Professor Kerryann Walsh

Doctor of Philosophy (Queensland University of Technology), Bachelor of Educational Studies (Honours) (University of Queensland), Diploma of Teaching (Darling Downs Inst. of Adv. Ed.)

Kerryann conducts research in the interdisciplinary field of child maltreatment prevention and has researched and published in the areas of online safety, child safe organisations, school-based child sexual abuse prevention programs, child protection policy, professionals’ reporting of child abuse and neglect, and training interventions for mandatory reporters. Kerryann served as an Academic Advisor to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2015-2017) and led the research underpinning the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations. Using methodologies for research synthesis, she recently developed the Best Practice Framework for Online Safety Education for the eSafety Commissioner. Kerryann has designed and conducted process and outcome evaluations of policies, programs, and practices using big data for the Australian Government Department of Social Services socio-legal study of mandatory reporting (with Prof Ben Mathews), auditing school system policy and curriculum for child sexual abuse prevention (with Prof Donna Berthelsen and Prof Jan Nicholson), conducting a multi-site cluster randomised controlled trial of a school-based child sexual abuse prevention program (with Prof Melanie Zimmer-Gembeck and A/Prof Diane Shanley); evaluating education and training in a state-wide early childhood education and care system (with Prof Ann Farrell, Dr Megan Gibson, and Dr Mel Miller); and designing a National interdisciplinary educational framework for professionals working with children in the early years (with Prof Julian Grant). She served as Co-Director of the $5.3M Australian government-funded Excellence in Research in Early Years Education (EREYE) Collaborative Research Network (CRN) involving QUT, Charles Sturt University, and Monash University (2013-2015), and as Co-Leader of the QUT Childhoods in Changing Contexts Research Group (2015-2019). Kerryann is a member of the QUT Centre for Child and Family Studies, and is an Associate Investigator with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

Projects

• All children need heroes!
• Empowering and protecting children by enhancing knowledge, skills and well-being: A randomised trial of Learn to BE SAFE with Emmy™
• How do rural and remote primary school teachers experience their work with children living with the effects of complex childhood trauma?
• Translating neuroscience to early childhood education: A roadmap for Queensland

Additional information