Publications

Publications and features

Team-authored articles, media coverage, conference presentations, and newsletter features related to the project.

Word clouds - Opening Doors, Changing Lives Forum

June 2025

Kitty was invited as keynote speaker for a forum in Melbourne by the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare in June. The forum was focused on education, with the title: “Opening Doors, Changing Lives: Celebrating the power of education for care experienced children and young people”. As part of the forum audience members provided their ideas about reasons why students in care miss out on school and what can be done in the out of home care and education sectors to enable these students to be at school.

The responses were captured in word clouds (PDF 473.9 KB).

Attendance matters

March 2025

Recent reports into school attendance in Australia are welcome, but more needs to be done to ensure the voices of children, young people, school leaders and communities are listened to when looking for solutions.

Learn more about Attendance matters - but official reports don't tell the whole story

Being at School: A Prerequisite for Educational Equity

September 2024

Attending school is a pre-requisite not only for academic learning, but also for social connections, emotional wellbeing, and physical development. This is even more important for students experiencing disadvantage, such as those in out-of-home care. However, these students are likely to be absent from school far more often than their more privileged peers, which means school attendance is a crucial equity issue.

Importantly, absence from school is not just an educational concern but also a social concern. It is certainly not simply the fault of students, their families or carers. In this chapter, we outline three ways of reimagining school attendance. First, making school systems more inclusive to reduce system-generated absences. Second, ensuring schools are places where students want to be, to reduce unauthorised absences. Finally, strengthening links between social services and schools to enable students to be at school and reduce authorised absences. All of these require changes in practices, political will, and proper resourcing.

Enabling students experiencing disadvantage to gain the full benefits of school by being in class and in the playground alongside their peers is a key foundation for a better and more equitable future—both for these students themselves, and for our wider communities.

te Riele, K., Sullivan, A., Rudling, E., Bessell, S., Higgins, D., Guerzoni, M.A. (2024). Being at School: A Prerequisite for Educational Equity. In: Beasy, K., Maguire, M., te Riele, K., Towers, E. (eds) Innovative School Reforms. Education, Equity, Economy, vol 11. Springer, Cham.

Being at School: A Prerequisite for Educational Equity

Out of home care

May 2022

Children and young people in out-of-home care tend to have lower educational achievement than their peers because of additional challenges like unstable housing or their needs not being met. Supporting children and young people to regularly attend school is fundamental to setting them up for educational and lifetime success.

Attending school every day counts – but kids in out-of-home care are missing out

This article was selected for inclusion in the 2022 yearbook by The Conversation: te Riele, K. et al. (2022). Attending school every day counts – but kids in out-home-home-care are missing out.

Reckoning with Power and Privilege. Edited by Michael Hopkin. Thames and Hudson: Australia.

It was also reproduced in Child Magazine and the University of Tasmania Newsroom.

Australian Research Council logo

This project has been partially funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council Linkage Scheme (LP2201001130). It will run from late 2023-2026.