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Research

Our research

Violence against women and children affects everybody. It impacts on the health, wellbeing and safety of a significant proportion of Australians throughout all states and territories and places an enormous burden on the nation’s economy across family and community services, health and hospitals, income-support and criminal justice systems.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

News and events

ANROWS hosts events as part of its knowledge transfer and exchange work, including public lectures, workshops and research launches. Details of upcoming ANROWS activities and news are available from the list on the right.

ANROWS

About ANROWS

ANROWS was established by the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments of Australia to produce, disseminate and assist in applying evidence for policy and practice addressing violence against women and children.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

Resources

To support the take-up of evidence, ANROWS offers a range of resources developed from research to support practitioners and policy-makers in delivering evidence-based interventions.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSLATION AND EXCHANGE

Moving knowledge into action

Knowledge translation and exchange is one of the core functions of ANROWS. To support the take-up of evidence, we create resources to support policy and practice design decision-makers. Our range of resources includes research syntheses, policy briefs, research to policy and practice papers, fact sheets and webinars.

Knowledge translation took centre stage at the recent ANROWS National Research Conference on the theme of “evidence in action”. The keynote address by Nadine Wathen (Western University, London, Canada) examined how to mobilise knowledge for “wicked” problems like domestic and family violence. Professor Wathen recognised that this activity requires well-articulated intermediary roles, such as that of ANROWS, to ensure knowledge is taken up.

To learn more about the process of knowledge translation, we invite you to watch Nadine Wathen’s keynote address.

WATCH KEYNOTE HERE

INQUIRY INTO FAMILY, DOMESTIC AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE

Report recommends commitment of long-term funding for ANROWS

Last week the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs presented its report, “Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence”. Among its 88 recommendations the Committee recommends that the next National Plan include a commitment to funding for ANROWS for the life of the plan. ANROWS welcomes the recommendation. “If adopted, it will increase ANROWS’s ability to commission large-scale and innovative research, which requires several years for implementation,” said ANROWS CEO, Dr Heather Nancarrow.

The report also recommends that the next national plan be “inclusive of the diversity of victim-survivors”, including children in their own right and men, with the plan to be named the “National plan to reduce family, domestic and sexual violence”. Dr Nancarrow observed, “This will no doubt be the subject of much discussion at the proposed national summit on violence against women announced by Social Services Minister Anne Ruston at the end of March”.

AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL RESEARCH AGENDA TO REDUCE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN (ANRA) 2020–2022

Understanding the intersecting drivers of violence against women

One of the five priority areas identified under Australia’s National Research Agenda to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (ANRA) 2020–2022 is understanding the intersecting drivers of violence against women, including how these drivers manifest in the context of natural disasters and pandemics.

One of the external projects submitted to ANROWS’s Register of Active Research (RAR) addresses this priority area. “Weathering the storm: Australia’s responses to domestic and family violence during the COVID-19 pandemic”, led by Associate Professor kylie valentine (UNSW), is investigating the short-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and policy responses to it, on domestic and family violence in Australia.

The project will provide critical new knowledge for communities and scholarship on the extent to which, and in what circumstances, anticipated escalations in violence occurred, and those in which escalations were prevented; innovative and effective strategies used by support services to protect both families and the domestic and family violence workforce; and implications for long-term policy responses to domestic and family violence.

The RAR, a centralised, publicly available database of current violence against women research, enables ANROWS, its stakeholders and other research funders to monitor progress on addressing the priorities set out in ANRA 2020–2022. A comprehensive RAR will enable researchers and research funders to identify remaining evidence gaps and facilitate potential policy impact.

If you have research underway relating to violence against women and their children, that has an Australian target population and employs a robust, rigorous and ethical research design, please submit details for its inclusion on the RAR.


ANROWS WEBINAR

Policy levers to address economic insecurity – Part 2

Financial abuse is an often under-reported aspect of domestic and family violence. It can have devastating consequences for women, often lasting for decades. And for women who are not subject to tactics of financial abuse, the economic impact of domestic and family violence can still be immense. Policies across the social security, banking, gambling, housing and homelessness, and domestic and family violence systems aim to address these issues. However, these policies are found to both alleviate and exacerbate stressors.

On Monday 12 April, an expert panel including Leanne Ho (Executive Officer, Economic Justice Australia), Moo Baulch (Director of Primary Prevention, Women’s and Girls’ Emergency Centre [WAGEC]) and Anna Thomas (Principal, Anna Thomas Consulting) will continue the conversation they began at the ANROWS National Research Conference, discussing next steps and addressing the difficulties faced by women experiencing violence and economic insecurity. Hayley Boxall (Research Manager, Violence against Women and Children Research, Australian Institute of Criminology) will facilitate the discussion, and there will also be a live Q&A.

Delegates of the ANROWS National Research Conference, “Evidence in Action”, can access Part 1 of the conversation through the conference website.

