iHeal is an intentional peer support model of family violence service delivery, developed and trialed by Drummond Street Services. The program provides trauma informed, recovery-based support for victim-survivors of family violence and targets people from diverse communities, who may otherwise experience barriers when accessing mainstream family violence support. Key to the model is a strong focus on harnessing the lived experience of survivors, valuing the expertise and knowledge that this experience brings to the recovery process. The model employs people with lived experience of family violence as recovery support workers, who undergo professional training and work alongside case coordinators to develop and deliver programs and activities that support the recovery needs of other survivors. Evaluation of the program demonstrated multiple benefits for clients, lived-experience workers, and organisations.

This presentation will outline the iHeal model and describe its success in reducing barriers for members of diverse communities to engage with family violence support services, and in improving outcomes for survivors of family violence by providing meaningful pathways into education and employment, particularly those of diverse faith, race, sexuality, gender and abilities. We will also share organisational learnings from employing a diverse lived experience workforce and highlight how we embedded these lessons within our own service, including growth and development of existing staff in intersectional practice, and increased workforce diversity overall. Building on learning from the program’s trial, we have developed several resources to support other family violence services to address the organisational readiness and culture change required to successfully embed a diverse lived experience workforce. The presentation will outline the ways in which an intersectional framework is being used to inform the development of these resources and will describe our latest innovation to support family violence services to apply an intersectional framework to their practice and to the whole-of-organisation.