No to Violence has 25 years experience working with men who use family violence. We undertook a grass-roots listening tour in September and October which gave us the opportunity to combine our experience with the expertise and knowledge of local service providers.

The published report is based on a 12-stop Listening Tour across the state of Victoria, reaching out to participants across the community sector. The tour was an opportunity to build a collaborative approach as well as identify gaps and common family violence themes across the state. Workshop participants included:

• Local MPs
• Experts and community leaders from the family violence sector
• Police
• Legal services
• Culturally and linguistically diverse communities
• Health workers
• Frontline service providers.

Led by No to Violence CEO Jacqui Watt, the purpose of the tour was to gather local knowledge on how family violence is being dealt with on the ground from the perspective of local practitioners and intersecting service providers.

These valuable insights are presented in the Listening Tour Findings report, which outlines the needs of the sector and how we can best proceed to work in a coordinated and complementary way. We collected insights from metropolitan and regional Victoria, as well as service providers in the culturally and linguistically diverse sector.

The findings demonstrate a need for further focus and investment in the following areas across the sector:

• Collaborative approaches to interventions and service delivery is urgently required
• Increased workplace training and development is needed to ensure suitably skilled staff
• Innovative programs to achieve wider community outreach are underway, but need to be evaluated
• Practice-based research and data is missing from the sector
• Concern about implementing integration to ensure non-collusive men’s engagement
• Sustainable, assured funding for core activities.

Coordinated practice and ongoing commitment to building workforce capacity were reported as the key to effectively addressing the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

In addition to these six key themes, the report contains:

• Five overarching recommendations
• Eight recommendations for ‘Quick Wins’ for fast, effective implementation
• Eight recommendations for ‘Doing Things Differently’
• A costed table of what is needed to achieve these goals.

We are confident that the implementation of the recommendations of this report will bring about significant, positive change in how we work together as a community to confront the issues highlighted therein.

“For 25 years, No to Violence has been working at the frontline with men who use violence and power to control others, so they take responsibility for the harm they cause and understand they can choose to behave differently” CEO Jacqui Watt says.

“While there is some exceptional work being done in the preventative space, there is still much work to be done here and now, to keep Australian women and children safe from family violence.

“The No to Violence Listening Tour is about hearing directly from those local experts who work every day, often face-to-face, with men who use family violence.

“With the Victorian election less than three months away, we will then take those key findings back to Spring Street to ensure there is rigour to policy commitments, backed up by solid funding to support men’s family violence prevention and interventions.

“There is no ‘quick fix’ to stop family violence. No to Violence is only one part of the sector, working alongside and supporting the work of women’s services. But the evidence shows that working directly with men to change their behaviour can contribute to the safety of women and children.

“As the peak body for men’s family violence prevention, it is essential to find ways to work together with these community leaders, and advocate for the continuation of funding for men’s family violence interventions across Victoria, as part of a suite of interventions.”

Access the report here.

[ENDS]

Media enquiries:
Camille Gierck 0401 337 241 camilleg@ntv.org.au
Further interview and photo opportunities also possible on request.