Robert Urquhart

Dr Robert Urquhart is committed to helping our most vulnerable children overcome the harm of domestic and family violence. His belief that the abuse of women and children is unacceptable drives his research and policy work. When children are rescued from violence, they need the community's help to heal in the form of trusted adults with the right skills and resources to support them. However, this is a glaring gap in our service system that he is determined to change.

Robert is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, and Head of Knowledge, Outcomes and Research at Barnardos Australia. He is skilled in devising research that drives advocacy and advances practice. Creating the best outcomes for children harmed by abuse has been the focus of his life's work.

Robert uses his creativity and empathic listening, partnering with social workers and practitioners in the field to better understand the numerous issues and impacts on children’s agency and wellbeing – issues that span poverty, parental drug-and-alcohol addiction, homelessness, and domestic and family violence.

Robert led a new study of children's experiences of domestic and family violence, which sheds light on the lack of available help for children's recovery. His report was launched at NSW State Parliament in 2022 by the Australian Children’s Commissioner.

A confident communicator and inspiring storyteller, he presented the keynote opening speech at the University of Sydney Symposium, ‘Safer Children, Safer Communities: Enhancing perpetrator accountability to disrupt trajectories of childhood harm’. Robert contributed a chapter on managing organisational change in NGOs delivering child, youth and family services in The Palgrave International Handbook of Action Research.