"Breaking the Silence: Understanding the Connection between Disability, Sexuality and Violence - Strategies for Prevention, Intervention and Empowerment," confronts the distressing prevalence of violence against people with disability in Australia. The Royal Commission's final report into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of people with disability reveals that over 1 in 2 (55%) of these 4.4 million Australia’s have experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15 (2023).

As we delve into this critical issue, it becomes evident that individuals with disability face unique barriers that heighten their vulnerability to violence. This presentation will explore the societal ableism and systemic biases that contribute to this vulnerability. By shining a light on these systemic factors, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the urgent need for policy changes to safeguard individuals with disability. Particularly, a review of the DVSAT and the expansion of coercive control laws to identify and support people with disability when their paid or unpaid carer is the perpetrator. This approach aims to mitigate the underlying dynamics and power imbalances that perpetuate violence, and advocate for legal protections that ensure safety, autonomy, and dignity for all individuals, regardless of disability or communication needs.

At the heart of this presentation is Amanda Damian, a lived experience advocate and clinician with a wealth of experience working with people with disability. Her expertise lends credibility and depth to the discussion, providing attendees with invaluable perspectives on this complex issue.

Finally, attendees will be introduced to groundbreaking findings from Love Rights, a pioneering 2-year early intervention project funded by the NSW Department of Communities and Justice. These findings not only underscore the urgency of addressing this issue but also equip attendees with proven actionable strategies and insights to STOP violence against people with disability.

Mission Australia Intensive Family Support Service (MA IFS) DFV Practice Framework is underpinned by the pillars of the Safe and Together Model, whereby the Service partners with the non-offending parents whilst also ensuring that parents who are using violence are accountable.

Support is needed for both parents, to create safety for the children and give opportunity for the best outcomes for healing and wellbeing.

Utilising a framework of non-judgement, strengths based and reflection on what type of parent they would like to be for their children, this in turn then lays a foundation to approach the person using violence. This allows them time and space to recognise different methods of parenting that might match with their image of what type of parent they want to be for their children and subsequently make changes to their behaviour.

MA IFS aims to create a space of shared values to be able to support the wellbeing of families that have experienced violence. When MA IFS are successful in creating the space, this in turn creates safety for children and reduces the risk of families entering or re-entering Statutory Child Protection Systems.

DFV is becoming a core business of our program whereby approximately 90% of the families that are working with MA IFS have a story of DFV. Even where there isn't current direct occurrence of DFV within the household, current and ongoing impacts of DFV and DFV related traumas continue to exist, and this needs to be supported.

ACON’s survivor group is an 8-week group program for any LGBTQ+ person who has experienced, or is currently experiencing, intimate partner, family, and/or sexual violence. It is the only group of its kind in NSW, offering an important space for LGBTQ+ people of all genders to get support after an experience of violence in a safe and affirming group. This project is integral to support the healing and recovery process of survivors of violence in our communities. We will be outlining the gap in practice in regard to LGBTQ+ support groups for victim-survivors of violence (in person and online). The main outcomes have been vastly improved quality of life for survivors of violence.
Evidence shows us that LGBTQ+ survivors need community and connection to understand and integrate their experience of abuse, which is often minimised or completely dismissed, even within community or by themselves.
LGBTQ+ survivor groups play a crucial role in addressing the unique needs and challenges faced by survivors of violence, discrimination, and trauma within the LGBTQ+ community.
We have received overwhelming interest and support from external stakeholders to see this project and projects like it to continue across all of Australia. This interest demonstrates the widespread recognition of the importance of LGBTQ+ survivor groups and the need for comprehensive support within the LGBTQ community.

The Changing the landscape Project is a partnership between Our Watch and Women with Disabilities. Through funding received from the Commonwealth Government, this project translated Changing the Landscape, the national evidence-based framework for preventing violence against women and girls with disabilities, into a set of resources for governments, policymakers, primary prevention practitioners and disability service professionals.

This presentation showcases the suite of resources developed by Our Watch and Women with Disabilities Victoria, with the expert advice of a Project Advisory Group.

