Could Home Visiting Interventions Reduce Intimate Partner Violence?
Highlights
- Intimate partner violence against women remains a significant problem for Indigenous Australians
- Abt Associates and partners are revising the core project curriculum.
- Changes are being made to to better serve Indigenous children and their mothers.
Intimate partner violence against women is a major, global problem with enormous health consequences for both mothers and children.
The Australian Nurse-Family Partnership Program (ANFPP), led by Abt Associates, is an evidence-based, nurse-led home visiting program targeted at delivery of home services to improve health outcomes for Indigenous children and their mothers.
The ANFPP core education curriculum is being revised to include additional modules such as the Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Intervention and the Strengths and Risks (STAR) Framework. To support this work, Abt is working in partnership with Griffith University First Peoples Health Unit to further adapt ANFPP to better meet the needs of the mothers, families and communities we work with.
Project activities include:
- Forming an IPV Project Steering Committee, which includes senior elders, leaders and experts to ensure cultural appropriateness within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander context;
- An environmental scan of the Australian family and domestic violence policy and service delivery environment;
- An online survey of site staff educational needs and visits with sites currently seeing clients to obtain a deeper understanding of the needs of both clients and delivery teams; and
- A situation analysis of organizations to understand how they respond and support clients and to map the broader service environment.
This work is being funded by a grant from the Commonwealth Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet’s Indigenous Advancement Strategy. This addition to ANFPP’s scope follows the release of a Council of Australian Governments’ Advisory Panel on Reducing Violence against Women and their Children report, which recommended a new approach to achieve lasting change within the Australian context.