Research Seminar DVDs
Title - COAG's National Plan discussed by The National Council to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children
Overview - This panel discussion is about the implementation of COAG's National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. It presents the views of seven of the eleven members of the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, which developed Time for Action, an evidence-based blueprint for the National Plan. The discussion highlights the vision of the National Council for a future free from violence against women, and its harmful effects on them and their children, and the necessity of communities working in partnership with governments toward reducing and preventing violence. A key message in this presentation is that communities and agencies working to end violence against women must get on board and hold consecutive governments accountable for actions if this national, 12-year plan is to succeed in achieving its goal. Specific strategies to achieve the National Council's vision, and the promise of COAG's National Plan, are discussed.
Members of the Council who took part in the panel discussion were National Council Chair, Libby Lloyd AM, Board member of the White Ribbon Foundation, ACT; Deputy Chair, Heather Nancarrow, Director, Qld. Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research; Melanie Heenan, program and research development consultant on preventing violence against women, Vic; Vanessa Swan, Director, Office for Women, SA; Pauline Woodbridge, Manager, North Queensland Domestic Violence Resource Service; Maria Dimopoulos, Legal Advisor, Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Centre, Vic; and Dorinda Cox, Manager, Cultural Security Program, North Metropolitan Area Health Service, WA. The panel discussion was facilitated by Amanda Lee-Ross, Manager, Cairns Regional Domestic Violence Service.
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Title - Women Seeking Safety: Victim's perspectives on justice and social service system responses to domestic violence
Presenter - Professor Jane Ursel, University of Manitoba, Canada
Overview - Professor Jane Ursel's presentation discusses early findings of a longitudinal study aimed at mapping the trajectories of change, and identifying facilitative and inhibitive factors in women's pursuit of freedom from intimate partner violence. The data for the study is drawn from interviews with 665 Canadian women, from 40 communities across 3 Provinces, who had experienced intimate partner violence. Seven waves of interviews were conducted over 4.5 years, with each woman being interviewed every six months about their experiences of services, parenting and their health as a result of their abuse history. The early findings include interesting comparisons among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadian women, including their perspectives on the criminal justice system.
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Title - Educating young people about ethical and respectful relationships
Presenter - Associate Professor Moira Carmody, Manager, Palmerston North Women’s Refuge, New Zealand
Overview - The prevention of intimate violence is a complex task. Education is one strategy of a multi-layered approach. This seminar explored the work that has been done by Assoc. Prof. Carmody with young people since the late 1990s, to find alternative ways to prevent sexual assault, pressured and coerced sex. She discusses the origins of the Sex+ Ethics Violence Prevention Education Program and the research that underpins its development, implementation and evaluation. The program outline is provided and the response to date of young people from Queensland, NSW and New Zealand.
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Title - Shame on Who? An exploration of the constitution of women’s shame within abusive intimate relationships
Presenter - Dr Ang Jury (PhD), Professor in Diversity, Policy and Practice (DPP) Research Program, University of Western Sydney - Centre for Educational Research
Overview - This seminar outlines the result of research conducted with a group of 25 women who had lived through abuse within their intimate relationships. The data were intended to elicit accounts of resilience but instead revealed stories saturated with emotion-talk, especially shame-talk. Examination of the concept of shame and analysis of the women’s stories through this conceptual lens led to the argument that women’s inability to ‘do’ motherhood or intimate partnership in line with dominant discourses of mothering and relationships opens them to the debilitating effects of shame. Shame, both actual and threatened, promotes silence, isolation and dangerous private spaces as women seek to protect themselves from its painful experience. It is argued that it is therefore crucial to promote the availability of discursive positioning for women living through abuse which offers non-shaming and realistic choices.
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Title - The interaction of family law and domestic violence and child protection laws and practices
Presenters
- Professor Rosalind Croucher, Australian Law Reform Commission
- Zoe Rathus, Senior lecturer in law, Griffith University
- Amanda Lee-Ross, Manager, Cairns Regional Domestic Violence Service
- Rachel Field, Senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology
Overview - This seminar presented a set of papers discussing issues relevant to an investigation into the interaction of family law and domestic violence and child protection laws and practices, and the implications for the safety and well-being of women and children. The seminar was prompted by the commonwealth Attorney-General’s announcement that the Australian Law Reform Commission, in conjunction with the new South Wales Law Reform commission, would conduct the investigation in response to Time for Action: the national Council’s Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (2009).
Seminar participants were able to hear the lead commissioner on the investigation (Professor Rosalind Croucher) as well as researchers and a practitioner speak on key issues to be addressed in the investigation.
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Title - Child to parent violence: Who, what & why?
Presenter - Eddie Gallagher, BA Psychology (Strathclyde), BSW (Melbourne), Dip App. Soc. Stud. (Leeds), MSW (Monash)
Overview - Anecdotal evidence suggests a recent rise in violence towards parents from children and young people. Although the behaviours involved often resemble other forms of family violence, conceptualizing this as family violence presents problems and existing services are often at a loss as to how to deal with these families. Melbourne psychologist, social worker and family therapist Eddie Gallagher has been working with these families for the past 15 years and has data on a clinical sample of 250. He has also reviewed the scant, but often contradictory, literature available on the topic. He sees two main types of families, in roughly equal numbers; those where there has been past domestic violence; and indulgent, caring parents with a temperamentally difficult child who dis-empowers his or her parents with a variety of abusive behaviours. He sees parenting as only one part of the puzzle and believes that automatic parent blaming, which reinforces parents’ guilt and confusion, makes these situations worse.
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Title - Breaches of domestic violence orders: the criminal justice process
Presenter - Associate Professor Heather Douglas, TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland
Overview - Scholars and activists have long campaigned for domestic violence to be recognised as criminal offending. Very low rates of criminal prosecution continue to be associated with domestic violence matters; one exception to this is the criminal prosecution of breaches of protection orders. In 2005, there were over 8000 breaches prosecuted in Queensland. This presentation draws on a study of criminal prosecutions of breaches in Queensland and explores the process of criminal intervention in the context of domestic violence. The research explored in this presentation demonstrates that the process involved in prosecuting a criminal breach often involves a minimisation of the harm inflicted on women by perpetrators, police and magistrates, a ruthless contest about the facts, numerous court appearances before resolution, and inappropriate sentences.
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