Welcome!As we approach the end of the year and the Christmas season, we all tend to do some reflection and consider what we have achieved over the past year, what we would still love to achieve into the New Year, and what has been happening in the world around us. In Australia we find ourselves in a time of crisis when it comes to Family and Domestic Violence. As of 25 November 2019, as we reflect on the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women, 241 Australians have lost their lives due to FDV at the hands of an intimate partner or family member, including 64 women, 24 children and 163 men (Red Heart, 2019). Despite some of the challenges our sector has faced this year, what I believe has become clear is that we have a strong and committed service system, and the goodwill to make a real difference. We have been busy with the third year of honouring the '16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence'. This year’s theme is 'Speak Out To Stop The Violence' and the campaign ran from 25th November until 10th December. We had a feature through the Centre for Stories, which coincided with an interview on ABC Radio. We joined the Women's Council for Domestic and Family Violence Services for their 29th Annual DV Memorial March, as we marched alongside them in silence and solidarity. Operations Manager Mark O'Hare was at the exciting launch of the Healthy Relationships Strategy Group's '25 Ways to have a Happier, Healthier Relationship' campaign at the Vic Park Summer Street Party and spoke to RTRFM 92.1 about it. We also have recently launched our digital marketing campaign: ‘What can you do to prevent violence against women’ as we encourage conversations, challenge misunderstandings about family and domestic violence and engage the community in activism at a grass-roots level. We have a wonderful network of women's services who work hard every day to support women and children in our community who have been affected by family and domestic violence, and I encourage you to support their work by attending events such as the Women's Council for Domestic and Family Violence Services' (WCDFVS) International Women's Day Sparkling High Tea in March 2020. We put a spotlight on our joint-initiative with the WCDFVS, Intersectionalities in Domestic Violence Conference, and many more exciting things we’ve been involved in over the past few months. We also have a number of very committed men's behaviour change programs in WA that are working with men to support and show them how they can change their behaviour towards women and have positive relationships with the women and children in their lives. Follow us on Facebook for further updates. It's been a horrific year so far for Family and Domestic Violence in our state and country, but I am encouraged by a sector that continues to work together to ensure that all women and children can live their lives free from fear of violence. I wish you all well and I look forward to extending our partnerships and continuing to make a more DV-informed sector as we work together to end domestic violence. From the team at Stopping Family Violence, I want to wish you a wonderful festive season, and a safe and violence-free new year. Damian Green, Stopping Family Violence CEO 16 Days of ActivismCentre for Stories Our Project Coordinator Dawson Ruhl talks to the Centre for Stories for #16DaysinWA as they feature survivors, professionals and advocates in the sector. Through the Centre for Stories, we also secured a radio interview for this segment too. SFV were on Jessica Strutt's Focus program on ABC Perth Radio on 25 November as our Project Coordinator Dawson Ruhl talked about Gendered Violence for the #16DaysinWA campaign. “At an individual level, as a clinic clinician, as someone who's worked with hundreds of men in behaviour change programs, I know that men change,” Dawson said. The 16 Days Campaign has launched in Perth!Over 100 of Perth’s leaders including our CEO Damian Green, stood together with the Premier, Hon Mark McGowan, and Hon Simone McGurk MLA, Minister for Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence and Women’s Interests, to launch 16 Days in WA to stop violence against women on 25 November. During the 16 days of action, the campaign aims to educate – raise awareness of the impact of violence on women, children, and communities; motivate – through positive actions; and advocate – by highlighting organisations working to support victim safety and perpetrator accountability. Watch the video below. SFV work towards stopping the violenceKate from SFV and Women's Council for Domestic & Family Violence Services - WA joins Zonta House Refuge Association Inc, Oars Across the Waters and Benestar for a #16DaysinWA Stop Violence against Women event on 4 December. Great job by all, getting out there and spreading the word. Let's work together to #StopTheViolence Pictured below: SFV Project Consultant Kate Jeffries The Healthy Relationships Strategy Group launch campaignTogether with Holyoake, our Operations Manager Mark O'Hare talks to RTRFM 92.1 about the exciting launch of the Healthy Relationships Strategy Group's '25 Ways to have a Happier, Healthier Relationship' campaign at the Vic Park Summer Street Party on 24 November. Listen to the broadcast here. Mark talked about breaking down the complexity of family and domestic violence and looking at early intervention and prevention. "We want to give simple and easy strategies for people to reflect and to not have to do a huge amount to contribute to a healthy relationship," he said. Here are some of the tips: 1. Use kind words or gestures to share your appreciation of your partner. A hug or a compliment goes a long way. 2. Try putting yourself in your partner’s shoes to have a better idea of how they feel. 3. Offer your opinions and share your experiences, but avoid presenting your way as the only way. Our hearts are heavy as we march - 29th Annual DV Memorial March
