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Dr Liana Leach (Class of 1998) from ANU Research School of Population Health says that the biggest childcare problem we face cannot be solved by women.  She says there needs to be dedicated leave provisions for partners. Dr Leach says we need to change the culture of what we mean when we talk about parenting.

Liana’s research interests include examining the impact of family and work circumstances on mental health. Her work involves the translation of mental health research for public policy and practice.

Liana completed an undergraduate Honours degree in Applied Psychology at The University of Canberra in 2003. Since this time, she has undertaken research projects with the Australian Demographic Social Research Institute (ADSRI) and the Centre for Mental Health Research (CMHR) at The Australian National University.  Liana completed her PhD at the CMHR titled ‘Gender differences in depression and anxiety across the adult lifespan’ in 2009. She has published her work in several high quality academic journals as well as national and international conferences.

Tabitha Carvan interviewed Liana and she told her that “if you ask dads, they will say they want to be more involved in childcare and that family is important to them, but even when they have these entitlements available to them, they feel reluctant to take them up.”

“They say it will affect their career progression. They say it’s not financially a good option. They say they don’t see enough men around them using flexible working provisions, and they don’t want to be the first ones doing it.”

Yet the benefits of fathers being more involved in their children’s care are unquestionable.

A forum a few days ago was held to share knowledge of why fathers’ care matters and what barriers limit fathers in combining work and care. What an interesting field! We look forward to hearing more about Liana’s work.