Preventing Family Violence in Multicultural Communities
Thursday 10 September 2015, 10am - 3pm
Sunshine Convention Centre, Victoria University, 460 Ballarat Road, Sunshine.
9.30am
10am
Arrive
Welcome
10.05am
Victorian Local Government Multicultural Issues Network
(VLGMIN)
Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV)
Brimbank City Council welcome
State Government overview
10.10am
10.15am
10.20am
10.40am
10.55am
11.10am
11.25am
11.40am
12pm
12.45pm
1.15pm
1.35pm
2.15pm
Workshop; identifying strategies to address violence against
women; prevention, early intervention, and response.
Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV); the role of local
government in preventing violence against women.
InTouch; Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence; the need
for a culturally specific approach and outline of response work.
Morning Tea
Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health; cross-cultural feminism
and inter-sectionality.
3 x 45 min Breakout Sessions (details on reverse)
Lunch
Our Watch; driving nation-wide change in the culture, behaviours
and attitudes that underpin and create violence against women and
children.
2 x 45 min Breakout Sessions (details on reverse)
2.50pm
Panel
Our Watch: Teresa Dowd
InTouch: Maya Avdibegovic
Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health: Dr Regina Quiazon
MAV: Kellie Nagel
Whittlesea Community Connections: Claire Varley
City of Greater Dandenong: Dr Crystal Bruton
CoHealth: TBC
Wrap up
3pm
Finish
Facilitator Maria Dimopoulos
(Auditorium)
Chairperson Eugenia Grammatikakis
MAV President Cr Bill McArthur
Administrator Jane Nathan
Presenter The Hon. Fiona Richardson,
Minister for Women and the Prevention of
Family Violence
Facilitator Maria Dimopoulos
Presenter Kellie Nagle, Policy Adviser,
Preventing Violence Against Women
Presenter Maya Avdibegovic, Chief
Executive Officer
Foyer Area
Presenter Dr Regina Quiazon
1.
2.
Monash City Council
Whittlesea Community Connections
and Whittlesea City Council
3. City of Greater Geelong
Foyer Area
Presenter Teresa Dowd, Policy and Projects
Manager, Culturally and Linguistically
Diverse Communities
1. City of Greater Dandenong
2. CoHealth
Facilitator Maria Dimopoulos
(Auditorium)
Facilitator Maria Dimopoulos
(Auditorium)
Breakout sessions: Preventing Family Violence in Multicultural Communities Forum
1st Breakout Sessions: 12pm
Monash City Council; Generating Equality and Respect: a place based approach to
prevention. This three year, prevention of violence against women program is funded
by VicHealth. It is a partnership between Monash City Council, Link Health and
Community and VicHealth. The aim of the program is to build communities, cultures
and organisations that are gender equitable and promote equal and respectful
relationships between men and women. It aims to reach people where they work, live
and play and works in five key settings – local government, community health, maternal
and child health service, with youth practitioners and a corporate workplace.
Whittlesea CALD Community Family Violence Project & Our Watch Project
A number of preventing violence against women (PVAW) projects are currently
underway in Whittlesea’s diverse CALD communities. These include the Whittlesea
CALD Communities Family Violence Project; an integrated place-based project that
brings together nine local, regional and state-based agencies across six integrated
project elements, including empowering women, capacity-building community and
religious leaders, early intervention during settlement, and an Arabic language men’s
behaviour change program. The same partnership is also implementing the Hamdel
Project; one of two Our Watch pilot projects supporting PVAW work in Whittlesea’s
Iranian community. This session will explore the successes, challenges and learning
from both projects, and the benefits of partnerships in integrated PVAW responses.
Geelong – CALD Family Violence project
The City of Greater Geelong partnered with local agencies and the Geelong Karen and
Karenni community groups in an innovative initiative to develop an “action–research”
model of response to family violence in multicultural communities. Starting on the
premise that the western model of response to family violence does not work in
addressing family violence in multicultural communities, Karen and Karenni community
groups partnered with council in a pilot initiative. Community leaders were successfully
engaged in this initiative from its inception, through to being part of interview panels
and are now on the project’s steering committee. Deakin University is involved via an
Ethic Committee, and the research outcomes are soon to be made public.
2nd Breakout Sessions: 1.40pm
CHALLENGE
This family violence project is funded by the Victorian Department of Justice and
Regulation in partnership with City of Casey, Cardinia Shire Council, City of Greater
Dandenong and Monash Health. It has built the capacity of community leaders to
challenge violence-supportive attitudes and promote equity and respect toward
women. The City of Greater Dandenong has collaborated closely with leaders and
people of diverse faith and spiritual traditions to develop a resource to prevent family
violence and, specifically, men’s violence against women in the community. Project
evaluation findings point to the value of an interfaith approach in developing shared
understandings, cooperation and actions between faith and spiritual communities to
prevent and address family violence. The resource is the outcome of such an approach,
and is vital in supporting faith and spiritual leaders to prevent family violence together.
STAMP, UPSCALE, OUR WATCH
Family violence prevention work at CoHealth
Cohealth has been working with multicultural communities in family violence
prevention for ten years. In some cases the project duration has been as short as twelve
months. What are some codesign techniques that helped us hit the ground running?
What have we learned about family violence programs that translates across contexts
and cultures? What happens to community champions when programs finish? These
are some of the sticky questions we've tried to answer. Cohealth staff will talk about
their work and workshop areas for discussion.
Presenter Jane Torney; Program
Manager, Gender Equality and
Respect, Monash City Council
(Dining Room 2)
Presenters
Claire Varley; Whittlesea
Community Connections Project
Officer
Elizabeth Meade; Community
Safety Officer, City of Whittlesea
(Auditorium)
Presenter Monet Bucud; Project
Officer, CALD Family Violence
Engagement Project and the Young
Migrant Women Leadership
Training Project, Minerva
Community Services, Geelong
(Dining Room 1)
Presenter Dr Crystal Bruton; City of
Greater Dandenong
(Seminar Room 1)
Presenters Robin Gregory,
Program Manager, CoHealth
Meredith Budge and Shivani
Sharma, Project Officers, CoHealth
(Seminar Room 2)