It provides an overview of the Framework for Action, a resource designed to support governments and policymakers in preventing violence against women and girls with disabilities. Developed in consultation with Commonwealth and state and territory governments, non-government organisations and the Project Advisory Group, the Framework recognises the responsibility of governments in leading and enabling change. It outlines short, medium, and long-term actions across policy, legislative, and institutional reforms and includes principles and implementation guidance and support.

This presentation also platforms the suite of Practice Resources for primary prevention practitioners and disability service professionals, co-designed with input from target audiences and the Project Advisory Group. These resources translate the essential actions and prevention principles from Changing the landscape into accessible formats, providing insights from lived experiences to enhance understanding of women with disabilities as experts in their own lives and advocates for change.

During the Disability Royal Commission Public Hearings, the Australian public learned of crucial, but often confronting stories shared from people with disabilities about their experiences of violence, neglect and abuse. For women with disabilities, violence is more common across the lifespan, in more places, from more perpetrators. However, this violence is not inevitable, and is preventable. This project illustrates the power of partnership to bring the expertise of women with disabilities into action, centering lived experience.

The innovative Family Domestic Violence (FDV) Hub model presents a comprehensive approach to addressing the complex needs of victim-survivors of domestic violence. By centralising integrated and specialised services, the FDV Hub endeavours to streamline access to support while alleviating the burden of retelling traumatic experiences. By offering an integrated and holistic approach to service delivery, the FDV Hub model aims to serve as a beacon of hope for those affected by domestic violence, empowering them to rebuild their lives and thrive in safety and dignity.
The FDV Hub model integrates a separate service off-site providing a range of services for people who choose to use violence and abuse. The service engages adults using violence with keeping the person visible. The service provides individual and group behaviour change programs, individual counselling, proactive outreach with information and a referral pathway.
A key feature of the FDV Hub is its governance model, meticulously designed to facilitate effective oversight and coordination of services. This governance structure not only ensures accountability but also fosters collaboration among partners, promoting synergy and maximizing the impact of interventions.
At the heart of this model lies an alliance partnership framework, which leverages the collective expertise and resources of various stakeholders. Through strategic collaboration with community partners, the FDV Hub assembles a diverse array of service providers, ensuring that victim-survivors have access to a broad spectrum of support options tailored to their unique circumstances. This model is built upon an alliance partnership framework, employing an ecosystem of community collaborations to assemble a diverse array of service providers.

There is an increasing understanding that LGBTQA+ people experience domestic and family violence, including intimate partner violence, at a similar or higher rate than the general population. Despite this, there has been a lag in the implementation of research, policy and practice to support members of the LGBTQA+ community impacted by DFV, leading to compounding experiences of marginalisation for LGBTQA+ survivors and a paucity of appropriate referral pathways for LGBTQA+ people using violence. There has been particularly limited research into understanding the phenomenology of intimate partner violence occurring in same-sex relationships between women, and how the needs and help-seeking considerations for this group differ from the broader population.

In this presentation I intend to examine the current state of the literature of women who have experienced or used intimate partner violence in the context of a relationship with another woman. This scoping review highlights the gaps in the literature indicating the need for further study. I will then present my proposal for further research that will address the literature gaps to inform recommendations for policy and practice to better support this under-served cohort.

Rural areas are diverse and have significant differences in industry, opportunity, and cultural expectations. However, social policy intervention is often focused on such areas as homogeneous communities.

Understanding the variable impacts of culture and place is critical in understanding the drivers of gendered violence in rural areas, where statistics frequently trend higher than state and national averages.

Focusing on the Wimmera Southern Mallee region of north-west Victoria, this research examines the interaction between rurality, and cultural and structural barriers to addressing gendered violence in a place-based context utilising the Community Readiness Model (CRM).

To achieve this, five key respondents who are well connected with subsets of the community were interviewed, and then scored by the interviewers as per the CRM.

Early findings suggest the broader community still struggles to connect the causes of gendered violence with cultural and structural gender inequity, including the limited job opportunities in the Wimmera Southern Mallee, where the main industry is agriculture, and there is higher emphasis on traditional gender roles.

