Reducing Violence Against Women In Native Communities In Victoria

MKT102 Introduction to Marketing

Objectives

Goal: reduce the number of violence on women in native communities in Victoria  and increase reporting of the incidences

Objectives:

· Change the mentality of gender biasness and gender inequality among the communities

· Address the social determinants of violence on women and overcoming them

· Developing healthcare services –  both preventive and curative for enhancing help seeking behaviour for reporting behaviours for victims

· Explain why your approach is the best way to engage the target population and help them get to the intendedresults. Justify using health promotion theory.

· Describe how the overall program and individual program strategies areevidence-based and informed by best practice and/or incorporates innovative practices

· Provide information about the groups and/or organisations you will partner with for the delivery of the program and how your program will adopt a collaborative, cross-sectoral approach to the issue/s it is seeking to address

· Demonstrate your understanding of how planning tools (such as planning frameworks and agency planning documents) and health promotion theory and frameworks are used to assist in developing the program and evaluation plan.

Principle of the project plan:

The project will be in the form of health promotion plan that would be based on the principle of the internationally acclaimed evidence based Ottawa Charter framework. This framework will be a useful process that will help in the increasing of control over and improve the physical and mental health condition of the Aboriginal women in the region of Victoria. Therefore, the main principles on which this project plan will work are:

· Advocacy: advocacy of the situation of domestic and family violence on women should be done. It will thereby try to make conditions favourable where women can achieve their full potential in life and lead better quality lives (Marchety and Daly 2017). Safe mental and physical health is one of the major resources for social, economic as well as personal development. therefore, the health promoters will be advocating about the different political, economic, as well as social, cultural, environmental and behavioural factors that are resulting in domestic violence and accordingly develop safe living environment

· Enabling: this project will focus on the achievement of the equity of health between men and women as women are seen to be highly risky cohort in the native communities who are susceptible for being abused or assaulted. This program will aim in reducing the differences in current health status ensuring equal opportunities and resources for helping women to achieve their full potential (Funstan and Herring 2016). Women would be given the resources and chances in ways by which they can control things, researchers opine that people can only achieve their full potential unless they are able to control things that determine their health.

· Mediate: it must be however remembered that prerequisites and prospects for health cannot be developed and ensured by the health sector alone. Coordinated action by both governmental and non-governmental sectors, health and other social and economic sectors, voluntary organizations, local authorities and all should come together for achievement of the goal (Riddani et al. 2015).

Approach and Health Promotion Theory

The goals can be achieved by three levels.

The first level is the primary prevention levels which will mainly act in addressing the determinants of health that would include gender inequality as well as adherence for harmful gender stereotypes. An interesting finding by the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance (NATISWA) has stated that the native people have gone through intergenerational effects of the past welfare practices that included the forced removal of the children as well as dislocation from their communities, culture and country (Denborough 2018). They have also experienced higher levels of poverty as well as social disadvantages compared to non-natives. These combined effects of the past practices as well as the current disadvantages have resulted in present extreme challenges in the families and women have fallen easy victims to them. Such historical and current events and issues are seen to impact day to day existence as well as well-being of aboriginal women (Mesrschimdt and Tomsen 2018). Gender inequality and gender biasness have become inculcated as a part of the strenuous living systems of the native families and are being passed on from generation to generation. Researchers also state that women are seen to struggle for ensuring their physiological as well as safety issues for their families and therefore they do not have time or energy for unraveling such relationships between their struggles and gender inequality.

Steps and actions:

The most important action that needs to be taken would be following one of the five priority action of the Ottawa charter called the strengthening community action. For this, the project would be incorporating healthcare promoters who would be campaigning in the communities about the harmful aspects of the domestic violence on the women and subsequently the children of the families (Browne et al. 2016). Every of the community members should be made to participate in such campaign where they will learn the depth of the harmful consequences developed by gender inequality and domestic violence in the community. The people should be made aware about the ways they can opt for seeking help and also promote reporting of such incidences if witnessed.