The silence fell upon the nearly 800-strong crowd of women, men and children as we gathered our thoughts and began to grieve. Together with the Women's Council for Domestic & Family Violence Services - WA, we grieved for all those who lost their lives from Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) and we marched in silence to honour the fallen. This was not a day to raise our voices; the silence was enough. The silence was deafening and signified the loss, trauma, anger and overwhelming palpable sadness. On Friday 22 November, we marched for the 29th time as we remembered 12 victims of FDV in WA this year since the last Memorial March in 2018. We as a sector carry that weight, but more importantly, for the community and the families, it’s too hard and the pain is almost too much to bear. Updates to the Residential Tenancies Legislation
WA’s tenancy and residential parks laws have now changed to support victims of family and domestic violence (FDV) and help them to leave abusive relationships. Key changes enable victims of FDV to: exit a tenancy with seven (7) days’ notice without going to court, remove a perpetrator from a lease by applying to the courts, change locks or increase security, handle disputes about property damage or unpaid rent, and have their name removed from a tenancy database blacklist. Intersectionalities in Domestic Violence
A big thank you to all that attended our Intersectionalities in Domestic Violence Conference!Together with the Women's Council for Domestic & Family Violence Services, we held our Intersectionalities in Domestic Violence Conference at Crown Perth from 15-16 October. Close to 300 people attended from 116 organisations across Australia. We want to thank everyone that attended and the guest speakers who enabled us to put this insightful showcase together, so as a community we can continue to understand the intersections of family and domestic violence and to become DV informed. Conference highlightsThanks to our keynote speakers and the range of presentations delivered in breakout sessions, we were able to consider Intersectionalities in Domestic Violence across the whole community services sector. The Hon. Simone McGurk MLA Minister for Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence opened the conference and she began with a very powerful message of: we want healing and we want change and we want the violence to stop. "I believe we will make a difference if we are all united and take a stand against FDV in the community," she said. The conference featured some powerful talks from speakers including Champo Ngweshe, representing Ishar Multi-Cultural Women's Health Services and also herself as a survivor, who said she was a young educated woman, yet she was exposed. "I was working in the industry where everything was in place to help me, but I couldn't leave my marriage," she said. "I see other women finding their voices and they dare to speak and are still speaking." Women's Council for Domestic and Family Violence Services CEO Angela Hartwig joined a panel discussion at the end of the conference and said the DV sector needed more than just women. "This will take all our strength and we need to pull out all the stops. We need to campaign and build this people's movement," she said. Stopping Family Violence CEO Damian Green said in terms of FDV, the children's voices needed far greater attention. "We need to validate their voices and their experiences and listen to their stories," he said. We had a range of speakers attending the IDV Conferencefrom a multitude of agencies including: ANROWS, Our Watch, Starick, University of WA, Women’s Community Health Network, Communicare, No to Violence, Aboriginal Family Safety Project, RUAH, WA Police, Lucy Saw Centre, Women and Newborn Health Service, Save the Children, Centre for Non-Violence, Financial Counsellors Association of WA, ISHAR Multi-Cultural Women’s Health Services, James Cook University (Townsville), Uniting Victoria and Tasmania, Respect Victoria, Counting on Change, Sexual Health Quarters, Women’s Community Health Network WA and Women with Disabilities WA. We also had some survivors with lived experience in attendance, sharing their stories as part of the presentations. The conference was a great success with attendees enjoying the opportunity to network with others working within the sector and immerse themselves into the many intersections of the domestic violence sector. Keynote Speakers:We had an exceptional snapshot of the FDV sector across Australia and internationally over two days of the conference, with keynote speakers including Dr Allan Wade, Antoinette Braybrook, Rosie Batty, Kate Alexander and Mark O'Hare. Our first Keynote Speaker, Dr Allan Wade from the Centre for Response-Based Practice said our social responses to dignity in terms of family and domestic violence are interwoven into the victim's experience of violence. "When a person is in distress, how we respond to them is so important. As professionals, we are a part of that experience