ACTION RESEARCH & EVALUATION
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Projects with Action Research
April 2020
Funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services, ANROWS was contracted to assist 26 projects in the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Projects with Action Research (CALD PAR) initiative. ANROWS supported projects to take an action research approach to their activities in the prevention of violence against women and creating safer pathways to crisis and support services from December 2017 to April 2020.
18 CALD PAR projects focussed on the prevention of violence against women and their children and eight projects aimed to create safer pathways for women and their children to crisis and support services. An action research approach supported teams in collecting information during the life of their project, evaluating the effectiveness of their activities and sharing findings and lessons for future practice.
Their research contributed to the limited evidence on the effectiveness of prevention and safer pathways work in CALD communities.
ANROWS hosted three national workshops on action research, the prevention of gender-based violence and safer pathways for CALD communities to crisis and support services for family violence. In partnership with Our Watch, ANROWS also created two Communities of Practice to enable the project teams to build strong networks and regularly share ideas, successes and challenges.
The CALD PAR initiative built on lessons learned from the ANROWS Building Safe Communities for Women and their Children (BSCW) action research initiative. The central goal of action research is to create positive change and develop practical solutions to local problems faced by organisations working with CALD communities. Action research provided organisations with opportunities to adapt project activities to ensure that better outcomes are achieved. It also contributed to building a body of evidence during the course of everyday work.
The CALD PAR initiative produced a report with ten insights that identify directions for future work. Some of these include increasing strengths-based community engagement, using aspirational language to frame activities, creating non-judgemental spaces to engage CALD men as allies, building capacity in culturally safe practice and supporting bicultural workers.
Findings & insights
ANROWS supported CALD PAR projects to share the findings and insights from their action research through digital stories and project stories. These creative methods of sharing findings highlight the diversity, depth and nuance of what works in the prevention of violence against women and creating safer pathways to support services for CALD communities. They have made projects’ findings accessible to the widest audience and enabled project teams to translate their research into new resources for CALD communities. Their digital stories and project stories are available on our website.
REPORT
Prevention and safer pathways to services for migrant and refugee communities: Ten research insights from the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Projects with Action Research (CALD PAR) initiative
This report provides key insights into “what works” for prevention and safer pathways activities engaging CALD communities in Australia.
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VIDEOS
Digital stories
Stories that feature empowering and culturally responsive messages about prevention and pathways to support from community leaders, participants and services, produced by the CALD PAR projects.
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CASE STUDIES
Project stories
Findings from the CALD PAR projects, with insights into their action research processes, key learnings and recommendations for policy-makers and practitioners.
Find out moreWebinar
This webinar unpacks research insights from 26 projects. These projects undertook action research into the prevention of violence against women and creating safer pathways to services.
Resources
Find action research related resources that would be helpful to researchers, community workers and others working on action research projects
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Contact ANROWS
PO Box Q389, Queen Victoria Building NSW 1230
Email: [email protected]
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