Associate Professor Dave Pasalich
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About
I’m an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine and Psychology, ANU. After graduating with a Master of Clinical Psychology and PhD from The University of New South Wales, Sydney, I completed postdoctoral fellowships at Florida International University, USA and Simon Fraser University, Canada. I have been registered as a Psychologist (endorsement in Clinical Psychology) since 2011, and have practiced in various community and university settings.
At the heart of my research is a desire to improve mental health and wellbeing in children, young people and their families. To this end, a major aspect of my current work focuses on implementing and evaluating parent interventions in partnership with Government and community organisations in the child welfare sector.
As Director of the ANU Child Wellbeing Research Group, I also collaborate with my students on research concerning attachment relationships, child mental health, child maltreatment and trauma, family violence, and risk and resilience in out-of-home care.
Our projects are currently funded by the Australian Research Council and Australian Rotary Health.
Affiliations
- Child Wellbeing Research Group, Leader
Research interests
- Parent intervention to strengthen child and youth mental health
- Child maltreatment and trauma
- Out-of-home care
- Caregiver-child attachment relationship
- Child and youth antisocial behaviour and callous-unemotional traits (e.g., lack of guilt and empathy)
External Grants
2024 - 2026: Australian Research Council Linkage Project. Title: Promoting child and carer wellbeing and placement stability in kinship care. Amount: AU$319,981. Role: Principal Investigator.
2023 - 2024: Australian Rotary Health Mental Health Research Grant. Title: Improving child mental health in foster care: A pilot randomised trial of an attachment- and trauma-informed intervention. Amount: AU$107,310. Role: Principal Investigator.
2020 - 2021: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Operating Grant: COVID-19 Mental Health & Substance Use Service Needs and Delivery. Title: Reducing risk and promoting health among vulnerable teens and their families in the context of COVID-19: A multisite national and international implementation and evaluation study. Amount: CA$199,625. Lead-PI: Marlene M. Moretti. Role: Co-Principal Investigator.
2020: NSW Department of Communities and Justice Targeted Call for Research – Out-of-Home Care. Title: Patterns of family contact for children in care: How can we better support birth family relationships for children over time? Amount: $30,000. Lead-PI: Aino Suomi. Role: Co-Principal Investigator.
2017 - 2020: Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Title: Strengthening parent-child relationships to promote child adjustment. Amount: AU$375,000. Role: Principal Investigator.
2014 - 2017: National Institute of Mental Health (R34 MH100279). Title: Parent training and emotion coaching for children with limited prosocial emotions. Amount: US$656,474. Multiple-PIs: Lynn F. Katz & Robert J. McMahon. Role: Co-Investigator
2013 - 2015: Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, BC, Canada. Title: A preventive parenting program for family reunification. Amount: CA$124,500. Role: Principal Investigator.
2013: Child & Family Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship (funding declined in favour of the MSFHR fellowship), Child & Family Research Institute, Vancouver, Canada. Title: A preventive parenting program for family reunification. Amount: CA$79,000 (2-year term). Role: Principal Investigator.
Projects
- Connecting Kin Research Project: Evaluation of a Trauma- and Attachment-Based Support Program for Kinship Parents, Principal investigator
- A systematic review of the effectiveness of attachment-based and emotion-focused parenting interventions for reducing externalising and internalising behaviours, Supervisor
- Affective quality of the kinship parent-child relationship and child behavioural and emotional adjustment, Supervisor
- Assessing adolescents’ perspectives of the quality of the parent-teen relationship , Supervisor
- Seeking Practitioners to Provide their Opinions on Timeout!, Supervisor
Teaching information
- PSYC8102 Child Psychopathology & Intervention
- PSYC8410 Foundations of Professional Psychology
Location
Building 39, University Avenue, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 2601