Promoting Peace in Families Family Violence Partnership Project.

1
Promoting Peace in Families Family Violence
Partnership Project.

• By Trish Plompen Health Promotion
  PractitionerCardinia Casey Community Health
  Service.
• Southern Health
• Victoria, Australia

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Introduction

• Trish Plompen, Health Promotion Practitioner at
  Cardinia Casey Community Health Service,
  Victoria, Australia
• An overview of an innovative family violence
  prevention project titled Promoting Peace in
  Families
• Take you through the journey of the partnership
  development and maintenance that has occurred to
  date.

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What is Promoting Peace in Families?

• Three year nationally funded Community Crime
  Prevention Project.
• Aim to Educate and strengthen the capacity of
  diverse communities within the City of Casey to
  identify, prevent and respond to family
  violence.
• Lead agency City of Casey
• Partner agencies Cardinia Casey Community Health
  Service and Casey Pastors Network Inc.

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Casey Community Context

• Outer south east growth corridor of Victoria
  which represents one of Victorias
  fastest-growing municipalities.
• Currently, up to 50 families move in every week
  or, approximately 8,000 people each year.
• With growth/urban sprawl, comes limited
  infrastructure and high levels of isolation
  experienced by the community.

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Casey Community Context (cont)

• Across the Southern Metropolitan Region, Victoria
  Police have the highest number of call outs from
  the Outer South. Particularly high responses have
  been found in the Local Govt. Area Casey.
• Family Violence has been identified as a critical
  aspect of crime prevention and action in the City
  of Casey.
• Specifically, Cranbourne as it has the highest
  Family Violence notification rates in the
  municipality.

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Casey Community Context (cont)

• Cardinia Casey Community Health Service (CCCHS)
  has spent more than 15 years providing services
  for women who have experienced family violence.
• Also one of the earliest in the state to
  undertake Mens Behaviour Change programs.
• Recent years have shown a shift in management
  thinking to more of a health promotion
  /prevention approach given the increase in demand
  for services and a reduction in funds.

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Family Violence Context

• Domestic Violence is an abuse of power. It is
  the domination, coercion, intimidation and
  victimisation of one person by another by
  physical, sexual or emotional means within
  intimate relationships.
• Family violence is the leading contributor to
  death, disability and illness in Victorian women
  aged 15-44 years higher than those related to
  high blood pressure, smoking and obesity.

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Family Violence Context (cont)

• One in five Australian women report being
  subjected to family violence at some stage in
  their adult lives.
• One in four Victorian children have witnessed
  intimate partner violence
• Women are five times more likely to be killed by
  an intimate partner, than are men

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Family Violence Context (cont)

• Partner violence affects women in a range of ways
  including
• permanent disability
• major emotional trauma
• injury
• pain
• depression
• stress (sleep deprivation, impaired thinking,
  isolation)
• low self esteem
• self blame and
• inability to communicate with others.

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Partnership Establishment

• National tender with 4-6 weeks til applications
  closed.
• Key stakeholder meetings organised
• Genuine commitment to working in partnership was
  evident
• Discover that a second round of funding will be
  made available in approximately 6 months
• Decide as a group to not submit for this current
  round and undertake an extensive community
  consultation to fine tune our project idea and
  research best practice approaches to place us in
  a better position to submit for the following
  round.

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Community Consultation / Partnership Development

• Relationships strengthened.
• It also exposed the commitment and interest to
  the project.
• The submission writing process included 3 levels
  of consultation.
• They were

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Level 1. Working group

• Purpose of developing a consultative partnership
  to submit for funding.
• Representation included
• City of Casey
• Cardinia Casey Community Health Service
• Casey Pastors Network
• Victoria Police -Casey
• Salvation Army
• Consumers (women who have experienced family
  violence)

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Level 1. Working group (cont)

• As a working group we developed a consultation
  plan and identified local community groups to
  target.

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Level 2. Questionnaires/ Focus Groups

• Consumer group were consulted via questionnaire
  and focus groups
• 13 community groups were consulted
• This information formed a framework of aims and
  objectives for the project.

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Level 3. Submission Development Workshop

• Key agencies were represented as well as
  consumers
• Purpose to consolidate all the findings from
  community consultations and research conducted to
  develop the Project Concept, including Aim,
  Objectives and Strategies.
• The discussion focused on sustainable strategies
  that will infiltrate a large geographical area
  with limited infrastructure including transport,
  services and huge growth.

