The most impactful events and activities are:
Inclusive of lived experience
Different people’s experience of violence and access to services and supports will vary.
For example, two women from the same community may share similar experiences of family violence, but one’s added experience of living with a disability could mean they have additional challenges navigating support services. A trans woman might face stigma reaching out for support. Another woman could have difficulty finding information in her preferred language. Another might lack the financial means to leave a relationship, or face cultural expectations to stay. Another might have experienced similar gendered violence that was also been compounded by racism.
These women have similar, but not identical, experiences.
Furthermore, children who experience violence face other challenges again, including limited specialised support services for children and young people, or being classed as “witnesses” to family violence, instead of victim survivors in their own right.
Involving and learning from people who hold different forms of lived experience of violence makes primary prevention work stronger and more effective, but it must be done sensitively and genuinely..
Learn more
- Ethical Engagement of Survivor Advocates – Safe and Equal
- Pride in Prevention Partnership Guide – Rainbow Health Australia
- Resources for Community Services and Workers – Zoe Belle Gender Collective
- Allyship in Action – Zoe Belle Gender Collective and Women’s Health in the North
- Changing the picture – Our Watch
- Changing the landscape – Our Watch and Women with Disabilities Victoria
- Preventing Violence Against Women – Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health
Connected to your community
You know your community best! Think of how you can involve community members along the way; co-designed events and materials (either with members of the public, or organisations you already partner with) can be a great way to engage different groups across your community. Reach out to organisations and leaders from diverse communities to get to know each other better and find out how you can make your events and activities safe, inclusive and relevant to them.
Use Canva to customise campaign posters with messages and information for your community.
Learn more
- Improving our approach to community-led prevention – Safe and Equal
- Multi-lingual adaptions of Change the story – South East Community Links
- Preventing Violence Against Women with Disabilities and Multicultural Communities – Women with Disabilities Victoria
- Healthy relationships fact sheets – Multicultural Centre for Womens Health
- Building Youth Leadership in Violence Prevention – FVREE
Motivating, proactive and influential
Primary prevention can be optimistic and hopeful! While the overall topic of men’s use of violence is confronting, your activities can empower people to understand violence prevention and how they can contribute to the change. Let them know what they can do next, where they can continue learning, how they can join the call for change – and why their involvement matters.
Connect with influential people or settings (businesses, organisations, clubs, etc) in your community and ask them to demonstrate their commitment to learning and change.
Values-based messaging is a proven way of communicating that uses strengths to provide hope and inspiration for action.
Learn more
- Resources to support your Values-Based Messaging from PreventX 2024 – Safe and Equal
- Communicating for Connection: Values-based messaging for primary prevention in multicultural and faith-based communities – Safe and Equal
- Pride in Prevention Messaging Guide – Rainbow Health
- Framing gender equality – VicHealth
- Passing the Message Stick – Get Up and Australian Progress
- Communicating for Connection: Values-based messaging for primary prevention in multicultural and faith-based communities – Connecting Communities
- Framing Age Message Guide – South Melbourne Primary Care Partnership
- By Us, For Us Disability Messaging Guide – Disability Access Network Australia
- Messaging for a Movement – Safe and Equal
- Gender Equality in Advertising and Communications Guidelines – shEqual
Informative and relevant
Understanding violence against women and what the scope of it looks like is a necessary step in ending it. It’s also important to make the link between your activities, the gendered drivers of violence and the individual and systemic changes that will create safer communities for everyone.
Help people understand how gendered violence affects them and the people in their community – many people believe violence against women is a problem, but that it's not in their neighbourhoods or with people they know.
Use evidence-based information, relate to examples in your community, and be prepared to correct non-factual beliefs or attempts to derail or undermine the true nature of gendered violence in Australia.
Using examples, events or activities that don’t make a clear connection to the prevention of violence against women can be tokenistic, harmful and even invite undue backlash or resistance.
Learn more
- How to Use Statistics in Primary Prevention – Safe and Equal
- Fast Facts on Family and Gender-based Violence – Safe and Equal
- Racism and Violence Against Women – Respect Victoria
Safe and trauma-informed
Safety considers OHS, but importantly, also considers the emotional and cultural safety of all attendees. You might like to remind attendees that your activities are a safe place, but not a therapeutic space. This means not going into detail about experiences of violence without training in speaking about lived experience in a trauma-informed way.
Give people a clear understanding of the topics that will be discussed, and invite them to take a break if they need.
Understand how to respond to people who disclose that they have experienced or witnessed violence and make sure the contact information for support services is easily available. If the subject or content within your event could be particularly challenging, consider engaging specialist support available onsite for attendees to debrief.
In person and online, encourage people to ask questions, but take care to moderate questions or conversations that intentionally or accidentally derail productive conversation.
Learn more
- Trauma-informed events checklist – Mental Health Coordinating Council
- Rainbow Tick Standards – Rainbow Health Victoria
- A Guide to Hosting LGTBQ+ Events Safely – ACON
- 9 Ways to Make Absolutely Everyone Feel Welcome at Your Event – Eventbrite
Accessible and inclusive
Accessible events consider the logistics that enable people to participate. This could include making sure the location (including online settings) is accessible for people with limited mobility or who use mobility aids or assistive technology. It could include having an Auslan interpreter or live captioning. It could include inviting people to move around or leave the room if needed. Availability of accessible toilets is very important. Also ensure availability of gender neutral bathrooms that include sanitary bins.
Ask participants and speakers if they have access needs or accommodations that they would like you to be aware of.
Learn more
- Hosting accessible and inclusive in-person meetings and events – Australian Human Rights Commission
- Together: Building an Inclusive Youth Sector – Youth Disability Advocacy Service