and have that responsibility to preserve their dignity," he said. Our second Keynote Speaker, Antoinette Braybrook, CEO of Djirra, talks about the intersections for family violence and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. "Stand with us, not over us or at the front of us... Listen to our screams and our voices as we share in that self-determination," she said. As we launched into day two of our Intersectionalities in Domestic Violence Conference, we heard from anti-FDV campaigner Rosie Batty as she reflects on her very personal journey. "Sometimes people may ask me, how can you be so strong, after everything you've been through? My answer is this: We have enormous strength and reserves, and my grief gave me a foundation to draw from," Rosie said. The next keynote speaker for day two was the incredibly insightful Kate Alexander, NSW Department of Communities and Justice. Kate said as practitioners, we needed to invest in hope and the families we work with and really invest in their lives. "We are at our best in child protection when we don't move too far away from the families and do what we would do for their children, what we would do for our own," she said. Our Operations Manager Mark O'Hare was the last Keynote Speaker at the Intersectionalities in Domestic Violence Conference, exploring 'Why doesn't she leave' versus 'Why doesn't he stop'. Mark said we needed to 'pivot' to the perpetrator and focus instead on the survivors' strengths. "How many times do we hear, I don't want to leave, I just want the violence to stop. We need to stop asking women why they don't leave and shift the accountability back to the perpetrator," he said. SFV attend the Waakal Moort Kaadadjiny Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Festival
On 24 October we held a stall at the Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Festival in Armadale and took the opportunity to have great conversations with the locals and the community about health, wellbeing and safety in the context of family and domestic violence. Our Operations Manager Mark O'Hare and Digital Marketing Coordinator Jacqui O'Leary manned the stall, giving out information and stickers and encouraging the guests (old and young alike) to draw on our banner, what safety means to them. The day went well and it was an excellent opportunity for SFV to encourage conversations about safety and violence in the community. Starting Over Support (SOS) helps families in need
“I shouldn’t be here, but I am. I don’t want the job, but I’m so glad we are here and we can do it, because the need in the community for support after domestic violence is so great and so agonising, we need to keep doing what we are doing,” Starting Over Support SOS Logistics and Distribution Coordinator Brad Ball said. Starting Over Support provides much-needed care packages to families after leaving a women’s refuge and starting their lives fresh. SOS provide everything they need for their home and deliver it to them, free of charge. Brad said that each item is thoroughly cleaned when it comes in to ensure that quality control. “These people have been through trauma, so they do need a good standard in the items we provide for them,” he said. “Our goal is to make their house a home, from placing lovely art on the wall, to a nice rug on the floor – we want our clients to feel safe, happy and comfortable and to not have to worry about those little things, and instead focus on their new life.” Breaking the cycle of domestic violence
Together, Alphonse and Katrina co-facilitate ‘Change Em Ways’, a recently created Men’s Behaviour Change Program (MBCP) group in Broome through the Men’s Outreach Service Aboriginal Corporation. Recently Katrina has branched out into ‘Strong Women, Strong Families,’ a women’s support group for victims of family and domestic violence (FDV). Alphonse said the community has mostly responded positively to having an ex-perpetrator and a victim, sharing their story and helping the people. “The clients are more switched on when they hear someone like me telling my story. As an ex-perpetrator, I’m passionate about delivering positive messages,” he said. “I’m not trying to impress anybody in the sector, I wanted to get help and make changes for me and for my family. What I did was personal. If you really love your kids and wife, then you need to make some big changes in your life and take responsibility for your actions.” Time to reflect, time to connect - a survivor's story
No stranger to her husband’s abuse, Mandy said in the first instance her children witnessed the abuse, she had experienced it at least 60 times before that moment. I asked her what had changed for her in that instant. “When my husband beat me up in front of the kids and was punching me in the head on the bed, seeing my kids faces and how upset they were, it suddenly felt real. Up until then, it was okay for all this to happen to me, I could take it, but when my kids were there to see it, my mother instincts kicked in and I knew we had to leave,” she said. For Mandy, the battle with mental health issues, addiction and homeless were key factors that hindered her ability to regain control in her life. For domestic violence victims like Mandy, it’s important to remember that no two stories are alike. “If I could say one thing to other women in this situation it would be: the violence is never your fault, never blame yourself and never think you’re not good enough.” SFV brings Safe and Together to Albany!