The community also struggles to identify subtler forms of gendered violence and recognise that it is happening in their own ‘backyards.’ These struggles suggest that interventions need to place greater focus on improving community awareness and education to be effective.

This presentation will be based on the paper from this research and will discuss the challenges and opportunities that respondents identified in their community and why gendered violence initiatives need to consider place as a relevant consideration to a population’s vulnerability.

The work forms part of a larger study that examines the intersection between community readiness, cultural barriers, and rurality, focusing on the relevance of place in both primary and secondary prevention.

Sanctuary is the only supported crisis accommodation model of its kind in Victoria, providing independent living as well as shared spaces which offer opportunities for social connection among residents including children. Sanctuary addresses a critical gap in the service system for people escaping domestic and family violence.
Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre (Safe Steps) engaged Urbis to conduct an evaluation of the 12-month pilot. The purpose of the evaluation was to assess the impact and viability of the Sanctuary service delivery model, including an economic assessment and an assessment of the outcomes achieved for residents. Findings from the evaluation will support evidence-based planning for future growth and expansion.

The evaluation draws on a review and analysis of program documentation, de-identified resident data, Specialist Homelessness Information Platform (SHIP) data, de-identified refuge data, two resident survey results at exit and post Sanctuary, consultations with key stakeholders from Safe Steps, partner organisations and refuges, and cost data.

This presentation will present key findings including outcomes for residents staying at Sanctuary, insights into their longer term outcomes, and the extent to which this model financially stacks up against alternative accommodation such as motels. As the first of its kind model that brings together intensive wraparound services in a supported crisis accommodation setting, this evaluation has important implications for promoting the safety and recovery of women and children escaping family violence.

In this presentation we will outline what the service is and how it benefits DV survivors as well as the advocates who provide them with care.

The program has been running for 2 years in New Zealand and, thanks to attending the STOP Domestic Violence conference in 2023, will reach its 12th month in Australia this November.


In this time, we have seen very encouraging, quantitative and qualitative data in terms of prevention and early intervention for not only DV survivors but for workers who visit them offsite as well. This includes a significant reduction in re-victimisation rates, a feeling of empowerment and peace of mind, increased opting-in for survivors and increased offsite visits by advocates.

Delivering this service required extensive collaboration between private funders, technology providers, advocate groups as well as community groups such as local schools, social services and police. Therefore, we feel sharing these insights and case studies really feeds into the conference them of bridging silos to build change.

These case studies also highlight some practical strategies for creating lasting and positive effects for individuals and families, sector workers and mental health professionals within this sector.

We look forward to sharing this story with everyone, 1-year on since we first exhibited in Hobart.

In response to the urgent need for targeted interventions addressing domestic and family violence offences among adolescents in the Illawarra region of NSW, ACSO has successfully piloted an innovative mentoring program, Boost. Boost is for young people aged 14 -17 who have breached or are at risk of breaching an AVO. The program was developed in close partnership with NSW Police, NSW Youth Justice, and the University of Wollongong and offers a promising solution to address the root causes of violent behaviours. However, with the current pilot program concluded in August 2023, the future of Boost hangs in the balance with future funding unconfirmed.
The pilot was evaluated by For-Purpose Evaluations with interesting results, that are worth sharing with the sector. The presentation will step through the successes and challenges of developing, delivering, and evaluating the Boost program. Including reflections on;
- The application of the Meaningful Evaluation approach used to determine the value and effectiveness of a relational-based mentoring program in terms of violent offending and sustaining short term outcomes into the future.
- The value of establishing formal partnership agreements and MOUs with government stakeholders.
- The success of a local community coming together to make the program work
- The challenges of the model being voluntary with limited engagement with families
- The success of a relationship based mentoring model
- The encouraging results with regards to the participants’ wellbeing
- The challenge of extracting data for evaluation

For 8 hours, Monday to Friday, thousands of young Australians are sitting in classrooms across the country. School is crucial for growth and development, and for boys, it's a chance to formulate their idea of what it means to be a man. Post-graduation, however, harrowing statistics show that 18-30 year old men are most likely to perpetrate at least one form of intimate partner violence (IPV), which is exacerbated significantly if they have strong agreements with traditional ideologies of masculinity. There is an obvious need for a more proactive approach to the prevention of IPV; one that addresses antiquated stereotypes of masculinity, and schools exist as a unique environment to deliver these approaches.

