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This article describes how young children and their families and community members came together with researchers to co-create books in children's languages about their worlds in Fiji, to foster children's multilingual literacies. The co-creation of these books in children's and families' Fijian homes and community settings connected with their voices, languages, and literacies, to ensure both the books and the processes for co-creating them would be culturally sustaining and effective for children's multilingual literacy growth. Among the research team here, two were based in Fiji and the rest were based in Australia. We learned many lessons in our journey from preschools and classrooms in Australia to children's homes and communities in Fiji, which we bring back to share with teachers internationally through "The Reading Teacher."

This article reports a three-year, cross-cultural study on co-constructing culturally sustaining pedagogic (CSP) practices with children and their families and communities, to foster children's literacy in their home languages and English in Fiji's settings. As we argue in this article, dialogue is a vital part of CSP -- specifically, authentic dialogic encounters defined as educative encounters with people in and about their worlds, occurring in relational contexts infused with an ethics of care and commitment. The study was framed as critical participatory action research. We present key findings focusing on: ensuring contextual relevance and responsiveness of pedagogic practices, co-constructing CSP practices with children and their families and communities, and documenting children's learning and engagement through culturally inclusive means. We close with discussion about how authentic dialogic encounters served to move toward four tenets of CSP: (1) outcomes must be pluralist, (2) avoid essentializing culture and race, (3) focus on traditional languages and cultures in dynamic ways, and (4) take an inward gaze.

Early childhood and primary educators' and carers' education and support in identifying and responding appropriately to children displaying problematic sexual behaviours has fallen behind the demands currently arising in care and education sites in Australia. This is a key finding of research examining professional educators' and carers' experiences of problematic sexual behaviours in their workplaces, their understanding of problematic sexual behaviours, and their source of training in this area. This paper reports on the professional development, workplace and community support for educators and affected children, which educators and carers wanted to have implemented to more adequately respond to their professional needs and the needs of affected children and their families. The research was conducted using an online survey in 2016 and involved 107 respondents from government, independent and Catholic primary schools, preschools and care organisations.

A recent report delivered by the Australian Centerer for Child Protection has highlighted the need for empirical evidence of effective pedagogies for supporting teaching and learning of child protection content in Australian teacher education programs (Arnold & Mai-Taddeo, 2007). This paper advances this call by presenting case study accounts of different approaches to teaching child protection content in University-based teacher education programs across three Australian States. These different cases provide a basis for understanding existing strategies as an important precursor to improving practice. Although preschool, primary and secondary schools have been involved in efforts to protect children from abuse and neglect since the 1970s, teacher education programs, including preservice and in service programs, have been slow to align their work with child protection agendas. This paper opens a long-overdue discussion about the extent and nature of child protection content in teacher education and proposes strategies for translating research into practice. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.)

As part of a wider study, this paper reports on Australian educators' understanding of children's typical and problematic sexual behaviour and their source of training in this area. A sample of 107 educators from government, independent and Catholic primary schools, preschools and care organisations across Australia answered an online questionnaire regarding their understanding of and experiences with children's problematic sexual behaviours and their management strategies. The majority of educators were able to identify children's age-appropriate typical sexual behaviour and some elements of problematic sexual behaviour; however, individual knowledge was not extensive. Approximately 35% (n = 35) of educators said they had not been trained in identifying and responding to children's problematic sexual behaviour. Of those who said they had received training, the majority (82%, n = 53) described having participated in a compulsory course on reporting suspected abuse to government (a mandated reporting course). Ninety per cent (n = 89) of educators reported that courses specific to children's problematic sexual behaviours should be offered. This suggests that mandated reporting courses do not offer in-depth training specific to problematic sexual behaviour. Implications for professional development are discussed.

Trauma exposure has immediate and potentially enduring adverse effects, which vary with the age of onset, the frequency and severity of the experience. The most common context of trauma for children living in Western democracies – family violence and child abuse – affects between a quarter and a third of all children. In such contexts exposure to trauma and toxic stress often begins early, and happens frequently and severely. Children living with chronic stress or trauma run the risk of becoming hyper-vigilant or dissociative and withdrawn. In school such children find it hard to achieve a learning state receptive to new information. In 2012 a project was initiated to support a teacher to create a safe learning environment for each student in a class that included several chronically stressed and traumatized 6 to 8 year-old children. The project provided ongoing teacher professional learning about brain development and the emotional and behavioural impacts of chronic stress and trauma to build understanding that would result in improvements in practice. With the support of a community outreach worker, changes made improved behaviour management and teacher-child interaction approaches, class routines aimed to promote social and emotional development, and opportunities for supported teacher reflection on practice were provided. Data collected included teacher and outreach worker interview responses, children’s academic literacy scores, school attendance, recall of feeling words, and the pattern of class peer relationships across the school year. By the end of the year, the teacher identified his capacity to support children’s social emotional development had improved; the number of feelings words in children’s vocabulary had increased significantly; and children had many more mutual friendships. These findings indicate the high effectiveness of the project to create positive changes in the children’s ability to identify emotions and make friends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented to the article "Trauma and Meaning Making" by Danielle Schaub and Elspeth McInnes, exploring the pervasive nature of trauma, its impact on identity, and the diverse approaches communities employ in making sense of and recovering from traumatic experiences.

Men's violence against mothers and children as a context of separation significantly increases the immediate and longer-term parenting needs of affected children, according to a South Australian study of single mothers' transition and adaptation to living in a single parent household. Qualitative research interviews with 18 separated mothers who cited violence as the main reason for ending their relationship included mothers' views on how the violence had impacted on their children. Mothers who had fled violence named continuing concerns with their children's behaviour including withdrawal, anxiety and aggression, as well as the children's continuing exposure to violence during contact with their father. These mothers reported that access to professionals to seek help with their concerns about their children's needs was often inadequate.