Actions for the 48th Parliament of Australia
Support community legal centres’ contribution to changing community attitudes and behaviours surrounding domestic, family and sexual violence
Victim-survivors of domestic violence must be supported to live in safety, heal and recover. Addressing this crisis requires a comprehensive community-wide approach to change entrenched attitudes about gender-based and other forms of violence and to support and rehabilitate people who use violence.
Domestic, family and sexual violence is a crisis and addressing it requires a multi-pronged approach. This includes holistic, trauma-informed supports to keep victim-survivors safe, as well as work to change root causes of violent behaviour and attitudes and to support rehabilitation and behaviour change for people who have used violence.
Problem:
Government efforts to address domestic, family and sexual violence have rightly prioritised access to holistic, trauma-informed services for victim-survivors. However, programs that address the underlying drivers of violence and provide effective pathways for people who use violence to take responsibility and change, remain scarce, under-resourced, and short-term.
Community legal centres, working with trusted local partners, are already delivering innovative, place-based and preventative approaches such as community legal education and specialist programs for people who use violence. Funding for these programs remains piecemeal, limiting reach and long-term impact.
Caxton Legal Centre’s Court Plus for Men is a court-connected, early intervention program that improves safety for women and children by engaging directly with men who use violence, abuse and coercion within intimate, family or informal care relationships. It holds men accountable while addressing patterns of behaviour and co-occurring issues.
Integrated with domestic violence duty lawyer services, the program targets consenting men who have been recently confronted with legal processes requiring accountability for their behaviour. Participant men are incentivised to engage with case management over several months to reduce the risk of further violence. Program participants are challenged to reflect on harmful attitudes and beliefs, facilitated to identify their own goals towards changed behaviour, and connected with supports for issues like homelessness and mental health.
Peninsula Community Legal Centre’s “This Is Not Who I Want to Be” youth theatre project is a preventative community legal education program for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) high school students. The program increases legal literacy about family violence and forced marriage. The centre worked with expert individuals and organisations to develop the project when, through its work to support victims-survivors of family violence within CALD communities, it noticed some teenagers were already using or experiencing controlling behaviours and family violence.
Through interactive theatre, high school students receive information about their legal rights and responsibilities and how to access legal and other supports. More broadly, the project challenges attitudes that downplay or excuse violence by inviting students to connect with the characters in the story, and in doing so create longer-term attitudinal change.
With the success of the pilot, the project has been expanded, however the centre will need to subsidise the project to cover the cost of the production company and professional actors.
Solution:
Increase resourcing for community legal centres to deliver:
- Community-based preventative approaches including community legal education around identifying violence and unsafe relationships
- Case management programs for people who use violence, to support rehabilitation and accountability, and to reduce domestic, sexual and family violence.