The Man Cave (TMC) is a preventative mental health charity for teenage boys that delivers full-day, experiential workshops that challenge problematic gender stereotypes and provide participants the opportunity to practise healthier masculinity principles. Since 2014, TMC has worked with 70,000 boys and has been institutionally recognised for their ability to improve knowledge and attitudes about aggression and violence. At the beginning of 2024, TMC began capturing insights into boys' attitudes towards their female friends, and their knowledge and self-efficacy to being an effective bystander.

This presentation will unpack the profound influence that positive male role models play in young boys' lives, particularly in the context of respecting young girls, displaying active bystander behaviours, as well as their general wellbeing. Audience members will experience the pedagogical approach that TMC’s facilitators use to role-model healthier expressions of masculinity; an approach that 87% of our participants believe is what a healthy man looks like. Viewers will not only hear from me, but also the voices of young boys themselves as if they are in the room too, because we know that you can’t be what you can’t see.

Aim

This transformative program aims to empower mothers, with essential tools to break the cycle of violence for themselves & their children. Recognising the profound impact of domestic abuse on survivors' sense of self & parenting dynamics, this initiative promotes self-care & rebuilding self-concept.

Method

The program equips mothers with therapeutic parenting skills, emphasising a trauma-informed approach to nurturing children who have experienced domestic abuse. By providing an understanding of trauma's effects & implementing trauma-responsive parenting techniques, participants are empowered to create environments conducive to children's healing & growth.

The program, developed & facilitated by a lived expert, combines intervention & prevention strategies to address the long-term effects of domestic abuse. Real-life stories & brain science reinforce teachings. Content includes practical skills of crisis-survival, emotion-regulation. Each session is concluded with therapeutic art activities which aids in processing & integrating the learned content.

Following the Broken to Brilliant “pay it forward” model, participants are linked with a network of survivors who can offer continuous support & guidance, subsequently presenting them with the chance to become sources of support for others.

Results

We use pre/post 10-point scales & qualitative reflections to track changes in participants' self-perception, parenting skills, and connections with self, children, & others, as well as their knowledge & skills. We will share the results of these evaluations.

Conclusion

By filling a crucial gap in post-crisis support, this program contributes to the objectives outlined in the National Plan to End Violence against Women & Children by promoting recovery & healing beyond the crisis phase. By empowering mothers & children, this initiative aims to reduce the devastating long-term effects of domestic abuse on individuals, families, & society.

1966 in Sydney, as a 19 year old falling in love, there was little awareness of domestic violence. It was a married couple having a "blue" and was to be ignored. It was physical and verbally loud. With the expectation that a woman had to be married by 23, the model for forming a relationship was dependent upon her experience as a child of a married couple, and hope that her suitor would not be afraid to commit to marriage. Marriage was very traditional and misogynistic. The vague stirrings of the second wave of feminism had not reached the southern suburbs.
By 2010, the concepts had begun to change. Gradually domestic violence was redefined and in 2024 legislation exists so that coercive control, rape in marriage, and affirmative consent are informing the community's knowledge. Yet as we are more able to define what intimate partner abuse comprises, more women are being murdered by their partners or ex-partners.
In parenting classes in the nineteen eighties, the concept of not paying attention to the child's negative behaviour but encouraging their positive behaviour was a key element in Systematic Training for Effective Parenting. "Stop it at the Start" ads are a great step in the right direction. However, for every woman murdered, tens of thousands have endured another episode of Intimate Partner abuse, and many without even being able to recognise it. The negative language sets off many defensive structures within an abused person, blocking their being able to identify the situation they are in. It is only through describing what a healthy relationship looks like can they examine their reality. The behaviours have been labelled so people could identify them, now we need to frame what is required positively so we can move past the psychological blocks to disclosure and safety.

