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Archives > Fall 1995 articles
Myths, Magic and Ownership in Australian Family Violence
Practice
Prue Atkins, Manager
Sutherland Community Resource Centre
In July and August of this year I was fortunate enough to
visit Canada and the United States to attend an international
conference on Family Violence Research (New Hampshire) and
to meet up with service providers and researchers (in Vancouver,
Boston and Seattle). Like many Antipodeans I have a tendency
to believe that what is happening in North America is more
likely to be at the "cutting edge"! What struck me, however,
during this brief visit was the similarities in current issues
and debates, particularly in what I saw of the British Columbia
context. These similarities could be briefly summarized as:
- segmentation and territorialism across the service system
- a competition for resources which hampers development
of innovative, integrated and preventative approaches to
family violence
- a legislative reality which often lags behind what practice
demands
I did not, however, leave disheartened. On the contrary,
I saw some fantastic programs, some truly inspiring service
providers and a sense of optimism that whilst these debates
are exhausting, out of them comes some real magic if people
are able to share their knowledge and not declare ownership.
Australia is about to hold its first National Conference
on Children and Domestic Violence (Adelaide, 30 November -
1st December 1995). This is cause for celebration for the
family violence field, providing an opportunity for people
to share their ideas about intervention programs, education
and prevention, research, legislative issues, policy making
and future directions, including the development of national
networks. It will be a rare opportunity for service systems,
(child focussed and women focussed) to come together and challenge
ourselves to develop more integrated and empowering models
of work.
Other signs of positive change are recent amendments to
Australia's Family Law Act, including requirements that family
violence be considered in the process of the Family Court
determining what is in a child's best interest. In addition,
the Commonwealth Attorney-General announced this week (September
1995) an Inquiry into Children and the Legal Process, which
is mandated to consider issues of Family Law, children in
care and protection, children as witnesses and as victims
of crime.
The Federal Government's Justice Statement (May 1995) included
the provision of new resources to develop pilot programs to
address family violence prevention strategies in relationship
counselling services and to provide facilitated handover and/or
visiting services. These initiatives during a time of economic
restraint are evidence of a change in view of the importance
of family violence as a political issue.
At a local level our agency, Sutherland Community Resource
Centre, is continuing to review and develop our models of
practice. The agency is located in the Northern metropolitan
area of Melbourne. The introduction several years ago of a
Youth and Family Mediation Service and Domestic Violence Outreach
into this multi-service, community based, family support agency
provided a unique opportunity to bring together two fields
of practice that have common aims (i.e.: prevention of further
violence through empowering family members) but disparate
histories, politics, models and strategies.
The current work undertaken in our agency entails counselling,
groupwork, crisis outreach, family therapy, community education,
and development and advocacy. Service users include young
children, women, adolescents and family groups where the violence
perpetrated has included adult to adult, adult to child, and
young person to adult.
A detailed outline of our model is not possible in this
article. However, if you are interested in finding out more
about our work I would be happy to forward copies of my paper
presented at the Family Violence Research Conference, "Making
the links - Working to connect the issues for children, adolescents
and non-offending parents in situations of family violence".
Briefly the principles underlying Worker Practice in our
agency involve:
- Awareness of the impact of structural barriers to change
(gender, ethnicity and class).
- A determination not to abuse power by declaring exclusive
ownership of knowledge and practice wisdom.
- Recognition of both the rights and responsibilities of
service users.
- Awareness of and preparedness to challenge the myths held
by ourselves and others surrounding idealization of family
life and motherhood.
- Acknowledgment of family violence as multi-dimensional,
recognizing the contradictory and enriching offerings in
structural, interpersonal and narrative theories.
- Seeing women and children's behaviour in the context of
the family violence experience and avoiding temptations
to blame and pathologise.
- Willingness to validate and take on board the dreams and
hopes of service users even when they contradict our own.
- Obligation to take a stand where violence exists for service
users and work with those experiencing the violence to access
their legal entitlement to protection, reinforcing the view
that the decision to be violent is the sole responsibility
of the perpetrator.
In closing, I would like to briefly mention our new project
for women and children called "Shaping a New Future". This
year we were funded by our state government to develop a pilot
group work model for children traumatized by the witnessing
of violence towards their mothers. This project provided us
with a fantastic opportunity to build on a decade of groupwork
for women and to provide alternative and complimentary programs
to our individual and family counselling efforts.
The project has grown like topsy with the development of
a reference group with representation from women's refuges,
family support agencies, a men's treatment program, community
health, along with staff from our own services. We successfully
submitted to a trust fund for the resourcing of a researcher
to evaluate the groups, articulate model development, and
to develop a parent resource kit and community education package.
We will be using a sibling group approach with a concurrent
parent group for the women and a joint group time which will
also focus on having fun together.
With a first group about to start we are excited about the
stories that will be shared and the knowledge that will be
developed. I would be interested to hear from anyone running
similar groups, particularly around evaluation strategies.
I am also happy to provide further details and/or information
on other contact points in Australia. Please write to me at:
Sutherland Community Resource Centre
258 Nell Street West
Watsonia 3087
Melbourne, Victoria
AUSTRALIA
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