I was very pleased to chair the first meeting of the second term of the ANROWS Practitioner Engagement Group (PEG) on 30 September 2016, welcoming back a number of first term PEG members, as well new members representing diverse areas of practice and service provision. Following a review of the first term of the PEG, and considering our emerging knowledge, translation and exchange (KTE) strategy, the Terms of Reference have been revised and ratified. PEG members will play an important role in shaping and facilitating ANROWS’s KTE activities.  Now that the membership and Terms of Reference have been settled, details of the PEG membership will soon be displayed on the ANROWS website.

As regular readers of Notepad will be aware, ANROWS is leading the development and implementation of the National Community Attitudes Survey (NCAS) and in the last fortnight I have been involved in establishing the NCAS Advisory Group. The Advisory Group membership will reflect a broad range of stakeholder groups. The members will support the NCAS projects, including implementation of the survey and dissemination of its results. Further details about the NCAS can be found on the ANROWS website, with further details added as the project progresses.   

The fortnight ended with my participation in a Roundtable Briefing on Australia’s Domestic Approach to Ending Violence against Women, hosted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The purpose of the Roundtable was to provide an opportunity for DFAT staff from Canberra and from a number of DFAT Posts to hear about Australia’s National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022,  and to discuss how Australia is implementing the Plan.  Other presenters included Our Watch, Office for Women, the Department of Social Services, Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Australian Federal Police, who have responsibility for policing in the ACT.  Representatives of  DFAT Posts and aid recipients at the Roundtable included the Ambassador for Kiribati and Ending Violence against Women Program Managers from Kiribati, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Timor Leste,  and Vanuatu.  The Roundtable was enlightening and ended with a robust discussion on the challenges that women’s economic dependency on men create in relation to law enforcement and holding perpetrators of violence to account.   

In the fortnight ahead, I am looking forward to the Violence Against Women & Health System Responses event hosted by La Trobe University. In a connected event also co-hosted by La Trobe and the Royal Women’s Hospital, I will talk about forthcoming ANROWS research the health impacts of intimate partner violence against women. More on this next time. 

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