Victoria’s commitment to FV reforms, borne from the courage of victim/survivors to speak their truths, supported a shift in our agency, Gateway Health, to expand and strengthen its Victim/Survivor and Men’s Behaviour Change teams. Approx. 2 years ago Gateway Health’s Family Safety Team (DFV services) separated from the wider counselling and support team to become a stand-alone program. This, along with the introduction of MARAM and the Information Sharing Schemes, and a deeply committed team, has transformed our work with men using FV.
Key to this transformation is intentionally centering victim/survivors, women and children, in the work we do. We do this in several ways:
- An integrated team of perpetrator and victim/survivor specialists working together and sharing knowledge.
- Shared purpose and commitment to an intersectional feminist & victim centered approach.
- We have opened our MBC door wider. FV is endemic in Australia so we must work with men differently if we are to effect change.
- Ongoing review and improvement of material to increase emphasis on the less visible forms of family violence such as coercive control and non-fatal strangulation.
- Recognition that MBC is not a panacea and the change process is prolonged. Twenty weeks is just the start – we won’t be coerced in to simplifying MBC and the safety of women and children to a tick-box exercise.
- Systems advocacy & education with all the touch points.
- Resisting collusion with perpetrators and services who want to simplify men’s use of family violence
- Caring for our internal resources (our team) by fostering a continuous journey of learning, ensuring we have great clinical supervisors, and creating an openness to manage the impact of vicarious trauma on our workforce.

Important next steps – robust evaluation that includes the voices of victim/survivors and MBC participants.