PRET Partnership

The Promoting Respect and Equity Together (PRET) Regional Strategy consists of over thirty organisations who learn and collaborate to prevent gender-based violence across the SMR. The strategy is based on the principles of intersectional feminism, centring lived experience, Aboriginal self-determination, engaging men and boys and accountability for the use of violence. We aim to listen, learn, continually improve, to be values and strengths based in our language and approach.

Achievements

Over the year 2023-2024 the Prevention of Violence Against Women portfolio achieved a considerable amount, particularly due to WHISE’s increased capacity to engage a Health Promotion Officer as well as a PVAW Lead.

The PRET partnership continued to grow and learn together through bi-monthly network meetings which showcased the primary prevention of gender-based violence work across the region. The partners invited new organisations to join, including South-East Monash Legal Service (SMLS), the Dhelk Dja Southern Metropolitan Action Group chair, Peninsula Community Legal Centre (PCLC), Uniting Family Services, Anglicare Victoria and Community First Responders.

Learning Forums

  • Gender Equality & Respectful Relationships in the Early years’ webinar in April 2024. There was a clear increase of confidence to apply the Respectful Relationships model in early learning settings, with more than half of respondents selecting confident to very confident (52%). There was a clear increase in confidence to apply knowledge of primary prevention of violence against women in their work with an overall 23% increase in confident and very confident ratings.
  • Focusing on Perpetration webinar - April 2024
    The webinar successfully improved understanding of what perpetration of gender-based violence means, why we need to frame prevention of violence against women statistics around perpetration and not just victims, and how to engage with this new body of knowledge.
  • Embedding Lived Experience Forum – the PRET partners delivered a Lived Experience Forum in July 2023 with lived experience advocate Nina Storey, Engagement Lead at VMIAC Chantelle Higgs, Acting CEO SHARC Nicole Thompson, and Lived Experience Educator Morgan Cataldo, hosted by Lula Dembele to learn about how practitioners from the mental health, alcohol and other drugs and youth sectors had successfully embedded lived experience in their own work.
Respect and Equity in the early years (4)
Focusing on perpetration (8)
Lived Experience Panel

Lived Experience in Primary Prevention Work

Following the success of Aligning the Personal with the Professional Conference in October 2022, WHISE continued to build on the learning about and interest in, centring the lived experience in primary prevention work.  

The goal of the panel was to highlight different ways that lived experience is incorporated into work, and the ways that different sectors respect and centre lived experience. After the panel, participants worked through a series of breakout rooms to provide feedback and input into a potential framework for centring lived experience in the work to prevent gendered based violence. This feedback will be collated together and presented to WHISE partners for comment. 

The project commenced with an online forum held on the 26 July which sought to explore the ways in which lived experience has been successfully implemented within organisations and specific projects, identify the key components, and discuss the ways in which we can apply these components to the primary prevention sector. 105 participants registered.  

The forum was structured around a panel of leaders and experts in the space of lived experience including:  

  • Lula Dembele - Director of Lived Expertise and Advocacy for the Illawarra Women’s Health Centre – Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre Project  
  • Nina Storey – Lived Experience Expert in WHISE Women’s project
  • Chantelle Higgs - Engagement Lead - The Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council
  • Nicole Thompson - Manager Residential Peer Programs Self Help Addiction Resource Centre (SHARC)
  • Morgan Cataldo - Senior Manager Youth Engagement - Berry Street Victoria