REGISTER NOW FOR THE FREE WEBINAR

CALL TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH

Identifying policy and practice responses to domestic and family violence under COVID-19 in Australia

ANROWS is collaborating with the University of Melbourne as part of an international study examining responses to DFV under COVID-19.

We are collating evidence on policy and practice initiatives: what has been implemented, and (if possible) what the outcomes have been. Please send any information you have to [email protected] by 23 April 2021. For more information please visit our website.

New research and resources

You can access the resources in this list and all the other articles in Notepad in the ANROWS Library.

Books and reports

Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. (2021). House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs: Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence. Commonwealth of Australia. https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/reportrep/024577/toc_pdf/Inquiryintofamily,domesticandsexualviolence.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf

Zhang, Y., & Breunig, R. (2021). Gender norms and domestic abuse: Evidence from Australia. IZA Discussion Paper Series (No. 14225). https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/14225/gender-norms-and-domestic-abuse-evidence-from-australia


New research articles

You can access the resources in this list and all the other articles in Notepad in the ANROWS Library.

Cameron, J., Humphreys, C., Kothari, A., & Hegarty, K. (2021). Creating an action plan to advance knowledge translation in a domestic violence research network: A deliberative dialogue. Evidence & Policy. https://doi.org/10.1332/174426421X16106634806152

Chikwava, F., Cordier, R., Ferrante, A., O’Donnell, M., Speyer, R., & Parsons, L. (2021). Research using population-based administration data integrated with longitudinal data in child protection settings: A systematic review. PLOS ONE, 16(3), e0249088. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249088

Daigle, L. E., & Hawk, S. R. (2021). Sexual orientation, revictimization, and polyvictimization. Sexuality Research and Social Policy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-021-00543-4

Graham, K., Potterton, H., Mihaere, T., Carrington, B., Treharne, G. J., & Beres, M. A. (2021). Balancing community input and established research: Findings from the development of a sexual violence prevention campaign. Journal of School Violence, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2021.1897017

Postmus, J. L., Nikolova, K., Lin, H.-F., & Johnson, L. (2021). Women’s economic abuse experiences: Results from the UN multi-country study on men and violence in Asia and the Pacific. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605211003168

Walklate, S. (2021). Criminological futures and gendered violence(s): Lessons from the global pandemic for criminology. Journal of Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1177/00048658211003629

Webster, K., Ward, A., Diemer, K., Flood, M., Honey, N., Morgan, J., Politoff, V., Powell, A., & Stubbs, J. (2021). How are gender inequality and violence against women related? Findings from a population-level community attitudes survey. Australian Journal of Social Issues. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.158



Opportunities

BREACHES OF FAMILY LAW PARENTING ORDERS: SURVEY

The Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) has been commissioned by ANROWS to undertake research into the compliance with and enforcement of family law parenting orders. The research will involve multiple studies, including a survey of legal and non-legal professionals working in the family law system.

You are invited to take part in this survey if you are a legal professional (including judicial officers, barristers and solicitors) or non-legal professional (including family dispute resolution practitioners, family violence sector professionals, and professionals working in post-separation support services, such as parenting order programs).

THE VOICES STUDY: HELP TO DISTRIBUTE SURVEYS FOR A NATIONAL STUDY

ANROWS and the University of Melbourne are conducting surveys of victims and survivors and people who use intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women as part of a project called “Transforming responses to intimate partner and sexual violence: Listening to the voices of victims, perpetrators and services” (the “Voices” study).

To help gather this important data, the research team are asking for your help in distributing the surveys. You can access information about the Voices survey for victims and survivors (women) here and about the survey for people (men, women and gender diverse) who use intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women here. Please feel free to share these survey links widely via newsletters, Twitter, Facebook and other social media.

The Voices study is led by Associate Professor Dominiek Coates at ANROWS and Professor Kelsey Hegarty at the University of Melbourne. It is part of a program of research led by ANROWS and funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services under the Fourth Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010–2022.

This study will develop recommendations for service and system improvements to better respond to victims and survivors, their children and perpetrators.

This project has received ethics approval from the University of Melbourne Human Research Ethics Committee.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INFRASTRUCTURE GRANTS: NOW OPEN

On Monday 22 March, the Hon Mark Speakman, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence (NSW), announced that Women NSW’s COVID-19 Sexual, Domestic and Family Violence Infrastructure Grant Program is now open.

As part of an $8 million infrastructure grants program, grants are available for sexual, domestic and family violence frontline services, intended for improvements such as upgrades to women’s refuges, expanded accommodation and better facilities for children and people with disability.

Funding is available for services established in New South Wales that provide a direct and frontline service to people experiencing (or at risk of experiencing) sexual, domestic and family violence; or provide services or programs for perpetrators, as part of their overall service delivery model.

The grant round closes at 5:00 pm on Friday, 23 April 2021.

Contribute to Notepad

If you have publications, resources, opportunities or events to promote, please forward them to [email protected].

Preferred format is a very brief outline (maximum 4 lines) and a link to further information.


 

 

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