Prevalence of Family and Domestic Violence in Australia
Family, as well as domestic violence, is extremely pervasive in Australia. It is seen among every family member and especially occurs in intimate partner relationships. Almost 1 in seven women which is 17% and one in 15 men which is almost 6% in Australia have reported of having experienced a physical or sexual kind of violence from a partner since the age of 15. Among these rates almost more than 1.6 million women in Australia have experienced partner violence since the year 2020 (Douglas, Harris & Dragiewicz, 2019). Australia has ranked the highest among younger cohorts with around 76,000 women from the ages of 25 to 34 who have experienced family violence in a two-year period. This aspect of family violence and domestic violence is underreported for seven a number of reasons which include the fear of safety as well as the trust and concern of not being believed by the law. This has increased the social crisis and increased mental stress which has been experienced by women during Covid 19 pandemic, there was also a rise in the family and domestic violence and there was no action taken properly against it.
In our class, we have learned about domestic as well as family violence and the prevalence of this in Australia. The problems that surround the family and domestic violence do not fit completely into the existing framework. We were taught in class that DFV generally requires proper development of a detailed and specific framework because it crosses a number of different areas of issues and concern and it is best considered a multidisciplinary problem. According to our class notes the aspects of police, government, community services, and all other government and non-government organizations need to work together for the best the outcome. In our class, we have also been taught about the different aspects of DFV and the reasons why preventions have to work (Farhall, 2020). We were taught that intimate partner violence was perpetrated against women and was the most common and most pervasive form of family and domestic violence. There is an extremely strong and compelling body of national as well as international research for the prevention of violence against women in Australia. It has been acknowledged that a workforce with a proper capability to prevent intimate partner violence is able to contribute to the prevention of other forms of family and domestic violence as well (Healey, Connolly & Humphreys, 2018). The main thing that needs to be done in order to prevent family violence in Australia is to go through the social and cultural changes across the whole community of Australia. Our class also taught that there needs to be proper intervention in order to stop DFV from escalating or occurring more often. The most important point is to have frameworks of prevention which is responding to the crisis as soon as possible and providing accommodation as well as counseling and advocacy to the victims. Our class was extremely informative and taught us about the different conceptual frameworks of family violence which is created in Australia (Ibrahim, 2022).
Prevention Strategies
The Australian government has been able to identify a complete goal in order to reduce all forms of violence in all the communities. The main objective of the government is to see the proposals for the reform of proper legal framework in order to protect the safety of the victims who were experiencing family and domestic violence. Our classes also taught us about the different factors which contribute to the intersection and community services. Intersectionality is a proper framework that gives recognition that an individual’s identity is complex and individual should not be categorized based on that aspect of identity which is ethnicity. Intersectionality can help in preventing domestic and family balance and make services that will appreciate the role that several sources of identity play in the lived experiences of an individual’s life (Ibrahim, 2022). I learned in our class that family violence has extremely dangerous effects on families especially children who face that violence in families. It can not only lead to physical injury but it can also lead to huge mental stress a mental illness. The aspect of violence in families can stay hidden for a very long time and it so happens that the people experiencing the violence do not have the courage to talk about it. The main framework of family violence in Australia is firstly to have seamlessness in order to ensure that the legal framework is as smooth and operational as possible (Noble?Carr Moore & McArthur, 2020). The second part of the framework is the fairness of the policies which take care of the violence in the national and legal response in Australia. The third point is the accessibility where anyone from any ethnicity and any community including indigenous communities can access proper health for family violence (Pepper, & Powell, 2022). The main challenge in family violence is the aspect of disclosure of the safety concerns and the capability of providing effective and immediate responses.
Our class has also shown us that the Australian human rights commission has a responsibility to monitor the performance of Australia in meeting all the international human rights standards. The Australian human rights commission also provides proper advice as well as recommendations so that all the standards are met (Reeves & Meyer, 2020). Violence against women and family violence is a huge problem around the world and it is a problem in respective cultures or societies which affects women in every class and every city. Family and domestic balance can impact children in an extremely direct and stressful manner. The year of 2017 to 18 saw Victoria police had attended more than 124 family incidents where children were present in almost 30% of the families. Children can become the victim-survivors of family violence even if they are not the targets of the violence (Piper & Stevenson, 2018).
We were also taught in class about the impacts on children when they are exposed to family violence. The best way to deal with children who have faced family violence or domestic violence is the trauma response approach which can become one of the practical responses in dealing with family balance and can be organized by the government. This means that there will be consideration of how the past experiences might be affecting the behaviour of the children and their well-being. Family violence in Australia impacts the well-being of children as well as women and affects them in a psychological manner (Sheeran, Tarzia & Douglas, 2022). The aboriginal and indigenous population has more exposure to child violence and domestic violence. Indigenous women and girls are 31 times more prone to be hospitalized as a result of domestic and family balance. The only way to prevent this from happening is to have legal protection against family and domestic violence. The practical response in order to deal with family balance can be an FDV order. An FDV order is a particular order that can protect an individual from family and domestic violence by creating rules that a person has to follow. It can also help in keeping the victim safe by making it illegal for the criminals to break any of those rules. In the country of Australia, each and every state and territory has different names as well as laws about the DFV orders (Toivonen, & Backhouse, 2018). Another thing that is important in the practical application is the intervention orders where the police are obliged to execute an intervention order for the welfare and the safety of the family member who might become the victim. The intervention orders also contain different conditions which are aimed at the prevention of future domestic violence. There are several intervention orders around Australia such as the Australian Capital Territory and family violence orders and in New South Wales there are Apprehended Violence Orders (Wendt et al, 2020). Each and every professional and service has to play an extremely important role in the family violence sector. They need to have comprehensive and continuous training for understanding and preventing family and domestic violence. We have also been taught about the fact that the professionals and services have to include the training about the interconnection of abuse of women as well as children and conduct risk assessments for developing safety plans. The main factor which has to be considered is that family and domestic violence generally involves a huge spectrum of complex presentations and six across different communities. Professionals need to have collaborative work in order to provide a proper risk assessment and management service.
