Growing and supporting the workforce

Victoria has a strong workforce of skilled and experienced prevention practitioners working across a broad range of sectors and organisations, delivering high-quality and effective prevention activity, and developing practice evidence.  

Where progress has been made

Significant workforce growth

The prevention workforce has grown considerably in recent years, with more organisations and practitioners delivering prevention activities and seeing themselves as part of the prevention effort. Safe and Equal’s 2024 evaluation report of the Statewide Prevention Workforce Development Program highlighted that more than 570 people participated in training and other professional development activities, and over 4,100 people participated in professional networks through the Partners in Prevention network (149). The evaluation notes that this total engagement represents an almost 24% increase on the previous year (150).

Strategic foundations in place

The foundations for strengthening and growing the workforce are already in place, with government commitments set out in several policies and strategies including the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children, Victoria’s Building from Strength 10-Year Industry Plan for Family Violence Prevention and Response, Ending Family Violence and Free from Violence action plans, and Strong Foundations.

The second rolling action plan under Victoria’s Building from Strength 10-Year Industry Plan for Family Violence Prevention and Response was released in August 2024 (91). It sets out four focus areas for action:

• Growing the workforce: expanding the number of practitioners and organisations involved in prevention
• Supporting strong organisations and workforce cultures: fostering positive and supportive workplaces that promote wellbeing and effective practice
• Building capability: enhancing the skills, knowledge and confidence of the workforce through training and professional development  
• Building a system that works together: promoting collaboration and coordination among different stakeholders to achieve a unified approach to prevention.

Our Watch’s Growing with change report provides a model and practical guidance for developing the prevention workforce, while Safe and Equal’s Foundations for Action report provides useful evidence and insights on what is needed in Victoria (11, 151). These reports, together with the forthcoming prevention capability framework, will reinforce workforce capability building in Victoria.  

The Foundations for Action project is a huge step forward. It was a sector-led process that allowed us to map what the workforce actually looks like and the sorts of work that people are doing and who they are, where they’ve come from, what were their pathways into the workforce, what do they want in terms of training, leadership, connection, wellbeing. – Marina Carman, Safe and Equal  
 

Where there are challenges

While significant progress has been made over the reporting period in defining, growing and developing the prevention workforce, consultations with report participants and review of key evaluations (footnote one) highlighted several challenges, including:

• support for the wellbeing of practitioners, including with the impacts of vicarious trauma and practitioner isolation
• ongoing workforce capability development in new and evolving areas of practice, including intersectional practice and responding to emerging trends and challenges
• staff turnover, recruitment and retention
• resistance and backlash to gender equity efforts and progressive social change  
• leadership support for settings-based work  
• ongoing pressures to achieve immediate impacts (150).

The impacts of resistance and backlash on the health and safety of the workforce

Report participants described the escalating intensity and severity of resistance and backlash to gender equality and its impact on the safety and wellbeing of practitioners, particularly for those from marginalised communities impacted by increasing levels of racism, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia and other forms of discrimination. In addition, some participants described rising levels of backlash and resistance in particular settings, such as schools, where the influence of online misogyny has led to hostility and harassment from boys and young men towards female and LGBTIQA+ prevention practitioners, as well as school staff and students.  

Safe and Equal’s Foundations for Action highlights the need for connection and support for a dispersed workforce that faces substantial backlash and resistance. Meaningful connection to professional peers facing the same challenges was noted as affirming, validating and informative (11), and as providing an important form of support for sustaining the work (152). Connection and support, such as that provided through communities of practice and regional prevention partnerships, decreases the risk of isolation and increases workforce wellbeing, peer learning and staff retention.  

Opportunities for action

Capability building within a complex environment

Overall, there was wide acknowledgement from report participants of the importance of continuing to build the capability of the prevention workforce.  

Report participants spoke of the complexity of prevention work and the need to continuously develop new knowledge and skills to be able to address emerging issues, such as the increasing engagement with violent pornography (particularly for children and young people) and fast and increased adoption of new technology – such as monitoring technology and artificial intelligence that allows for greater and more sophisticated tech-facilitated abuse (153). However, capacity to engage in ongoing learning and development is constrained by the time and resources available. For example, often grants or other funding agreements only allow for program implementation rather than workforce capability building. Safe and Equal’s Statewide Prevention Workforce Development Program and Fast Track leadership programs are examples of the sorts of workforce capability building initiatives that, with appropriate resourcing and scale, can address these challenges.

Supporting the Respectful Relationships workforce

Those working to support delivery of respectful relationships education interviewed for this report described the pressure and lack of readiness that teachers feel when delivering content on complex subjects such as sexual consent or responding to disclosures of violence that may arise. They noted this can lead to teachers skipping important modules within the respectful relationships curriculum or presenting them with gaps. Specialist external providers such as those from Victoria’s sexual assault services are often called on by schools to provide support and training, but these specialists can only support this demand on a population level if they are provided with adequate funding and resourcing (154).  

