mothra wrote on May 14
th, 2015 at 12:48am:
Back to the point at hand .. what do we collectively think are good strategies for dealing with family violence?
To my mind, it starts with education. We need to teach children in school what family violence is and what it means. That it is a crime and there are penalties. We need to provide children with more counsellors. I think children need to be modeled non-violent behaviour and that starts with parents finding better ways to discipline their children than smacking them. Use the giant brain we all have. Problem resolution through thought and action.
To some extent a lot of this is already happening.
Overall though, our Governments lack commitment and therefore underfund, they also lack insight, knowledge and it would seem, ultimately care...
Here is a link to one such school program
http://napcan.org.au/our-programs/love-bites/It is confronting, hard hitting, FACT based and informative. It also affords young people opportunity to speak up, speak out and explore their ideas about violence, relationships issues, consent etc....
The downside, it is almost totally reliant on various services, in effect, donating their staff time in order to present it. I have been part of presenting this in my region, however, cannot always do so because the funding of my program does not cover this specifically. As such, my service in effect, donates my time. It involves a wide range of industry professionals presenting.
mothra wrote on May 14
th, 2015 at 12:48am:
I think there need to be more support services that focus on early intervention and child support. When i eventually threw my abusive ex out, there was nowhere to take my kids. I eventually found help for my daughter through a women's support centre as she was a little older but my very young son had nothing.
Early Intervention is the new "buzz" word.... It is a great idea, and from what I have read and heard, Victoria actually almost gets it right. Sadly NSW has early intervention services, however, quite typically, the model is anything BUT early in the intervention and, often is more of a last resort before mandated action is taken. Again, the people are on the ground but often their hands are tied due to "funding models" that directly contradict the definition of the word early.
mothra wrote on May 14
th, 2015 at 12:48am:
We need to remove the stigma on family violence sufferers. Too many people still equate being on the receiving end of family violence with weakness, or naivety, or lack of will. This holds especially true for male sufferers. We need more education programs defining family violence as something we could all go through and there but for the grace of god go i ... and all that.
Absolutely. Of course, we also need to remove the stigma from the idea that working with perpetrators is a practical idea too.
However, in real terms, victims need empathy, support and safety - none of which we (society) seem to provide happily, freely or with any sense of necessity in the scale needed. That said, the services out there absolutely do the best they can with limited resources and ridiculous funding guidelines (often times).
mothra wrote on May 14
th, 2015 at 12:48am:
THere were excellent advertising campaigns run last year on family violence. They received some backlash because they did not include men or same sex unions in their message. We need to repeat them and include those missing into the message.
Once again, absolutely. We are dealing with people here so any exclusion equates to victim blaming.