Adult Intimate partner relationships are often formed on the basis of childhood patterns. When intimate partner abuse occurs, it is not always obvious how this was modelled in childhood as normal, as there may be many factors that created a pattern that allowed an abuser to groom their partner to accept abuse, beyond the obvious factor of physical violence. A person raised with overt acts of violence or adverse childhood experiences can more easily trace the development of the relationship from parental behaviour to intimate partner than one whose childhood appeared more benign. Through examining how a child is afforded spiritual, financial, physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, verbal and social respect as another human being within the family of origin, contrasted to where there was a lack of respect, the negative self-beliefs that the child formed can be identified and tracked into the formation of the abusive intimate partner relationship.
Understanding what the deficits are, what needs and negative self-beliefs formed, assists the person to identify how the abuser also showed the same lack of respect as the parents. paving the way for the toxic relationship to flourish and appear normal.
By examining how a person parents their own children to create a more positive respectful experience, the abused person more easily identifies the abuse inherent in those acts that have been weaponised. For instance a child may expect a level of communication that lacks frequency and quality within the family of origin and the abuser uses silence or its threat as a means of control. We will compare each of the areas within childhood to adulthood and mark how a respectful adult partner would behave. Carolyn will use her own lived experience as a template.

This presentation will provide an overview of current risk management and safety planning approaches prevalent in the ACT and Australia and will explore some preventive safety planning approaches that were tested with domestic and family violence survivors in the ACT, through an action research pilot.
Background/Rationale:
It is well established that comprehensive risk assessments and risk management are critical aspects of supporting Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) victims and keeping them safe.
Contemporary academic and practice literature, research and the experience of front-line service professionals, demonstrates comprehensive understanding of the importance of undertaking risk assessments. However, a significant gap exists in comprehensive understandings of how to manage that risk.
When it comes to risk management and safety planning, current approaches are often more focused on incident management and safety tips, and do not respond to complicated practical safety concerns that clients experience in various stages of their lives. With a focus on incident-based safety plans and tips, gaps in a prevention focussed safety management approaches occur, where the focus is on reducing the frequency or level of violence victims/survivors, or their children are exposed to.
These approaches, though very important in minimizing the impact of violence when an incident happens, leave a gap in preventative steps which should focus on preventing the frequency of exposure to violence.
YWCA Domestic Violence Support Service will present the findings of an action research pilot where DFV survivors provided input on the new proposed preventative framework in safety management.
The preventative safety planning focused on formulating goals of safety planning and provides a realistic picture of what can be managed and those risks that cannot be reasonably managed. Hence, even though the safety plan worked on expanding the scope to be more than managing/preventing an incident, the limitations were clearly identified.

Universities are situated in the unique position where they can deliver gender-based violence prevention initiatives to a large and diverse community of students and staff, with experts in the field readily available. The University of Queensland informs initiatives with best practice, however as with most higher education institutions, a number of issues arise when applying these ideals to reach and engage a cohort of around 62 000 people, of all ages, across domestic and international locations. Recently, at UQ we completely re-developed our ‘Respect at UQ’ e-learning module and made it mandatory for all students to complete. This module unpacks consent, the drivers of gender-based violence, intersectionality, digital violence, how to be an ethical bystander and how to support someone who discloses an experience of gender-based violence.

This process posed many challenges and provided us with learnings which we will unpack with the audience during our presentation. We will discuss the tumultuous research base for the efficacy of e-learning modules, and how we integrated gender-based violence research with learning development theory to ensure learning outcomes were met. Furthermore, we will unpack what we did to embed trauma-informed practice throughout each stage of module development, and the importance of having targeted content to engage specific audiences (student populations, culturally and linguistically diverse students and LGBTQIA+ communities) and how this is fostered through broad consultation. Finally, we will discuss current approaches to gender-based violence prevention, and how a broad integration of research and topics creates more feasible interventions which garner greater engagement and support from stakeholders.

We will provide audience members opportunities to engage with broader reflective and reflexive questions such as ‘Do you think there is still a place for online modules as a form of gender-based violence prevention?’. We will utilise various forms of multimedia engagement and visual aids.

Centrecare offers extensive outreach and specialised counselling services, both in the metropolitan and regional areas of Western Australia and currently provides more than 65 services, delivered from 10 branches.

