Mrs Samia Michail

My 25years of experience in human service agencies has been in direct service provision, management in the non-government sector, senior roles in government and academia across a range of universities. My qualitative research and work with human service agencies highlight children and young people's lived experience and their human rights to make decisions about their own life trajectories, especially in the context of child protection and safeguarding. My research interests are participatory research methodologies, children’s wellbeing and participatory rights to determine that wellbeing. I continue to explore how social structures and processes can sustain child voice.

My interest in child protection began as a winner of the Child Protection Awards in 1997. I have national and international publications on children and young people’s participation including child-led research and was the recipient of the Jane Woodruff Fellowship in 2014 to develop this work further. My doctoral research was part of the ARC funded ReSPECT Project (Reconceptualising the Service System from the Perspectives of Children and Teens). I'm currently part of the multinational research project, Children's Understanding of Wellbeing (CUWB) and on the Techincal Reference Group for the research project Assessment on the impact of the Labour Mobility scheme on children left behind, a collaboration of WSU, UNICEF and the University of the South Pacific that is evaluating the impact of social policy on children and young people in the Pacific region. I’m a mother to three unique individuals and support my own community in various relationship, parenting and child development programs.

This information has been contributed by Mrs Michail.