A Safe and Supportive Family Environment for Children: Key Components and Links to Child Outcomes

Families are the mainstay of safety and support for children. While most children live in safe and supportive environments, governments are aware that too many children are becoming known to child protection services. This has led to a shift in thinking away from solely concentrating on responding to ‘risk of harm’ reports towards a broader public health approach to protecting all of Australia’s children, reducing the likelihood of children coming to the attention of statutory authorities. This report aims to understand more about the prevalence of different types of family environments in society and to explore the influence of these environments on different child outcomes. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, we used latent class cluster analysis to identify different family environments and analysed the associations between these environments and particular child outcomes.Key findings: Classifying the family environment: profiles and characteristics. We identified three broad groups embodying three types of family environments that were closely aligned with previous theoretic and empirical research. In line with previous research, we referred to these groups as: cohesive: the largest group of families exhibited average or above-average levels of parental warmth and parent-child shared activities, and below-average levels of hostile parenting and parental relationship conflict; disengaged: a smaller group of families exhibited below-average levels of parental warmth and parent-child shared activities, and above-average levels of hostile parenting; enmeshed: a final, relatively small, group exhibited average levels of parental warmth, but higher than average levels of conflict in the relationship between parents.It is important to note that: These are not absolute distinctions, but rather relative positions on a spectrum ranging from highly disengaged to highly enmeshed. No family environment can be comprehensively understood using a finite set of factors. In addition, we show that family environments can and do change over time; The vast majority of families sit around the middle; some families tend toward either relatively more disengagement or enmeshment, but do not approach, or even come close to, more extreme aspects of these types. However, the most problematic families with respect to child protection will most likely be located toward the extremes of the range.Associations between family environment and child outcomes: Unless specified otherwise, results relate to children aged 2-3, 4-5, 6-7 and 10-11 years growing up either in families with two adults residing together (whether married or cohabiting) who both have day-to-day responsibility for the child (including biological, adoptive, step, foster, and grandparents) or families where a parent lives elsewhere from the child's primary carer. All comparisons are made in relation to families that were relatively more cohesive.There were not many significant associations between family environment (as measured in this report) and health outcomes. Significant associations were restricted to children aged 2-3 years with two resident parents. That is: children of this age in families tending toward enmeshment were more likely to be underweight (than normal weight); children of this age in families that were relatively more disengaged were more likely to have one or more injuries per year.Family environments were very strongly associated with children’s social and emotional wellbeing. That is: children in families indicating disengagement had significantly lower levels of prosocial behaviour and higher levels of problem behaviour; children in families indicating enmeshment had significantly lower levels of prosocial behaviour and higher levels of problem behaviour (this was not significant for children 4-5 and 10-11 years old in families with a parent living elsewhere). There were less consistent and fewer significant associations between family environment and children’s cognitive development. In families with two resident parents: children in families scoring relatively high on disengagement averaged lower Year 5 NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) reading and numeracy scores.Associations between changes in family environment and changes in child outcomes: Children in families with two resident parents whose family environment improved (became more cohesive) showed improved social and emotional wellbeing; children whose family environments became relatively more problematic exhibited increased social and emotional problems; In families with two resident parents, children gained higher NAPLAN reading scores if their family environment became relatively more cohesive.Policy implications: These findings suggest policy may be more effective if it: is attuned or sensitive to different family environments; targets behaviours rather than groups of people; recognises that families can both change for the better, and draw on their own prior (positive) experiences. Finally, results linking family environments to key child outcomes (especially around social and emotional wellbeing) provide a clear impetus for a public health approach promoting safe and supportive family environments. These research findings may provide insights to support different types of responses, including parenting programs, public information campaigns and more targeted referrals for intensive family support.