Integral to Centrecare’s suite of Family and Domestic Violence programs is its Men's Behaviour Change (MBC) programs. Following a successful 12-month grant which was awarded during the Covid-19 pandemic, Centrecare was awarded a longer-term contract from the Department of Communities to deliver Make a Change (MAC) in the Perth metropolitan area which provides a holistic, flexible, and responsive Men’s Behaviour Change Program alongside its long-standing Men Choosing Respect program.

The MAC program was designed to assist men to address their use of violence and other destructive patterns in their lives and relationships using a combination of individual counselling, case management and group work over a six-month period of engagement. The unique model allows men to engage where factors generally preclude them from safely or effectively engaging in a typical Men’s Behaviour Change group program. This approach has assisted in further addressing the complexities of family violence by considering the unique barriers faced by clients from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Cultural and Linguistically Diverse, or LGBTQIA+ backgrounds, FIFO workers, and those with co-occurring Mental Health and Alcohol and Other Drug issues.

Make a Change focuses on perpetrator accountability and prioritises the safety of women and children through provision of Partner Contact support to victim survivors. The model also incorporates appropriate information sharing and victim advocacy as strategies to achieve this goal.

This presentation will discuss Centrecare’s Make a Change model, discuss how engagement was increased, and highlight the project outcomes for victim survivors and perpetrators through this multi-response approach.

People experiencing domestic and family violence more often than not need support in a wide range of areas. Unfortunately, the system is not adequately supportive of these complex needs, requiring clients to access external referrals with several different services, further complicating their lives. However, providing clients with holistic support through in-house programs, projects and partnerships provides clients with better support.
Bonnie Support Services is a women’s domestic violence and homelessness services that champions this approach. Bonnie Support Services engages in strong integrative practice that aims to meet the needs of clients in a multitude of different domains of wellbeing. A well-recognised issue for victim-survivors of DFV is having to repeat their story for different services and different workers to access support. However, Bonnie Support Services is able to provide clients with access to a range of different supports that reduces re-traumatisation from complex systems such as Housing, Centrelink, education and employment support, tenancy rights, financial support, counselling, children’s groups, and women’s groups. Bonnie Support Services is continuing to create new partnerships, programs and projects to meet the needs of clients.

My presentation is on 'Defining Masculinity' 'Nice Guys and the Womanizer. The truth about traditional men and Emotions.' The traditional notion of being a man has been all about not showing emotions. We need to focus on changing behavior in young men through daily connection, mentoring and building a community of support. This is an important topic that fits under the umbrella of my podcast Respectful Relationships, this is Where Change Begins. We are looking at a crisis in conversations around Masculinity. A positive school-based program should be part of the Wellbeing Curriculum in all schools that will promote respectful relationships that encourages reflection on what is “positive masculinity”

Background and Objectives:

Despite numerous interventions aiming to improve healthcare professionals' (HCPs) response to domestic violence (DV), evidence about their readiness to address DV remains a rising challenge in low- and middle-income countries. The purpose of this study was to develop and assess a educational intervention to improve HCPs readiness to identify and support DV.

Methods:
The mixed-methods study comprised two phases. In the first phase, nineteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with purposively selected HCPs. Qualitative data were subjected to thematic analysis, informing the development of an educational intervention. In phase 2, a two-hour educational intervention was developed and delivered for sixty-five HCPs, using a one-group pre-test/post-test design. The Provider Intervention Measure (PIM) was used to assess the HCPs readiness to identify and support DV. Eighteen semistructured interviews were used to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the educational intervention.

Results

In phase 1, a prevalent theme among most HCPs highlighted the necessity for training to enhance their awareness about DV, referral pathways, and communication skills relevant to responding DV. Based on these findings, a multi-component educational intervention was developed in phase two, including role-plays, group discussions, videos, and experiential training. Comparison of pre- and post-intervention responses indicates an improvement in perceived ability to manage situations where patients either disclosed exposure to DV or when HCPs suspected it. Participants reported feeling more prepared to ask questions, identify signs of DV, and provide appropriate responses to disclosures. Qualitative analysis showed that HCPs positively received the training methodology and content, perceiving the acquired skills as directly applicable to their practice. Moreover, HCPs' perspective shifted from considering DV as a private matter to recognizing it as a critical health concern, resulting in more effective responses.