· Community hall meetings for males of the family where they will be discussed about the negative impacts of gender inequality on the women of the family

· Campaigning and educating women to not accept the gender inequality behaviours as anything that is normal an instead report or protest against it to concerned authorities

· Community schooling should incorporate this aspect as an important chapter in their education helping growing individuals to develop idea

· Counselling session sin the community with stalwart experts for these members who cannot overcome the gender biased behaviours (Clark and Augoistinos 2015)

· Develop pamphlets, brochures and poster about how gender inequality on women can integrate in growing children and become a vicious cycle of abuse

· Help the leaders of the native community group to participate and understand their own feelings and thought procedures and incorporate their suggestions in the community strengthening plans against domestic violence and gender inequality.

Program Strategies and Best Practices

The second level would be the secondary prevention strategies which would be based on taking effective actions on the determinants that directly results on violence on women unlike the primary prevention method which are based on changing the mentality regarding gender inequality (Stock et al. 2016). It will be based on development of early prevention strategies and advocating for the determinants that create direct incidences of violence.

Researchers are of the opinion that native men were dispossessed by the colonisers where they lost their moral authority over their families. The wives were taken resulting in mixed children and then they were left by the colonisers. The Aboriginal men had to rear the families causing anger and rage and such oppression made them oppressors and this theory is supported as well. Moreover other determinants are the childhood experience of violence and abuse, abusive style of conflict resolution (Kivel 2017). Others are loss of employment authorities, poor health, lack of education, racism, substance and drug abuses, lack of respect, loss of land and traditional cultures, breaking down of community kinship and many others. Inadequate housing is also one contributor where people live in overcrowded houses.

Steps that need to be taken:

The most important step that needs to be taken is the advocacy of the impact of the social determinants of health on the Aboriginals especially the men. Poor employment, high amount of addiction to substances, poor educational qualifications, thought procedures and environmental beliefs with which children grow, high incarceration rates and many others directly increases the chance of abuse on women by men and family member.

· Hence program will advocate the issues to the government and the government and local authority should come together and conduct social analysis of the situation. With the help of the statistics and stalwart healthcare professionals, they need to develop policies that would be based on violence effaced by women of the native community and the ways they can get over it through accessing proper resources (Clough et al. 2016)

· Another important action area that the Ottawa framework for healthcare planning and intervention implies is the creation of supportive environments. researchers are of the opinion that safe environment and community aspects that are enjoyable and assess health impacts of social determinants of health like employment, infrastructure of housing properties, other and thereby protect natural built environments are helpful in developing the health of the community members

· Partnership needs to be done with employment centres of both governmental and non-governmental sectors and advocate the issues with them. Through effective partnership, employment opportunities can be provided to them in the communities of the region

· Addiction is one of the contributors to violence and therefore screenings should be done where addicted individuals can be identified and ac accordingly counselled in the communities. Community planning for overcoming alcohol and tobacco disorder with resources form the local authority should be also advocated for.

· Innovative “community saviour” groups can be developed with both aboriginal social workers and non-native social workers who would be acting as mental and physical support for females who have gone through violence and counsel them hoe to report such issues and take actions for protection and overcoming such behaviours. This would be helpful for women who cannot directly approach the judiciary system due to fear, shame and mistrust (Wilson et al. 2017)

Partnerships and Collaboration

· An emergency phone line should be developed with the help of the local authority where community members can report if they notice any such actions taking place in the community where the victim is not reporting the issues

The third level is the tertiary prevention strategy that involves close working with the victims as well as the perpetrators of the violence faced by women in the nation. One important aspect needs to be discussed here. A number of important aspects act as barriers of the native women in getting access from the healthcare services. The culturally incompetent care that they get from western healthcare professionals makes them feel that they are beings judged and disrespected. This is one factor for which they do not want to come with such issues as they feel that their revelation would dishonour their communities to non-natives (Smyth et al. 2018). Besides, other factors are the fear of retribution as well as repeated violence of their children. Moreover, lack of understanding of legal rights and options, shame and stigma of representing the incorrected-ness of the aboriginal society, mistrust of healthcare systems and governmental wills, acceptance of the violence due to emotional connection with native perpetrator, keeping family together and others – all prevent them to report and seek for healthcare services.

