Develop a family and sexual violence website
Responsible government
- Tasmania
Fourth Action Plan actions
- Respect, listen and respond to the diverse lived experience and knowledge of women and their children affected by violence
- 11 Deliver policies and services to address the disproportionate impact of violence on particular groups.
- 12 Better equip the service system and communities to address complex forms of violence and harmful cultural practices including early and forced marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting, dowry abuse and human trafficking.
What are we doing?
- Develop a family and sexual violence website is an action under Safe Homes, Families, Communities: Tasmania’s action plan for family and sexual violence 2019-2022 (Safe Homes, Families, Communities), which invests $26 million over three years from 2019-20 to 2021-22 to prevent and respond to family and sexual violence in Tasmania.
What have we achieved so far?
Safe Homes, Families, Communities commenced implementation on 1 July 2019.
On 16 June 2020, the Tasmanian Government launched the Safe from Violence website, Tasmania’s central point of information for family and sexual violence (www.safefromviolence.tas.gov.au).
Government agencies and community stakeholders contributed to the development of the website.
Safe from Violence provides clear and targeted information, online resources and links about family and sexual violence for a range of audiences including victim-survivors, perpetrators, family and friends, children and young people, service providers and the wider community.
Safe from Violence has a ‘Resources’ section which includes a series of Family and Sexual Violence and COVID-19 Fact Sheets, resources, links to the latest COVID-19 advice and where to seek specialist help.
In July 2020, a series of fact sheets in five community languages were uploaded to Safe from Violence, providing information for those experiencing violence and for those using violence in Arabic, Karen, Nepali, Oromo and Tigrinya. This was followed by publication of five more community languages (Amharic, Burmese, Dari, Farsi and Hakha Chin) and audio recordings of all ten languages in February 2021.
In November 2020, a training module about family violence in emergency events was published to assist those in emergency management or developing recovery /emergency management policies.
In December 2020, a revised version of Responding to family violence: a guide for service providers and practitioners was published so that service providers and practitioners are equipped to respond to family and sexual violence if or when it presents in their day-to-day work.
Additionally, in December 2020, resources as part of a non-physical violence campaign were published on the Safe from Violence website, with hard copies distributed across the State. The campaign was developed in response to sector feedback during the COVID-19 pandemic and includes several posters and postcards on non-physical violence. The resources describe a series of behaviours such as stalking, emotional, economic and verbal abuse, clearly identifying them as forms of family violence. They also cover different points of view: victim-survivor, perpetrator and bystander. The postcards include service information on the back and both the postcards and posters include a QR code that directs people to the Safe from Violence website.
The campaign included an initiative with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Tasmanian Branch to promote the non-physical violence campaign on pharmacy prescription repeat folders to help raise awareness across a broad cross-section of the community.
What is next?
Ongoing promotion and maintenance of website and its resources.
In 2021, a priority will be to continue to build community awareness of the Safe from Violence website as the central point of information for family and sexual violence.
What difference will we make?
By developing a family and sexual violence website, the Tasmanian community will have increased awareness of family violence and its underlying drivers, family violence services and contact information, and pathways to seeking support (criminal and non-criminal pathways).
The family and sexual violence website will be a mechanism for building information and messaging across service providers and the broader community and will provide a central, online resource for service providers, which will help address loss of knowledge through staff turnover and support workforce development and capacity building through training information and opportunities.