Associate ProfessorElizabeth Westrupp

Associate Professor Westrupp leads an internationally recognised research program on parenting and the prevention of child mental illness, combining clinical and population-level longitudinal research with randomised controlled trials of community-based parenting programs. Her work addresses two connected questions: how children's development unfolds over time and which family and social factors protect or undermine their mental health; and how to design population-level parenting interventions, using human-centred co-design, community and Indigenous partnerships, and technologies such as machine learning, that reach families who are rarely served.

She currently leads:

• Daily Growth: a smartphone program for parents of children aged 2–5 years, supporting parent and child emotion regulation to prevent child mental health problems by (a) tailoring parenting resources to specific situations, (b) including Indigenous-led, culturally derived content, and (c) using machine learning to personalise three types of parenting support. Co-designed with families and community partners, and now being trialled and scaled through successive nationally competitive grants (National Health and Medical Research Council; Medical Research Future Fund).
• The Child and Parent Emotion Study: a longitudinal cohort study of more than 2,000 families examining how emotions shape parenting and children's social and emotional wellbeing.
• The COVID-19 Pandemic Adjustment Survey: a longitudinal study of more than 2,000 Australian parents examining the impacts of the pandemic on family mental health and functioning.