| Conducted by | Dr Anita Trezona and Isabella Roxburgh |
| Date | June 2026 |
Overview
This scoping review of practice and research literature examines early intervention of gendered violence and its interplay with primary prevention efforts. It synthesises key design and implementation principles and characteristics for early intervention programs, highlighting commonalities and differences with primary prevention approaches.
The review was commissioned to inform the design of integrated prevention activities for the Respect Ballarat community saturation model. It set out to meet two key objectives:
- Determine how early intervention is defined and conceptualised in gendered violence prevention policy, practice and research.
- Understand how these definitions of early intervention are applied to prevent gendered violence, including the types of programs and interventions used, and their key components, strategies, principles and practices.
The findings from the review, including key practice princles for design, can be used to inform government prevention and early intervention policy, and the design and implementation of programs and activities.
The review is robust but not exhaustive; there have been important new contributions to early intervention policy, research and practice literature released since this report was finalised. An assessment of the quality and effectiveneness of interventions and programs discussed in source materials was out of scope for this review.
Key findings of the review
There are common elements in how early intervention of gendered violence is defined across literature
The review found that broadly, early intervention initiatives:
- focus on people at greatest risk of experiencing or using violence
- address known risk and protective factors
- intervene at the earliest stage possible.
Some literature looked at risk and protective factors that exist primarily at the individual and relationship level. Others also considered risk and protective factors across communities and organisations, including gendered social norms and attitudes about gendered violence.
Early intervention initiatives centre on addressing identified risk of gendered violence, including through strengthening protective factors
The objectives of early intervention initiatives often closely overlap with actions to address drivers and reinforcing factors of gendered violence: cornerstones of primary prevention efforts.
Early intervention however, has a more targeted focus on addressing risk factors. Examples include supporting people at risk of using violence to develop better emotional regulation, or addressing alcohol and other drug use. This means early intervention activities will often use different approaches to those used in primary prevention, where the main goal is to affect normative and attudinal chance.
The review found that some intiatives combine both primary prevention and early intervention approaches.
Design of early intervention and integrated gendered violence prevention initiatives must start from a well-informed understanding of the risks they seek to address and the communities they aim to support
There are well established prevention and response frameworks and technical guides for risk identification in the context of gendered and family violence, including Victoria's Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management (MARAM) Framework.
Program design should build on these frameworks with nuanced, context- and cohort-specific insights from practitioners and community.
Read the evidence review
Download the PDF, or read online.