Steps for taking action:

This action will be including another strategic action area of the Ottawa Charter health promotion framework for health campaign planning. This action area is “reorienting health services”. Researchers are of the opinion that reorienting health services helps in shifting towards the system that helps in promoting health, rather than any curative services. Health services need to include the needs for supporting the needs of individuals and communities for promoting health, and connecting the health sector with social, political, economic and physical environments (Clough and Bird 2015).

Steps for taking action:

· Allocation of resources and funding to the healthcare organisations for educating and training culturally competent care to  healthcare professionals

· Implement screening programs for all women in the primary healthcare centres in the region to be conducted by eminent and experienced nursing professionals

· Counsellors can develop cognitive behavioural sessions and motivational interviewing with the perpetrators of violence on women in the community healthcare centres

· Nursing professionals provide empathetic and compassionate care for victims of violence and arrange for community services and referrals for safe living of the patient who has been abused (Thompson et al. 2018)

· Family centred therapy should be given to families in the community to ensure emotional well being of all members.

Evaluation plan:

· Evaluation committee will be developed consisting of stalwart leaders who would incorporate evaluation strategies

· Data would be collected and statistics would be compared from time to time to show the reduction of abuses

· Feedback from the stakeholders should be taken to understand how well they are functioning and the different resources and help they require more

· Feedback from community members, victims, vulnerable women and others to see how well they have perceived

· Following these results, changes would be done

Planning Tools and Frameworks

• Brief outline the proposed short or medium-term impacts of the program

• Outline how the program benefits will be sustained once funding has ceased

• Provide a basic logic model which includes:  inputs, outputs (activities and participation), outcomes (short, mid and long term)*

• Provide a basic budget including details and costings for staffing and program operations.

• Provide a Gannt Chart or similar for a program implementation timeline.

The aspect of reorientation of the health services would bring immediate benefits as the help seeking behaviours of the native women will increase when they feel comfortable with the healthcare system. This would help in development of mental and physical health of women who are vulnerable or have faced violence. The advocacy of the social determinants of health would have medium term impacts where government would understand the urgency of situation and will develop policies and allocate funding for community programs. The health campaigning for changing the mentality of gender biasness and inequality will also have huge impacts but outcomes will not be seen immediately but will take time (Lee et al. 2015).

· program benefits will be sustained once funding has ceased :

Once the funding ceases, the effort for changing the mentality of gender inequality and biasness will continue to thrive and bring out positive outcome. It will help in reducing violence on women. The community services which will be initiated on governmental funding at this moment might find out the positive benefits that they are having on the females of community and will continue their service by local authority funding (Fry and Zask 2016). The strategies that have been proposed will help in modifying the foundation of the thought process and therefore will have long term impacts even when funding get ceased. However, governmental aims in handling the social determinants of health are unpredictable.

Input: participation and planning among healthcare professionals, social workers, policy makers, governmental and non-governmental organisations, voluntary organisations, schools, heads of Aboriginal community, researchers, social analysts, evaluation team and others would work collaboratively

Output: collaborative planning, funding and allocation of resources, evidence based policies and strategies, community participation and strengthening, culturally competent healthcare services and screening

Outcome: 

Short: healthcare services for abused or vulnerable individuals, counselling, emotional and physical stability among abused women, care and support services

Mid: proper attending to social determinants of abuse and violence on women like employment, education, campaigning, alcohol disorder issues overcome and others, overcoming emotional turmoil among perpetrators

Long: development of through procedure of gender equality and overcoming gender biasness.

