The HURT Project

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The HURT Project

• Nicole Leggett
• WCDFVS
• WACOSS Conference 2008

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Presentation Overview

• Community attitudes towards and knowledge about
  DFV in Australia
• HURT what it is
• Project development
• What it looks like
• DVD

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Domestic and Family Violence in Australia

• In Australia 1 in 5 adult women experience
  domestic and family violence (ABS, 2002)?
• 1 in 4 children grow up witnessing domestic abuse
  (Indermaur, 2001)?

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Significant consequences for health and wellbeing

• The United Nations State of Population Report
  (2005) said that in Australia domestic and family
  violence is the single greatest health risk to
  women
• It affects all aspects of health and wellbeing
• Pervasive and long-term
• In WA in the last 12 months 21 people were killed
  by an intimate partner or family member (WA
  Police, 2008)?

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Community/public awareness about domestic and
family violence

• In spite of the huge number of women, children
  and some men who experience domestic and family
  violence community awareness about the issue is
  surprisingly low
• Vic health results (2006) 20 of adult
  respondents had low understanding of DFV and
  different forms of abuse and also demonstrated
  violence supportive attitudes, high level of
  belief that women often falsify claims of DFV to
  obtain a tactical advantage
• Australian childhood foundation (2005)
  Australians significantly under-estimate the
  number of reported child abuse cases (22000 vs.
  200 000)?

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Is it important for the community to be aware of
the prevalence and effects of DFV?

• Barrier to disclosure
• Many victims fear that they wont be believed
• Have normalised/minimised their experience
  because they are not being publicly presented
  with contrary examples or attitudes
• Many victims arent believed when they disclose
  abuse
• Biased/prejudiced attitudes (e.g. victim
  blaming)?
• Young people more vulnerable to becoming involved
  in unhealthy relationships because we dont
  openly or frequently talk about domestic and
  family violence
• Does silence endorse DFV?

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The HURT Project

• Funded by Office for Women, Department of
  Families, Housing, Community Services and
  Indigenous Affairs
• HURT Aims to raise awareness about domestic and
  family violence by providing insight into the
  experience of domestic abuse from the
  incomparable perspective of those involved men,
  women and children
• Partnership project between WCDFVS and WBMC

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The HURT Project What is it?

• Interactive website (a training DVD will also be
  produced)?
• Modelled as a house
• Different personas men, women and young adults
  reflecting on their experiences as children
• Journey through the house as a character ? links
  to re-created interview that provide insight to
  that particular characters experience of domestic
  and family violence

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Where did the characters/stories come from?

• The house itself and all of the characters and
  stories represented in the house are based on
  real peoples stories
• Between October and February we conducted 58
  interviews with people around the state
• 47 women
• 8 child support workers
• 3 men (we are still recruiting though this is
  proving to be a much harder population to
  access)?
• And also conducted extensive consultation with
  the domestic violence sector to seek information
  and advice about what the house should look like,
  information the website contains, and
  issues/events that are important to portray
  within peoples stories

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Where did the characters/stories come from?

• To preserve participants privacy and anonymity
  the stories were blended together so that no-one
  particular persons story could be identified in a
  HURT character
• Once the stories were blended and characters had
  been created we worked with a writer to create
  scripts to guide actors through filming the
  re-created interviews

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Characters created

• 8 adult women
• Marla Indigenous woman regional, mid 30s
• Selena Indigenous woman remote community, 40s
• Jean white, urban, 50s
• Jenny white, urban student, 20s
• Lynette, white, urban, upper/mid SES, 40s
• Vicki, white, regional, physio
• Zana, CaLD, urban, migrant, 30s
• Sharin, CaLD, urban, migrant, 20s

• 5 young people (teenagers/young adults reflecting
  on their experience as children)?
• 6 adult men
• In all groups there will be a mix of SES
  professions and cultural backgrounds

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What will it look like? Front page
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What will it look like?
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What will it look like?
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What will it look like?
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What it will look like?

• The house will in fact look more digital and
  like a video game you will be able to navigate
  through the rooms e.g. virtual tour
• However the people will remain real looking as
  they will be imbedded within the website as video
  clips

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Kitchen
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Kids bedroom
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Main bedroom
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Other rooms represented

• Study
• Lounge room
• Dining table
• Laundry
• Toilet
• Bathroom
• Front and back yard

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The stories told within

• The stories represented within HURT have not been
  embellished or sensationalised in any way
• To give you an idea of what the video grabs and
  stories will be like I have a brief DVD for you
  to watch
• Developed as a promo for the funding body
• These stories and actors will not be in the final
  product

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Completion date

• HURT will be launched in mid July
• Copies of the DVD will be sent out to all DV
  service providers in WA
• We hope to also have a public launch on WRD in
  November so as to maximise the websites exposure
  to the general public

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• ANY QUESTIONS?