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Level 3. Submission Development Workshop (cont)

• Working in partnership with churches through
  Casey Pastors Network was viewed favourably
• Given that across churches, a lot of community
  infrastructure exists and building and
  strengthening this infrastructure would support
  the development of something sustainable.

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Level 3. Submission Development Workshop (cont)

• The City of Casey has a population of
  approximately 217,000, of which 20 (40,000)
  regularly attend churches.
• Casey Pastors Network is one of the strongest in
  Victoria, with churches representing diverse
  denominations which jointly conduct community
  activities and events, and work in partnership
  for the good of the community.
• The outcomes of this workshop formed the basis of
  the submission.

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Literature Search

• What did the evidence tell us?
• Our literature search which aimed To identify
  any existing community programs and resources
  that target family violence and interfaith
  communities found that
• There is a lack of documented programs with a
  focus on family violence and faith communities,
  the ones we did find were only abstracted and no
  evaluation was available.
• whilst some modern churches have accepted family
  violence as a serious issue, strategies are
  generally localised to individual churches.

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Literature Search

• Religion can be either a positive or a negative
  personal experience
• Either engendering shame and guilt or inspiring
  hope and empowerment.
• SO.
• The literature search confirmed that limited
  health promotion/prevention projects tackling the
  issue of Family Violence with Interfaith
  communities exists in accessible written format.

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VicHealth Partnership Analysis Tool

• VicHealth believes that partnerships are
  fundamental to capacity building in mental health
  promotion (VicHealth 2006).
• Used prior to commencement of the project.
• Benchmark for evaluation purposes
• Assessed partnership on the continuum ranging
  from
• networking
• co-ordinating
• cooperating to
• collaborating (VicHealth 2006).

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VicHealth Partnership Analysis Tool (cont)

• To ensure successful partnerships, a clear and
  similar purpose and benefits are required along
  with deliberate planning and observation.
• Hence, this project commenced the process of
  planning and observation to assess the position
  of their partnership on the continuum.

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VicHealth Partnership Analysis Tool (cont)

• The partners were asked to answer questions such
  as
• Why is the partnership necessary?
• What value is it trying to add to the project?
• What kind of partnerships currently exist?
• What are the fundamental requirements of an
  effective partnership?

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VicHealth Partnership Analysis Tool (cont)

• Overall results indicated that the partnership
  between all partners was strong representing
  collaboration thus significantly increasing the
  chances of undertaking an effective project.

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What does the project aim to achieve?

• Community Sustainability
• 4 churches have been identified for the pilot
  phase of the project as representative of diverse
  communities in the area.
• The lessons learnt will then be used to roll out
  the program to other faiths and Christian
  churches in Casey.
• The project will not create new structures but
  strengthen the existing ones.

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What does the project aim to achieve?

• Workforce development
• Using the existing networks of volunteers and
  support services provided by religious groups/
  churches we aim to educate, up skill and resource
  this volunteer workforce in relation to
  identifying, preventing and responding to family
  violence.

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What does the project aim to achieve?

• Organisational Development
• We will also investigate opportunities to
  incorporate relevant policies and procedures
  within religious infrastructures.
• Eg. Seventh Day Adventists Child Abuse Policy

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What does the project aim to achieve?

• Partnership Development
• Building partnerships and consulting the
  community prior to the project implementation has
  placed this exciting and innovative project in
  good stead to be successful and show positive
  outcomes.
• The dynamics of the partners will certainly be
  challenging and many lessons learnt

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What does the project aim to achieve?

• Rigorous Evaluation
• Will be undertaken by an external evaluator
  beginning in the planning stage of the project.

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Conclusion

• Working with Interfaith communities is an
  untapped area with limited documentation and
  evaluation.
• Promoting Peace in Families is truly innovative
  and groundbreaking and will add significantly to
  the national evidence base.

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Further Information

• Tracey Rodoni
• Program Manager
• City of Casey
• Ph. [phone]
• trodoni_at_casey.vic.gov.au
• Shakti McLaren
• Program Manager - Adults
• Cardinia Casey Community Health Service
• Ph. [phone]
• shakti.mclaren_at_southernhealth.org.au