Webinar: No more circles: Learning from survivors, perpetrators and practitioners on how to respond better to intimate partner and sexual violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence (SV) are pervasive issues within the Australian community, significantly impacting the wellbeing of women and children. Navigating the service system to seek safety is challenging. Understanding the experiences of those who do is necessary to improve service responses and to focus on healing and recovery.

As part of ANROWS’s 16 Days of Activism campaign, this webinar launched a national study consisting of two reports. The first report, Voices from the frontline, gives insight into the experiences of those working in the domestic and family violence (DFV) service sector. The second report, Listening to the voices of victims and perpetrators to transform responses to intimate partner violence examines the help-seeking journeys of victims and survivors and people who use violence.

Using national survey data of the workforce, and in-depth qualitative data with victims and survivors of IPV and SV, and perpetrators of IPV and SV, the study builds an evidence base to improve system responses.

The discussion is critical to anyone working in policy and practice in intimate partner and sexual violence across the various sectors of health, justice and specialist services. It shares what was heard about known issues, such as a fragmented and siloed services system, and the potential opportunities to transform services responses from circular and ineffective to those that are safe, innovative and meet the needs of victims and survivors as well as those who use violence.

This webinar features a panel discussion amongst the report’s researchers, experts with lived experience and practitioners from across the DFV sector.

The webinar is open to anyone and free to attend. Live captioning will be available for the webinar.

Enquiries: [email protected]

Disclaimer: ANROWS webinars bring together a diverse range of speakers on a particular topic, informed by the evidence base, lived expertise, and policy and practice knowledge. The views expressed by speakers or other third parties in ANROWS webinars and any subsequent materials are those of the speaker or third party and not, necessarily, of ANROWS.

Presenters

Kelsey Hegarty
Kelsey leads the Safer Families Centre of Research Excellence. She also holds the joint chair in Family Violence Prevention at the University of Melbourne and the Royal Women’s Hospital, and co-chairs the Melbourne Research Alliance to End Violence against women and their children (MAEVe).

An academic general practitioner, her research focuses on interventions to identify and respond to domestic and family violence in healthcare settings; through the use of technology; and for early intervention with men, women and children.

Lily Fetter
Lily is a domestic violence survivor and has been a member of the WEAVERS group within the Safer Families Centre of Research Excellence since 2021. She works as a midwife and is passionate about advocating for women’s and children’s rights (inside and outside of the birth room!). She draws on her lived experience of surviving family violence, including image-based abuse and multiple forms of systemic and legal abuse. She is committed to being part of the change that is needed to improve the safety of and support for women and children fleeing violence.

Patricia Cullen
Dr Patricia Cullen is a National Health and Medical Research Council Early Career Fellow, a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, and a provisional psychologist. Patricia partners with communities and people with living and lived experience to co-design and implement optimal responses addressing domestic, family and sexual violence. She has worked with government and the WHO, and regularly engages with media, policy and community organisations. In partnership with ANROWS, Patricia led the analysis in the “Voices from the frontline” project, a national survey of the domestic, family and sexual violence workforce designed to generate a suite of national policy priorities.

Laura Brooks
Laura Brooks has over 16 years of experience working for a wide range of government and not-for profit organisations, in both remote and urban Western Australia, and throughout New South Wales. Laura has worked in a variety of roles including drug and alcohol counselling, domestic violence counselling, case management, targeted project work and mental health leadership. She has a Bachelor of Health Science in Indigenous Health and post-graduate qualifications in addiction. Laura currently works at the Illawarra Women’s Health Centre as the mental health team leader.

Stephen Walton
Steve Walton has been in the welfare sector for over 20 years. With extensive clinical experience in personal and couples’ counselling, post-separation and family violence, he was previously employed with non-government organisations as a team leader and manager for many years, specialising in men’s behaviour change programs. Steve is passionate about education and systemic change. He is a strong advocate for women’s rights and believes men should be encouraged to take a stand in the prevention of violence against women and children.

Employed as a senior statewide educator with the NSW Health Education Centre Against Violence in early 2018, Steve became team leader of the Men’s Domestic and Family Violence Interventions team in 2019.

Facilitator

Michele Robinson
Michele joined ANROWS in 2017 as the Director, Evidence to Action. Michele leads the translation and dissemination of research at ANROWS to support the take-up of evidence into policy and practice to reduce violence against women and their children. This role builds on Michele’s 18 years of experience in leadership roles developing advice and strategies on research, knowledge partnerships and exchange in a diverse range of sectors, including the prevention of violence against women and children.