Legal Framework and Intervention Orders
The problems with surround sound balance do not completely fit into existing frameworks and a FDV framework needs to provide the proper data to support the analysis of the present status of FDV. There also needs to be data in order to support the proper measurement of activities as well as performance for various systems That will provide responses to FDV (Sheeran, Tarzia & Douglas, 2022). Frameworks are a very well-recognized instrument that can be used to support proper measurement and analysis as well as practical measures for family and domestic violence. A national approach to preventing violence against women in Australia can identify what drives as well as contribute to this violence. It can also provide evidence-based guidance to the government and policymakers and inform as well as support the development of different policies and strategies to prevent family balance (Wendt et al, 2020).
The main thing which can be done against domestic and family violence in Australia is to create a complete system of response that will directly address the issues. Then also has to be proper implementation of methods to monitor this identification over time and support the police to identify the perpetrators before the risk assessment begins. Another practical response to preventing family and domestic violence in Australia is to have risk frameworks that have to be developed to help the professionals give a proper response to the FDV. The most important risk assessment principle is the national discussion principle which will provide a guide for all the policymakers to develop risk assessment instruments and resources (Sheeran, Tarzia & Douglas, 2022). The first priority for the principle is to have the safety of the survivors and the well-being of both the adult and child survivors optimistic and family violence. All the risk factors have to be identified and assessed properly so that the response is accurate.
Domestic violence and family balance have increased due to Coronavirus and the most affected people in Australia are the indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Therefore, there needs to be immediate action and secondary consultation for information sharing as well as risk management by the policymakers. These are some of the conceptual frameworks for preventing family violence. Therefore, we have learned in our class that there has been a huge amount of up surgeons of family violence in Australia, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. But this can be prevented by practical responses and frameworks which have been mentioned above and the Australian government has to look after the frameworks for preventing family Violence.
References
Douglas, H., Harris, B. A., & Dragiewicz, M. (2019). Technology-facilitated domestic and family violence: Women’s experiences. The British Journal of Criminology, 59(3), 551-570.https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/59/3/551/5281174
Farhall, K. (2020). Towards an integrated theoretical framework for understanding women, work and violence in non-metropolitan contexts. Journal of Rural Studies, 76, 96-110.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341053698_Towards_an_integrated_theoretical_framework_for_understanding_women_work_and_violence_in_non-metropolitan_contexts DOI:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.04.034
Healey, L., Connolly, M., & Humphreys, C. (2018). A collaborative practice framework for child protection and specialist domestic and family violence services: Bridging the research and practice divide. Australian social work, 71(2), 228-237.
https://violenceagainstwomenandchildren.com/healey-l-connolly-m-humphreys-c-2018-a-collaborative-practice-framework-for-child-protection-and-specialist-domestic-and-family-violence-services-bridging-the-research-and-practi/
Ibrahim, N. (2022). Domestic and Family Violence and Associated Correlates Among Muslims in Australia. In Research Anthology on Child and Domestic Abuse and Its Prevention (pp. 91-121). IGI Global.
https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/using-grounded-theory-methodology-to-explore-womens-sense-of-insecurity/301185
Noble?Carr, D., Moore, T., & McArthur, M. (2020). Children’s experiences and needs in relation to domestic and family violence: Findings from a meta?synthesis. Child & Family Social Work, 25(1), 182-191.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cfs.12645
Pepper, M., & Powell, R. (2022). Domestic and Family Violence: Responses and Approaches across the Australian Churches. Religions, 13(3), 270.
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/3/270
Piper, A., & Stevenson, A. (2019). Gender violence in Australia: historical perspectives. Monash University Publishing.
https://publishing.monash.edu/product/gender-violence-in-australia/
Reeves, E., & Meyer, S. (2021). Marginalized women, domestic and family violence reforms and their unintended consequences. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice.
https://oxfordre.com/criminology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264079-e-666
Sheeran, N., Tarzia, L., & Douglas, H. (2022). Communicating Reproductive Coercion in the Context of Domestic and Family Violence: Perspectives of Service Providers Supporting Migrant and Refugee Women. Journal of Family Violence, 1-11.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10896-022-00357-x
Toivonen, C., & Backhouse, C. (2018). National risk assessment principles for domestic and family violence.
Wendt, S., Natalier, K., Seymour, K., King, D., & Macaitis, K. (2020). Strengthening the domestic and family violence workforce: Key questions. Australian Social Work, 73(2), 236-244.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0312407X.2019.1638429