International Symposium on Children and Communities in Australia

When: Thursday 13 March & Friday 14 March 2014 9am – 5pm
Where: Springbank Room Level 1, JG Crawford Building 132, Lennox Crossing, ANU, Canberra
This event is free and open to the public.

Although children are thought to benefit from strong communities, we know very little about their views on what makes a community strong and supportive. The symposium aims to provide an answer to this question as well as discussing the place and roles of children within Australian communities.

Organised by Children’s Policy Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University (ANU), the symposium will present the findings of the Children, Communities and Social Capital research which explored what children (aged 8-12) think about their communities, how they experience ‘community’ on a daily basis and what vision they have for their communities. The findings of this research project, undertaken in partnership with the Australian National University (ANU), The University of Western Sydney (UWS), The Benevolent Society and NAPCAN, will be formally launched at the symposium by the the National Children’s Commissioner, Megan Mitchell.

The lead researchers of Children, Communities and Social Capital, Dr Sharon Bessell from ANU and Emeritus Professor Jan Mason from UWS, will be speaking at the event, as well as many other prominent researchers from Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Germany.

For a full list of symposium speakers and to find out more, download the flyer by clicking here.

To register for the symposium, please click here.