Thank you for your interest in participating in this survey.

Here we provide information about the survey to help you decide if you would like to participate. It will tell you what is involved and what we are asking you to do.

What is the survey about?

The Parenting Research Centre is conducting this project. The aim of the Parenting Today national survey project is to learn about the experiences and needs of parents and carers from Australia, and to track how these change over time. This project has been approved by the Parenting Research Centre Human Research Ethics Committee.

What will you be asked to do?

We invite you to participate in an online or telephone survey. The survey will ask you questions about some common child issues or concerns, your approach to parenting, your wellbeing, and your support and help-seeking. We estimate that the online survey will take between 10 and 20 minutes to complete, and the telephone interview between 30 and 40 minutes to complete.

What are the possible benefits?

Findings from this survey may help with making improvements to services and resources for parents and families in Australia. Your information is invaluable in creating an up-to-date profile about the experiences of parents/carers in Australia in 2025, but it is unlikely there will be a personal benefit for you from participating in this project.

What are the possible risks?

It is possible that talking about parenting experiences may make some people upset or uncomfortable. If this happens to you, you may like to contact Lifeline at www.lifeline.org.au and on 13 11 14.

Confidentiality

Identifying information will not be collected from you. When they study responses to the survey, the research team will not be able to determine who the survey information was collected from.

What will happen to my information?

Survey information collected in this project will be used in a report provided to Minderoo, as well as to state, territory, and federal governments in Australia, to help them develop policies and make informed decisions about how to best support parents in Australia. We may also report findings from this project in academic articles, at conferences or in books. You will not be identified in any of our reports or other publications.

We will store the information you give us securely in electronic files, to which only members of the research team have access. All data are required to be stored securely in line with ethical standards, which state that data need to be stored for at least 7 years after use in any reporting.

Do I have to take part in this project?

If you don’t want to take part in this survey, you don’t have to. You may decide to stop the survey at any time; you don’t have to give a reason for why you’ve decided to stop. If you stop before submitting your answers, your data will not be used. You can also refuse to answer specific questions if they are about things you don’t want to share. After submitting the online survey, we will not be able to identify your responses, so we will not be able to remove your responses after that time.

Will I hear about the results of this project?

If you would like to know the results of this project, you can subscribe to keep updated about the survey. You can subscribe here www.parentingrc.org.au/subscribe-page/

Who can I contact?

You should feel free to ask questions about this project at any time. If you have any questions about this project, please contact Dr Natalie Day at the Parenting Research Centre at nday@parentingrc.org.au.

For complaints about the project

If you have a complaint or concern about the conduct of this research project, please contact the Parenting Research Centre Ethics Committee Chair on (03) 8660 3500.