Action	Start date	Duration days
Funding	12/10/18	10
Resource Allocation	15/10/18	20
Screening programs implementation	1/11/18	10
Cognitive behavioural sessions	5/11/18	15
Empathetic and compassionate care	15/11/18	30
Family centred therapy	20/11/18	25
Evaluation and Improvement	1/12/18	15

Budget:

Action	Expense
Stakeholder Communication	5000$
Recruitment	10000$
Training and development	15000$
Payroll	25000$
Equipments arrangement	35000$
Screening programs implementation	25000$
Cognitive behavioural sessions	25000$
Empathetic and compassionate care	50000$
Evaluation and Improvement	40000$
miscellaneous cost	40000$
TOTAL	270000$

Reference List:

Browne, A.J., Varcoe, C., Lavoie, J., Smye, V., Wong, S.T., Krause, M., Tu, D., Godwin, O., Khan, K. and Fridkin, A., 2016. Enhancing health care equity with Indigenous populations: evidence-based strategies from an ethnographic study. BMC health services research, 16(1), p.544.

Clark, Y. and Augoustinos, M., 2015. What’s in a name? Lateral violence within the Aboriginal community in Adelaide, South Australia. Office Bearers of the APS College of Community Psychologists, 27(2), pp.19-34.

Clough, A.R. and Bird, K., 2015. The implementation and development of complex alcohol control policies in indigenous communities in Queensland (Australia). International Journal of Drug Policy, 26(4), pp.345-351.

Clough, A.R., Margolis, S.A., Miller, A., Shakeshaft, A., Doran, C.M., McDermott, R., Sanson-Fisher, R., Towle, S., Martin, D., Ypinazar, V. and Robertson, J.A., 2016. Alcohol control policies in Indigenous communities: a qualitative study of the perceptions of their effectiveness among service providers, stakeholders and community leaders in Queensland (Australia). International Journal of Drug Policy, 36, pp.67-75.

Denborough, D., 2018. Step by step: Developing respectful and effective ways of working with young men to reduce violence. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 37(1), pp.55-78.

Fry, D. and Zask, A., 2016. Applying the Ottawa Charter to inform health promotion programme design. Health promotion international, 32(5), pp.901-912.

Funston, L. and Herring, S., 2016. When will the stolen generations end?: A qualitative critical exploration of contemporary’child protection’practices in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Sexual Abuse in Australia and New Zealand, 7(1), p.51.

Kivel, P., 2017. Uprooting Racism-: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice. New Society Publishers.

Lee, M.S., 2015. The principles and values of health promotion: building upon the Ottawa charter and related WHO documents. Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion, 32(4), pp.1-11.

Marchetti, E. and Daly, K., 2017. Indigenous partner violence, Indigenous sentencing courts, and pathways to desistance. Violence against women, 23(12), pp.1513-1535.

Messerschmidt, J.W. and Tomsen, S., 2018. Masculinities and crime. In Routledge Handbook of Critical Criminology (pp. 83-95). Routledge.

Ridani, R., Shand, F.L., Christensen, H., McKay, K., Tighe, J., Burns, J. and Hunter, E., 2015. Suicide prevention in Australian Aboriginal communities: a review of past and present programs. Suicide and Life?Threatening Behavior, 45(1), pp.111-140.

Smyth, B.M., Hunter, C., Macvean, M., Walter, M. and Higgins, D.J., 2018. Education for family life in Australia. In Global perspectives on family life education (pp. 93-113). Springer, Cham.

Stock, C., Milczarski, A. and Saboga-Nunes, L.A., 2016. Is the Ottawa Charter still relevant? A survey among health promotion practitioners and researchersChristiane Stock. European Journal of Public Health, 26(suppl_1).

Thompson, S.R., Watson, M.C. and Tilford, S., 2018. The Ottawa Charter 30 years on: still an important standard for health promotion. International Journal of Health Promotion and Education, 56(2), pp.73-84.

Wilson, M., Jones, J., Butler, T., Simpson, P., Gilles, M., Baldry, E., Levy, M. and Sullivan, E., 2017. Violence in the lives of incarcerated aboriginal mothers in Western Australia. Sage open, 7(1), p.2158244016686814.