In partnership with Chisholm TAFE and the Southern Metropolitan Integrated Family Violence Partnership, WHISE collaborated to host a one-day conference on incorporating lived experience of family violence into the Family Violence Sector.
The conference was held at Chisholm’s Frankston Campus on 18 October, with around 140 participants registering for the day. The conference focused on valuing the lived and living experience of family violence across the Family Violence (FV) sector (primary prevention to response and recovery) in the Southern Metropolitan Region (SMR) of Melbourne.
It sought to:
- Recognise that lived experience of FV is already in the FV workforce.
- Understand that the presence of lived experience of FV brings richness to the sector's work and enables the sector to improve services to communities to meet their needs.
- Focus on how lived experience and expertise of FV can be recognised, integrated, and supported to help the FV sector to retain and grow the workforce.
- Provide opportunities for the FV sector in the SMR to discuss and consider the challenges to agencies to support lived experience respectfully.
The conference was a space to put the Victorian reforms to the FV sector from the implementation of the Royal Commission recommendations and work in the FV sector into practice, and to encourage organisations and practitioners in the SMR to centre lived experience.
The day was a huge success with many outcomes and follow up actions including one for WHISE which will see our Promoting Respect and Equality Together (PRET) Primary Prevention of Violence against Women Strategy, seek to develop a framework for incorporating lived experience into our primary prevention work.