ANRA 2020–2022

Australia’s National Research Agenda to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children

Following an extensive research and consultation process, ANROWS has released Australia’s National Research Agenda to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2020–2022 and announced its priorities from within agenda for the 2020–2022 ANROWS Core Grant Research Program.

Australia’s National Research Agenda to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children provides a framework for, and guidance on, priority areas of research and research topics for academics, researchers, research funding bodies and governments across Australia. Its aim is to encourage the production of evidence needed for national policy and practice design in preventing and responding to violence against women (VAW), regardless of the source of funding for the research.

The agenda for 2020–2022 identifies five priority areas for research:

• Children and young people
• Understanding the intersecting drivers of violence against women
• Sexual violence and harassment
• What works to prevent violence against women
• What works in responding to violence against women.

The national agenda will be updated biennially to reflect progress on implementing the agenda and emergent policy priorities. Research underway (where known) is listed under relevant research areas in an appendix to national agenda for 2020-2022.

NATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH MONTH

Mental health and violence against women

Studies show that violence against women may be associated with mental health consequences for women that often persist long after the violence has stopped.

In recognition of National Mental Health Month, which raises awareness throughout October, we have compiled a list of recent ANROWS research reports and summaries that identify the complex relationship between domestic, family and sexual violence, and mental health difficulties.

The research synthesis Violence against women and mental health examines the way that mental health intersects with aspects of the experience of violence, including trauma, complex trauma, disability, coercive control, access to justice and parenting.

A preventable burden: Measuring and addressing the prevalence and health impacts of intimate partner violence in Australian women summaries evidence that partner violence is a major contributor to the burden of disease (the impact of illness, disability and premature death) among women in Australia.

“A deep wound under my heart”: Constructions of complex trauma and implications for women’s wellbeing and safety from violence explores Australian policy and service responses for victims/survivors of gender-based violence who have experiences of complex trauma.

Preventing gender-based violence in mental health inpatient units documents the violence experienced by women in inpatient treatment, including how restraint and seclusion practices can be experienced as gender-based violence, and identifies the need for trauma-informed care and the institutional prevention of gender-based violence.

Kungas’ trauma experiences and effects on behaviour in Central Australia explores the connection between trauma and incarceration for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.

Women’s Input into a Trauma-informed systems model of care in Health settings: The WITH study investigates options to best promote a trauma-informed organisational model of care, responsive to survivors of sexual violence and practitioners, and embed it into the complex system of mental health and sexual violence services.

The PIPA project: Positive Interventions for Perpetrators of Adolescent violence in the home (AVITH) identifies adverse childhood events or trauma as a major contributor to the use of adolescent violence in the home.

NEW PUBLICATION AND WEBINAR

Children need to be the focus of domestic and family violence services

A new ANROWS research report finds that children’s needs must be moved to the front and centre of services supporting families living with domestic and family violence (DFV). Safe & Together: Addressing ComplexitY for Children (STACY for Children) explores the impacts on children when DFV co-occurs with parents’ mental health and substance abuse challenges.

The study found that despite how commonly these issues co-occur in families, there is a tendency for children’s needs to become invisible in adult-focused services.

The research analysed the impacts on children of the implementation of the Safe & Together Model™ in services across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, drawing on practitioner experiences from speciality DFV services, NGO family services, alcohol and other drug services, mental services and statutory child protection agencies.

The Model aims to ensure that services working with families affected by DFV prioritise keeping children safely with their non-offending parent (usually the mother) as the default starting point for effective support.

Led by Professor Cathy Humphreys at the University of Melbourne, the project found that when the model is implemented holistically, with strong collaborative practice across agencies, it leads to better outcomes for children and families affected by these complex and intersecting issues.

MORE RESEARCH IN THIS SUITE

The STACY for Children project was developed in collaboration with the Queensland Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women, and jointly funded by ANROWS and the Queensland Government. It forms part of a broader suite of interconnected research, including the Safe & Together Addressing ComplexitY (STACY) report, which was funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services and published alongside guidelines for practitioners.

The research also builds on earlier ANROWS projects: the PATRICIA project (PaThways and Research Into Collaborative Inter-Agency practice) and Invisible practices: Interventions with fathers who use violence both centred on the Safe & Together Model.

CATCH UP

Webinar: Law and Culture in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

“You can’t underestimate how alienated Aboriginal people feel from the mainstream DFV [domestic and family violence] system. The way it’s perceived is that the child protection system, the family violence system, the justice system: they’re all there to break up the family … It’s a very radical departure from how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people see family. Instead, let’s heal family, let’s bring family together.”—Professor Harry Blagg, researcher and webinar panellist

A warm thankyou to the excellent panellists and engaged audience at our webinar, “Understanding the role of Law and Culture in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in responding to and preventing family violence”.

We were delighted to have to double the size of our webinar service when more than 1000 people registered. For those of you who missed out, the webinar has been recorded and is now available on the ANROWS website.

The panel discussed recently published ANROWS research  exploring how responses to family violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities could move away from the mainstream legal system and be grounded in Law and Culture, and the role that can be played by healing from intergenerational trauma while on-Country.

Resources

South Australian Government: Committed to Safety: A framework for addressing domestic, family and sexual violence in South Australia (Progress Report September 2020)

Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service: Intergenerational Trauma—Our Communities Matter

AHURI: COVID-19 Research Hub