A skilled, supported and suitably sized Respectful Relationships regional workforce, including specialist prevention experts within the Department of Education, is crucial to continue to build confidence, skills and culture across the school system to deliver the whole-school approach to Respectful Relationships as it has been intended, and to continue to build knowledge, confidence and capability for teachers (see Respectful Relationships case study). Continued support and resourcing is also needed for community-led organisations, women’s health services and other specialist sexual violence and gendered violence services to further support the school system to deliver effective prevention, especially where their students are at high risk of experiencing or using violence (11, 144, 155).

Staff retention is impacted by funding uncertainty

Many report participants highlighted the frequent staff turnover and loss of experienced and skilled practitioners as an ongoing challenge. This is driven by funding uncertainty, short-term contracts, delayed career progression and job insecurity, as well as burnout associated with workload pressures and the challenging content of prevention work and potential vicarious trauma.

To ensure the ongoing, strategic and coordinated growth and development of the prevention workforce in Victoria, adequate funding is required to maintain the workforce, and funding agreements need to provide more certainty to organisations so they can maintain staff over at least the medium term. An equal pay review would also be a powerful way of ensuring that pay and conditions for workers in the sector are fair and reasonable, supporting ongoing staff retention and workforce growth.

Continued investment is also required in statewide entities that support prevention system strengthening, workforce development, practitioner networks, communities of practice and strategic partnerships that support capability building. These entities include Respect Victoria, Safe and Equal, Sexual Assault Services Victoria and Victoria’s Women’s Health Service Network.  

I think workforce is a really important priority. We need to make sure we retain the workforce we have and the supports you need to put around that workforce to make sure there is continuity in the work, but also expand and bring in newer workforces. – Marina Carman, Safe and Equal  

Greater diversity, inclusion and cultural safety within mainstream organisations

For the prevention sector to realise its goal of eliminating gendered violence for all, it needs to be staffed by a diverse workforce that represents the community it serves. Report participants emphasised the need for greater diversity, particularly cultural diversity within the prevention workforce, reflecting evidence that highlights the need for ongoing action to address intersecting drivers of gendered violence such as exclusion and discrimination faced by marginalised communities both in society and in the workforce itself (151). Report participants noted that ‘mainstream’ organisations (i.e. those organisations that are not controlled or led by specific communities) need to do more to embed culturally safe and inclusive workplace practices to support their workforce.

It is about making that mainstream more inclusive ... when you make the sector more inclusive, you’re a vital step towards making the community more inclusive. – Julie Kun, Women with Disabilities Victoria

In addition, report participants noted more work is required by mainstream organisations to increase the capability of prevention practitioners to effectively deliver prevention work with diverse and marginalised communities and build intersectional practice, in collaboration with community-led organisations. The need to upskill the prevention sector in LGBTIQA+ competency was raised particularly. This requires an anti-oppressive lens, with a focus on power sharing, trauma-informed practices, recognition of structural violence, and commitment to concurrently addressing multiple forms of violence including on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexuality and other social identities. This is something that can be learnt from community-led organisations through development and networking of practitioners, and it will be important to capture in the forthcoming Prevention Capability Framework implementation (for further discussion, see Strengthening the prevention system)

Recognising and integrating lived experience in the workforce

While the reform process coming out of the Royal Commission into Family Violence led to the creation of defined lived experience roles and structures in the family violence response system, many people with current or prior lived experience of violence and structural inequalities that drive violence (such as racism, colonialism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia) also take on roles in prevention and do not always disclose their lived experience. The recognition and integration of lived experience in the prevention workforce – while in its infancy in comparison to response – strengthens the sector’s capacity to serve its community and create impact (156).  

Some report participants noted that people with lived experience may face particular challenges when working in prevention and require additional supports. This includes the risk of re-traumatisation or vicarious trauma where, for example, their work causes them to remember or revisit past traumatic experiences or they find they are unable to achieve systems change at the pace or scale they hoped. Work-life balance may also be hard for people with lived experience to attain, as they cannot ‘switch off their identity’ at the end of the workday, and they may face pressure and scrutiny from their community or peers for outcomes outside of their control.  

To appropriately support staff wellbeing and safety in the prevention workforce, organisations need to assess and invest in their capability to value and integrate lived experience. This includes developing, refining and implementing workplace policies and practices, and assessing and building organisational readiness to embed lived experience. Safe and Equal’s Health, Safety and Wellbeing self-assessment tool, Monash University’s analysis of the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council and the work of the WEAVERs provide guidance that can be further built on and embedded within the sector (157, 158).  

Footnotes