Veteran families live unique lives both while their family member is in service in the Australian Defence Force and after they have transitioned to civilian life. This experience brings positive opportunities but also unique challenges which can create barriers to recognising family and domestic violence and acting to seek support to leave violent relationships or change unhealthy behaviours. These experiences and what they mean for veteran families are not well understood by most Australians. Where veteran families encounter services that don’t demonstrate an understanding of their situation, it increases the likelihood of them disengaging or not seeking support.
Gwen Cherne has a unique ability to tell the stories of those in the veteran community who have shared with her their stories of family and domestic violence, and reflect openly and honestly on her own lived experience of intimate partner violence and family violence, with the aim of improving front line service responses to veteran families.
Phoenix Australia has been working closely with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs on research to understand how they are placed to respond in a clinical setting. The research sought to understand service provider views of the nature and frequency of intimate partner violence (IPV) among veterans and their families, clinician readiness to identify and respond to IPV, and barriers and facilitators to initiatives for addressing IPV. The insights from this research will be useful to other clinicians and service providers in the broader community who will be supporting veteran families, but may not know it.