This chapter provides a discussion of the effective-practice evidence in relation to each of the at-risk groups that are the focus of this report. An overview of the prevention and early intervention activities targeting each at-risk group that were identified in our scoping exercise and via the Request for Information, and key issues identified in the stakeholder consultation process are also outlined. Examples of best practice of prevention and early intervention activities in each at-risk group are briefly described. Our review process identified prevention and early intervention activities aimed at all of the at-risk communities. However, some groups had more programs tailored to addressing the needs of their communities than others. Those groups with a greater number of prevention and early intervention activities than others are not without issues. There are gaps, barriers to effective implementation and concerns regarding access to services for all at-risk groups. These issues are discussed below. Examples of good practice programs are provided throughout this chapter. They are based on insights gained from the literature and stakeholder accounts about what is thought to constitute effective primary prevention and early intervention with the specific at-risk groups.
6.2
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women
Effective-practice evidence
Reviews of the existing literature and evidence tend to agree that although there is a significant amount of knowledge within the service provider network (Day et al., 2013), there is a lack of formal evaluation evidence on programs aimed at reducing DFV in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities (Cripps & Davis, 2012; Day et al., 2013; Memmott et al., 2006). While there are more evaluations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander focused programs than programs aimed at other at-risk groups, the quality of these evaluations is uneven (Day et al., 2013). The diversity of programs delivered in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, combined with limited evidence regarding effective practice, also makes articulating a clear overview of what constitutes effective practice challenging (Day et al. 2013).
From the evidence that does exist, one of the key aspects of successful prevention activities is a high degree of community consultation and ownership (Cripps & Davis, 2012; Day et al., 2013). Such an approach needs to be applied comprehensively from the outset—from the identification of the issue needing to be addressed, to design of the program, how it will be implemented and by whom (Day et al., 2013). On this last note, the issue of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff being employed to run programs specifically aimed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is noted as crucial in much of
the literature on prevention activities (Cripps & Davis, 2012). There is also a need for Aboriginal staff in mainstream services in order to increase accessibility for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Cripps & Davis, 2012).
Overview of prevention and early intervention activities identified in this report and key issues identified in the stakeholder consultation process
Prevention and early intervention activities and DFV response services aimed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are more common than those aimed at the other at-risk groups discussed in this report. Despite the fact that there are more DFV services targeted at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, there remain many gaps in services and access to existing services is not always assured. Reflecting the diversity within, and between, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, there is a broad range of programs aimed at such communities. These are varied in nature and are spread across justice system agencies, community groups (including Aboriginal organisations) and NGO- based services. Examples include night patrols, legal support, art therapy groups and mothers’ groups. Prevention and early intervention programs tend to address the broad cultural and familial context in which women are located.
Stakeholders suggested that prevention and early intervention activities need to address a lack of community awareness of DFV. The normalisation of violence, and a lack of knowledge about rights and laws, was identified as an issue for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations:
There’s inadequate knowledge about an individual’s rights and responsibilities. That women need education to know what the signs are, to know what they can respond to, what they’re entitled to respond to. They need an increase in the awareness of rights and availability of services. (Stakeholder Consultation, QLD)
So learning and how normalised it’s become within communities and learning how little Aboriginal people actually know about their rights, how little information—there is lots of information that is available but how little actually gets to the community where people are able to quantify it, process it and then put it into a practice that enables them to feel some level of engagement or power or respect or appreciation for their situation. (Stakeholder Consultation, NSW)
Stakeholders cited the need for prevention and early intervention activities to be community-driven as a key concern. In part, this concern was raised in relation to another key issue identified by stakeholders—a lack of culturally appropriate mainstream services. This applied not just to DFV prevention and early intervention and response services, but also to many other intersecting services, such as health, mental health, police and law enforcement:
There’s a great lack of culturally appropriate service provision, that’s across the continuum, culturally appropriate education through to culturally appropriate counselling services, culturally appropriate workers in providing support for clients through court processes and afterwards—there needs to be ongoing
service provision rather than temporary services that are probably going to disappear. (Stakeholder Consultation, QLD)
In particular, stakeholders suggested that the criminal justice and police sector responses to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are ill-equipped to deal with the complex interplay of risk factors of DFV and issues including the inter-generational mistrust of authority figures:
I think the police [understanding of] the impacts of domestic violence on the whole family unit—my observation has been a lot of young police don’t have an appreciation, especially the young Anglo-Australian police who come from, let’s say, well, just a working-class family, it doesn’t have to be middle class, a working-class family—that go into the force can be quite isolated from or removed from the impacts especially for Aboriginal people about generational and transgenerational trauma. They don’t deliver the full service that they could possibly to the victims, or to the perpetrators, and what’s going on within the family dynamic … (Stakeholder Consultation, NSW)
The police responses can be, “Oh it’s just the blacks going at it again, leave them be,” and it’s got to the point where in some communities the response has been that the women are ringing the fire brigade to report violence being acted out because the police response is one of negligence, so some of them have been calling in the fire brigade to get a response. (Stakeholder Consultation, NSW)
Stakeholders suggested that education and cultural awareness training of the police force and all services involved in responding to DFV is needed in order to build a cooperative, working relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and services.
Some stakeholders communicated that there is some concern regarding the use of a gender framework in addressing DFV in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Generational disadvantage, historical destruction of communities and culture, poverty, drug and alcohol abuse are often considered more important for understanding DFV in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities than gendered power relations.