Your Invitation
No To Violence (NTV) invites practitioners, program providers, policy workers, academics and other interested individuals and agencies to a conference about working with men who use domestic and family violence, and supporting those (primarily women and children) affected by their violence.
The title: The No To Violence 2012 Australasian Conference on Responses to Men’s Domestic and Family Violence: Experience, Innovations and Emerging Directions,
The location: St Kilda Town Hall Function Centre, 99A Carlisle St. St Kilda, Melbourne.
The date: November 14 – 16, 2012.
Conference organiser: No To Violence Male Family Violence Prevention Association.
Conference supporter: NZ National Network of Stopping Violence.
Conference sponsors: Department of Human Services and Department of Justice, State Government of Victoria. The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services & Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA).
To register, download a conference registration form in either MS-Word or PDF format, print, complete and return it via fax (03)9428 7513 or email attachment.
Our focus
The conference will focus on a range of challenges, emerging practice trends and innovations that support the continual evolution and strengthening of men’s behaviour change and domestic and family violence offender programs. These might include, among others:
• strengthening linkages between courts, Corrective Services and programs provided by community based agencies,
• what domestic and family violence offender programs run by Corrective Services and men’s behaviour change programs provided by community-based agencies can learn from each other, both in theory and practice,
• what sexual assault offender and domestic and family violence offender programs can learn from each other,
• innovations in women’s partner support work, and the multiple pathways through which men’s programs can enhance safety and centralise women’s and children’s human rights,
• listening and responding to the voices and needs of children, including through child contact work and parenting after violence programs,
• creative approaches towards addressing men’s use of intimate partner sexual violence,
• incorporating strengths-based approaches without watering down a gendered perspective of domestic and family violence,
• strategies to enhance men’s readiness to change,
• the role of men’s programs in multi-agency risk management processes,
• enhancing access for men from CALD communities into men’s behaviour change work,
• evolving work by indigenous communities to address men’s use of family violence,
• moving away from the ‘one size fits all’ approach to tailor programs to individual risk and needs, including emerging practices in case planning and case management, and the role of individual sessions to compliment group work,
• recent developments in addressing adolescent and young people’s use of violence against an intimate other or family member (see below for further information),
• emerging work in addressing violence in gay, bisexual, transgender and queer relationships, and
• addressing men’s hegemonic masculinities and striving towards secondary desistance.
The bigger picture
While the main focus will be domestic and family violence, this will be contextualised within broader struggles to reduce men’s violence against women and their children, and to transform gendered structural power relations within our societies.
The conference will also welcome presentations and discussion on violence used by men against other men in intimate or family relationships, such as by gay or bisexual men, and adolescent males.
Conference structure
While the conference will include plenaries, the emphasis will be on exploratory, collaborative discussions and facilitated workshops rather than keynote speeches. There will also be significant opportunities for informal networking.
The conference will have an engaging feel that celebrates innovative (and safe) practice. We are committed to making this an event that engages the heart as well as the head. We also intend to take thorough notes and to record some sessions, to contribute towards the development of a set of practice development resources focusing on particular themes or issues involved in strengthening and evolving the work.
Your participation
We also invite you to think of innovative, emerging or complex themes or practice issues you might like to facilitate a conference workshop or discussion about. You do not need to be an expert on the topic (it need only fit the broad principles and context of the conference) and your role could be to facilitate the input of others as much as to present your own experiences, expertise, ideas and research. Find out more.
Reflection, review, conversation
There appears to be an air of reflection and review in men’s behaviour change and domestic and familyviolence offender work – not only in some parts of Australia, but also internationally. There has even been some talk that we are moving towards a ‘second generation’ of programs with men.
This conference will be an important opportunity for policy makers, judicial workers and other stakeholders to understand the realities and complexities of this work. Furthermore, we hope that the conference will produce fruitful, passionate and exploratory conversations about where the work might be heading in the years to come, and by doing so help to inspire our practice and policy work in the present.
More information
You will find more information about the conference on this website. However, if you have a query you cannot find answer to, please email us or phone 61 + (0)3 9428 3536.
To register, download a conference registration form in either MS-Word or PDF format, complete and return it via fax (03)9428 7513 or email attachment.
Young people’s use of violence
Funding provided by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs will enable conference-related work to map current practice and policy initiatives in addressing young people’s use of violence in the home. Examples of innovative, coordinated practice will be sought around Australia of police and legal responses, referral options and programs, and holistic casework.