A multi-disciplinary response to family violence – building communities of action
The federal inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence was announced by the Honourable Marise Payne and the Honourable Senator Anne Ruston on the 4th of June 2020, and public hearings commenced last week following the Inquiry receiving over 150 submissions. Whilst advocates across Australia met this new Inquiry with scepticism, the Inquiry does provide an opportunity to rethink reform, and in particular highlight opportunities to address some of the lesser-known aspects of gendered violence that are critical to a whole-of-community response.
Today’s analysis is provided by Laura Vidal (@lauraemilyvidal) and Madeleine Ulbrick (@maddyulbrick) of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand (@GoodAdvocacy), who argue that a multi-disciplinary and cross-sector response presents opportunities for action to prevent all forms of violence against women and their children. This piece is part 1 of 3, and draws on the Good Shepherd submission into the Inquiry which can be read in its entirety here. Part two of this series can be accessed here: Women’s physical security cannot be achieved without securing their financial independence.
Family violence has been well established as a challenge that is both difficult to solve with no silver bullet solution. Typically, family violence involves multiple forms of violence, including physical, sexual, psychological and financial, and they usually co-occur and intersect. Mental health issues and problems with addiction can also be contributing factors, and often there are dual diagnoses. This speaks to the complexity of the problem we face and the need for a multi-disciplinary response.
Creating pathways to safety and recovery for women and children leaving domestic and family violence requires a holistic and coordinated approach. Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
Our recent submission to the Inquiry highlights the continuum in which violence occurs and through our work directly with women, girls and families we have identified that there is a unifying experience in our collective response to family violence: victim/survivors too often find that the family violence system and the systems it intersects with are unable to meet their needs. The consequent hardship that our clients experience as a result remind us that wide-scale systemic change is not only essential but urgent.
A coordinated approach to support
Guiding any approach to preventing violence against women and their children should be the recognition that family, domestic and sexual violence has multiple layers and complexities, thus requiring an integrated and coordinated approach.
It is our experience that currently there is a lack of consistency and coordinated responses across Australian State, Territory and Federal jurisdictions. This experience is echoed by the Australian Women against Violence Alliance (AWAVA) in their position paper on the Fourth National Action Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. They highlight the danger that has been created through inconsistent policy and legislation, resulting in siloes. They assert, alongside the community that stronger structures for coordination need to be developed.
In our submission, we lay out core principles of a coordinated approach, which has been developed through both the delivery of services on the ground and an analysis of existing approaches. This analysis has highlighted gaps which can be filled through multi-disciplinary, cross-sector responses which involve the uplift of responses from government, community and corporate Australia.
1. A shared understanding of family, domestic and sexual violence among all stakeholders: the absence of a shared understanding across government, community and corporate Australia who are all interfacing with family, domestic and sexual violence is challenging and has the potential to result in delayed and ineffective responses. Bolstering widespread understandings about what this form of violence involves including specific manifestations which co-occur and are not readily understood is paramount to overcoming this challenge.
2. Development of mutual response and space for the various perspectives and priorities that are present for multi-disciplinary professionals: Our practice in delivering services in both family violence and family services has illustrated that there is an absence of an integrated approach to working with women and their children. There are fundamental differences in the theoretical and philosophical approaches to this work—working with this, and creating frameworks that create space for these perspectives to prioritise each other equally will assist in ensuring consistent, effective and efficient responses.
3. Institutionalised capacity building, including at basic training level: It is necessary to consider how universities and other tertiary education institutions are responding to, and, can support the development of, the workforce responding to this issue—both specific to specialised services, and extended to other frontline responders who may interface with the issue, such as banks and other financial institutions. Dedicated and mandatory curriculum is one way in which this can be achieved.
4. Victim/Survivor Leadership: Whilst there are examples from Victoria where victim/survivor leadership and consultative mechanisms have been enshrined in both government and sector decision making, this is not standard practice nationally. Genuine and embedded approaches for victim/survivors to lead in the development of responses to this issue must become business as usual for corporates, the community sector and government. Recognition of expertise along a spectrum, including the expertise that experience brings to the decision-making table is fundamental.
The role of universal services, allied-health, government and the corporate sector is critical in building robust referral pathways to more specialised services for family violence. For example, there is evidence that families are often more willing to engage with maternal child health in the first instance than police or legal services. Failure to engage in a coordinated approach increases the risk of ‘systems trauma’, which compounds pre-existing trauma for victim/survivors.
Diverse interventions that recognise all forms of violence—a final piece to the puzzle
To attend to the diversity of clients presenting to the family violence service system consideration must be given to their range of experiences—experiences which have only begun to enter policy and programmatic responses in recent years. For example, adolescent family violence, including sibling-on-sibling sexual violence, is under-recognised and under-reported. Emerging research on adolescent family violence in Victoria notes that “the complex needs of adolescents who use violence in the home and those caring for them require specialist service responses, outside of the criminal justice system…the dearth of targeted resources and specialist responses means that many parents are left on their own to manage and maintain their families’ safety and security” (Monash University, Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre). Our practitioners responding to these issues on the ground report that few specific services exist to support victim/survivors and perpetrators of this form of violence.
In a post to come, we will address specifically the forms of violence which have been coined as ‘complex’ under the Fourth National Action Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, and the nuanced responses that are required as part of our overall response to family violence.
Immediate and sustained action federally is required, in the form of a well-resourced, nationally consistent, integrated and multi-disciplinary family violence service system. Without an injection of resources, much of the work being done to improve responses to family violence, in individual state and territory jurisdictions, will fail to achieve outcomes that protect women and children’s safety.
The desire for a move towards a more collaborative and integrated multidisciplinary service-system, that is sensitive and appropriate for people from diverse backgrounds, is being echoed around the globe.
Such a model avoids perpetuating siloing or unnecessary duplication of responses. It enables a sophisticated, nuanced and more effective approach by strengthening interagency coordination, early intervention, crisis response and recovery approaches.
There is momentum for change. However, seizing this momentum requires a whole-of-society investment.
You can read CEO Stella Avramopoulos’ interview on this submission in Pro Bono here. Good Shepherd’s press release can be accessed here.
Part two of this series can be accessed here: Women’s physical security cannot be achieved without securing their financial independence.
This post is part of the Women's Policy Action Tank initiative to analyse government policy using a gendered lens. View our other policy analysis pieces here.
Posted by @SusanMaury