There are many reasons why students might not attend school. Importantly, parents, caregivers, and school staff, are essential in supporting young people and school attendance. While some resources to support parents and schools to in turn, support young people to attend school, are available, they are often difficult to find online and few include perspectives from families.

Continuum of Care

  • Prevention
  • Treatment
  • Continuing Care
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Lifecourse

  • Pregnancy
  • Infancy
  • Toddlerhood
  • Childhood
  • Adolescence
  • Young Adulthood
  • Middle Adulthood
  • Late Adulthood
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In 2023, the Australian Government Senate Inquiry into school refusal recommended the need for improved resources, “including a ‘one-stop-shop’ for information about school refusal and the support options available to students and families”.

Our project aims to design and implement a comprehensive school attendance website for families and schools to access high quality, evidence-based, and easily accessible resources to support young people’s school attendance.

Parent Strategies

  1. Adapt content from best practice parenting guidelines on parenting children with school refusal for web-based content, incorporating videos, animations, fact sheets, interactive forms, engaging visuals, and expert webinars.

School Strategies

  1. Conduct a Delphi study to understand what best practice for schools looks like when supporting student attendance

  2. Create best practice guidelines for schools informed by the outcomes of the Delphi study

  3. Adapt best practice guidelines for schools to web-based content

This project is funded by Brian M. Davis Charitable Foundation and The Ross Trust.

Meet the Team

Project Leadership Team

Glenn Melvin
Jade Sheen
Lisa McKay-Brown
Marie Yap
Eric O
Lauren Cameron
Katrina Gow

Research Team

Emily Chan
Amy Meade