Women’s Health in the House
The Women’s Health Services came together for a pre-election event at the Windsor Hotel on 13 September to showcase the value and work of the WHS to parliamentarians and key stakeholders. Key outcomes included:
- Keynote was provided by the Victorian Minister for Health demonstrating the Labour Government’s support for WHS
- The attendance included representatives from the ALP, Liberal and National Parties and the Greens
- WHS last 30 years of history was showcased in video
- WHS were able to showcase some of their current activities through poster displays
- A leave behind was created of our key priorities which will form the basis of our advocacy moving forward to sustain our boosted funding beyond 2024
Gender and Skills
WHISE has invested time and support to advocate for and contribute to discussions to ensure that both national and state skills and labour policy is equitable.
In March 2022 our CEO Kit McMahon presented and was part of a panel discussion at the National Apprenticeship and Employment Network Conference in Hobart, Tasmania.
Having equitable skills and labour policies is vital for our community and especially for women in our community. Research shows that there is a higher opportunity cost for women to upskill themselves, and without higher skills, their risks to safe home, safe work, quality work and living wages for quality of life is negatively impacted.
Translating Policy into Advocacy and Change
WHISE ran a series of workshops to increase the team’s understanding of the link between policy and advocacy.
The first workshop provided an overview of key policy and advocacy concepts and principles, and an activity enabled the team to identify a mission, what their aim and key ask would be, the stakeholders that should be involved based on their power influence, and the advocacy methods and approach that they would use. The second workshop presented an opportunity for teams to develop their own policy and advocacy plans.
Through this activity, the team discussed key topics that they were advocating to change or sustain a policy for and the advocacy approaches that have been used or could be used. These were saved in a master list of overarching key themes and messages which will inform the development of “key calls” for each portfolio at WHISE – i.e., gender equality, prevention of violence against women, sexual and reproductive health, and gender and mental wellbeing. The list of key calls will represent WHISE’s stance on key issues for policy and advocacy.