further development of marriage and relationship education in Australia. Aifs-alert has been set up as a means of keeping people up to date with Institute activities and new developments on the Web site.

This article focuses on the Australian Institute of Family Studies' Web site. The Web site provides Institute research, information projects and publications, and access to Institute databases and resource collections. A feature of the Institute's Web site for the past two months has been the Institute's conference, "Changing Families, Challenging Futures," held in Melbourne, Victoria in November 1998. The Institute's Web site offers a full listing of Institute publications with descriptions, prices and information for ordering print copies. A growing collection of papers is also directly available from the Web site. Users should select "Publications" and click on "Current Publications," to find works arranged in subject groupings and also a list of titles available in full text. Child protection and youth suicide prevention are the foci of two specialist information projects hosted by the Institute. To provide access to the current literature in these subject areas a series of regularly updated bibliographies has been compiled.

The article discusses several developments concerning the Australian Institute of Family Studies. The institute invites registrations from people wishing to attend the sixth Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference, to be held at the Carlton Crest Hotel in Melbourne from November 25-27,1998. The conference will provide a valuable forum for those interested or involved in family research, the development of family policy, or providing services to families in Australia. The conference will focus on family issues in Australia and feature the presentation and discussion of findings of the Institute's own studies, along with work from other researchers, government bodies, service providers and community organizations. It reports that over 150 presentations will be made during the course of the conference. The conference will include keynote addresses, papers, symposia, display and discussion poster presentations, and workshops. All have been grouped into the following broad themes. The article also presents information on family values and family relations, effects of divorce on family members, demographic change, life courses and family futures, and others.