Research

The Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs supports research that strengthens evidence-based decision-making and contributes to effective policy and practice.

Our participation in commissioned and collaborative research is designed to ensure that:

• research contributes to our goals, policy and priorities
• research is relevant and managed in accordance with legal and administrative requirements
• risk to clients, staff and stakeholder safety is minimised
• the dignity of research participants is preserved
• we optimise our return on investment in research
• research meets community expectations and is conducted to high standards of ethical conduct and probity.

Support may be provided to research projects through in-kind assistance such as providing access to data, clients and staff.

**New Research and Evaluation Newsletter coming soon**

Approval process

Any research that involves our staff, current or previous clients and their carers/families, or accessing our data, will be reviewed by the Research and Evaluation team, and service centres will be consulted internally. Researchers are requested not to approach service centres directly. Final approval of all projects is at the discretion of the Director-General.

Research proposals are assessed on, but not restricted to, the following key attributes:

• identified alignment of research objectives with departmental research priorities
• feasibility of the research
• quality of the proposed methodology
• capacity of the researcher/s to complete research as proposed
• operational impost and burden to us
• risks for departmental clients and staff are identified and mitigated by researchers
• requests for in-kind and financial support (departmental and other sources) are clearly articulated
• research presents value for money
• ethical, legal, privacy and confidentiality implications are identified by the researcher
• ethical clearance proposed or obtained from the NHMRC through a registered Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC)
• accompanying documents are included in proposal e.g. Consent forms, Participant information sheets, data collection instruments.

All research must conform to privacy provisions under the Information Privacy Act (Qld) 2009, the Privacy Act (Cth) 1988, and the ethical standards outlined in the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007) - Updated 2015. All research proposing the involvement of clients of Child Safety services must ensure compliance with research provisions under the Child Protection Act (1999).

For research projects that may include Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples, researchers will need to refer to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Knowledge Lens (PDF, 971 KB) and Respectful language guide (PDF, 15 MB), and apply these to their research design and rationale.

How to submit a research application

If you would like to submit a research application, please complete the Research application form (DOCX, 377 KB) and send to researchandevaluation@csyw.qld.gov.au. If you have a research enquiry or would like to discuss your research idea with us, please contact us at this same email address.

Researchers with enquiries or applications regarding Youth Justice research should contact the Youth Justice Research and Evaluation team at: researchandevaluation@youthjustice.qld.gov.au.