Conclusions:

This finding indicates that this multi-component educational intervention increased HCP readiness to respond to women experiencing DV.

Carolyn did not identify that she was in a toxic relationship with her intimate partner until he raped her three times over a four day period when she was 66, after 43 years of marriage. She was not even able to label the behaviour as rape at the time. She only recognised after vehemently objecting during the rapes and the next mornings that it did not matter what she said, or how well she expressed her feelings, he would do what he had decided to do, no matter what, as he always had done. That aha moment led her to examine the whole relationship and indeed her whole life.
She came to understand abuse amnesia and the effects of the trauma bond that created the relationship by examining the correspondence between them before marriage and comparing what she found with subsequent events. The role hormones played in creating the relationship laid bare the reward and punishment that kept her in it. She was able to identify the cognitive dissonance, the introject of her abuser, the halo effect, the gaslighting techniques and the rewriting history that the abuser utilised to keep her off-balance, and the way he leveraged her love for activities, people and beliefs against her.
The decision to separate at the age of 66 made her very vulnerable, financially, emotionally, psychologically, and socially in ways for which she was unprepared.
Carolyn will present what her lived experience of leaving such a long term marriage entailed and its consequences and make suggestions for how society can respond to and care for the men and women who leave a long term relationship in their later years, with fewer resources to sustain them.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) significantly impacts pregnant women in Australia, with an estimated 332,000 women having experienced violence by a previous partner during their pregnancy between 2021-2022 (ABS, 2023), highlighting the enduring threat that IPV poses to expectant mothers and their children. At a time when women have more healthcare contact, and perhaps a great motivation to leave an abusive relationship, pregnancy and postpartum are crucial times for IPV screening and intervention.

The ANROWS Evidence Portal serves as a living resource of impact evaluations of interventions drawn from high-income countries, all aligned with the objectives of the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032. The Evidence Portal provides valuable insights into “what works” to address IPV during pregnancy and postpartum. Applying a systematic approach, the Evidence Portal empowers policymakers, practitioners, and researchers with two tools:

(1) Interactive Evidence and Gap Maps that capture the breadth, nature and research gaps in knowledge of interventions; and
(2) Intervention Reviews that provide information about interventions and their effectiveness.

This presentation will use these tools to showcase findings on the nature and effectiveness of screening interventions for IPV in maternity care settings. Specifically, it will discuss the types of interventions, their settings, core components, and target populations. It will also engage with information about the effectiveness of these interventions. The presentation will highlight crucial gaps in the evaluation evidence base, focusing on those that are especially relevant to Australia.

By fostering a collective understanding of the effectiveness of interventions, facilitating evidence-based policymaking, and guiding decision-making processes, the Evidence Portal is an essential resource in ongoing efforts to combat IPV and advocate for the wellbeing of vulnerable populations. Through this integration, robust data supports ongoing risk assessment, safety planning, and essential women's support initiatives, contributing to improved maternal and child health outcomes.

Australia has implemented substantial domestic and family violence (DFV) reforms in recent years. While the identification of victim-survivors has increasingly been embedded across service system responses, there is scant understanding and practice in relation to perpetrators. Men using DFV often have diverse service system contact for co-occurring presenting issues. However, their use of DFV frequently remains invisible, constituting missed opportunities for risk identification, management and referral pathways.
This presentation is based on a mixed-methods study, which examined current screening and risk assessment practices for DFV perpetration in service systems that frequently encounter men who may be using DFV, including mental health, alcohol and other drug (AOD), corrections and child protection services. Findings show broad variation in screening and risk assessment practices and attitudes across service areas and identify key barriers to and enablers of screening, risk assessment and the provision of suitable referral pathways. Greater access to specialist DFV training for practitioners along with organisational leadership around prioritising responses to DFV are critical in implementing screening and risk assessment protocols for DFV perpetration across service areas.