Webinar:
How can we enhance routine screening?: Strengthening identification and response to domestic violence in the antenatal care setting

“You don’t want her to feel like you’re just there asking questions, you want her to feel like she’s being cared for and nurtured so that she can disclose information to you.”

– Midwife, Focus Group participant, The SUSTAIN Study

Research has found that domestic violence (DV) often begins or escalates in severity when women are pregnant. Routine antenatal DV screening offers an important point of intervention.

This webinar will explore the challenges of effectively implementing antenatal DV screening in complex health care settings.

Drawing on indicative findings of upcoming ANROWS research (the SUSTAIN study), this expert panel of health practitioners and researchers will discuss:

• how practitioners experience routine DV screening
• how they have improved identification and response practices
• key recommendations of The REAL Transformation Model
• how the model can be implemented.

There will also be a live Q&A.

This webinar is designed for:

• those who work with women who experience domestic and family violence and also access pregnancy care or other health services
• multidisciplinary practitioners and policymakers working within pregnancy care and other health services, and domestic and family violence services

Presenter bios

Professor Kelsey Hegarty
University of Melbourne

Kelsey is an academic general practitioner who holds the joint Chair in Family Violence Prevention at the University of Melbourne and the Royal Women’s Hospital. She co-chairs the Melbourne Research Alliance to End Violence against Women (MAEVe) and leads the Safer Families Centre of Research Excellence. Kelsey’s research includes the evidence base for interventions to prevent violence against women; educational and complex interventions around identification of domestic and family violence in primary care settings and early intervention with men, women and children exposed to abuse.  Kelsey has led the forthcoming ANROWS funded research Sustainability of identification and response to family violence in antenatal care: The SUSTAIN Study.

Anne Ingram
Western Health VIC

Anne Ingram is a Senior Social Worker at Western Health who has worked in public health for 20 years including social work practice with women and children in maternity settings.  She is currently part of the Strengthening Hospital Responses to Family Violence (SHRFV) initiative.  Anne has presented the work of SHRFV at Safer Families international Conference, the STOP Domestic Violence Conference along with state-wide study events and delivering domestic and family violence identification and response training to Western health staff.

Adele Sheridan-Magro
St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney

Adele is an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker and currently the Manager of the Domestic & Family Violence Service at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney.   She has extensive experience in the NGO and health sector as a specialist domestic violence counsellor, educator and trainer and service coordinator.  Adele has presented on domestic violence at conferences both nationally and internationally including presenting at the inaugural ‘European Conference on Domestic Violence’ held in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Facilitator

Dr Laura Tarzia
The University of Melbourne

Laura is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of General Practice at The University of Melbourne. She is deputy lead of the Sexual Abuse and Family Violence (SAFE) program and a member of the Melbourne research Alliance to End Violence against women and their children (MAEVe).  Laura  is also affiliated with the Centre for Family Violence Prevention at the Royal Women’s Hospital and the NHMRC Safer Families Centre for Research Excellence.

Laura’s work focuses on sexual violence and intimate partner violence against women.  She was part of the ANROWS funded research ‘Women’s Input into a Trauma-informed systems model of care in Health settings (the WITH Study)’ published in 2017.