Stopping Family Violence's Project Consultant Kate Jeffries and our CEO Damian Green were invited on 14 November to present at the Great Southern Family and Domestic Violence conference titled: Safe and Together - Creating opportunities to motivate fathers towards change for their children. The conference hosted by the Albany Family and Domestic Violence Action Group provided an opportunity for services from both government and the community sector to hold robust conversations on how we can get better at engaging and holding perpetrators accountable for their behaviours across our systems. Kate said it was a great day with a lot of critical thinking occurring across government and non-government sectors learning the new concepts from the Safe and Together Model. Conference attendees where able to apply critical thinking to the models principles: 1). Keeping child 'Safe and Together' with the non-offending parent; 2). Partner with non-offending parent as a default position, and 3). Intervening with the perpetrator to reduce risk and harm to child. Important highlights for the day included:
Chorus unites DV survivors through dance
Dance that unites against violence. This is a powerful ensemble of women from Denmark, Albany, Perth, Mandurah, Bunbury and Ravensthorpe coming together to create this original performance about tenderness, strength and solidarity. The performances are showing between Saturday 29 February 2020 7:30 PM and Sunday 1 March 2020 7:30 PM. LOCATIONSilverstream Wines At SFV, we project-manage a combined FDV and AOD Project in the Kimberley, which is designed to support the at-risk Aboriginal community impacted by FDV and AOD issues. We are focusing on the development of a multi-agency coordinated approach to the way the sector responds to the above two issues - AOD and FDV. The work we do creates a structure so Aboriginal families are being supported through better identification and collaboration with services in the West Kimberley region. We have engaged with Aboriginal community-based corporations which have assisted in the co-design of the Project. Stopping Family Violence deliver numerous training and one such training is Safe and Together. The purpose of the Safe and Together training is to support organisations to become more DV-informed. The name, 'Safe and Together' comes from the idea that it is often in the best interest of the children if they are kept safe and together with the non-offending parent. The model focuses on the survivor’s strengths, whilst 'pivoting' to the perpetrator through a perpetrator-pattern approach to reduce risk and harm to the child and overall family functioning. The training is held over four days and each day is broken down into assessment, interviewing, documentation and case planning, to gain a more holistic approach to perpetrator response and keeping the children and family safe through a greater understanding of the whole situation. Find out more information about the Safe & Together Institute here. BRISBANE: DERBY: Safe & Together supervisors training - 3 daysDate: 10th-12th March 2020 Time: TBC Venue: South of Perth Yacht Club, Heritage Room Cost: $TBC Women’s Council International Women’s Day Sparkling High Tea 2020 - SAVE THE DATEDate: Friday March 6th 2020 Time: 3.00pm - 5.00pm Venue: Duxton Hotel, St Georges Terrace, Perth Cost: $85 each Enquiries: carolyn@womenscouncil.com.au or to buy tickets, visit the WCDFVS on Facebook. Caring Dads trainingDate: 29th-30th April 2020 Time: TBC Venue: South of Perth Yacht Club, Heritage Room Cost: $TBC SFV One Day Conference 2020 - SAVE THE DATEDate: 19th October 2020 Time: 3.00pm - 5.00pm Venue: South of Perth Yacht Club, Ballroom Cost: $TBC We believe that professional training and development is one of the biggest areas of need when working in the FDV field. If your organisation has any training or events coming up in this field, get in touch as we may be able to help promote these to others working in the sector! Research - Partner Contact Project ANROWSPrioritising women’s safety in Australian perpetrator interventions: The purpose and practices of partner contact This project will provide a deeper understanding of how men’s behaviour change programs (MBCPs) support women and children through partner contact (PC). This understanding will contribute to improved quality of services provided to victims by identifying gaps between theory and practice and providing practice guidance and considerations for the field. It is a well-established expectation of the perpetrator intervention system that women and children are provided appropriate support, and this research will help identify how best to achieve this. Our Watch: Changing The PictureChanging the Picture is a national resource to support the prevention of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their children. Read about it here. Changing the picture shows how as a society we can work together to change the underlying drivers of this violence. This resource also seeks to respond to the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women who have been speaking and writing publicly about gendered and sexual violence and calling for action for decades, as have numerous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and services. This resource would not have been possible without the work of these many individuals, groups and organisations. It aims to amplify these voices and honour and build on this critical work. Get in touch if you want to partner with us!At Stopping Family Violence, we are always looking for great partnership opportunities and are continually looking for like-minded organisations to become DV informed, as we work together. SFV can support in the following ways:
We love supporting partnerships that make a difference in the lives of people affected by FDV.
SFV Office contact:Stopping Family Violence are located in Fremantle. Our contact details are: 13-15 Phillimore Street Fremantle WA 6160 (08) 9430 8065 For general enquiries - admin@sfv.org.au For communications enquiries - comms@sfv.org.au If you have any feedback or would like to contribute to the next issue please email comms@sfv.org.au Merry Christmas from the team at SFV |