Women’s Health Grampians
- Project: Grampians Preventing Violence Against Women – Cross Community Collaboration
- Amount: $86,500
- Year(s) Funded: 2015
Creating communities of respect and equality across the Grampians region
Building on three years of active community engagement in response to the high incidence of violence against women in Western Victoria, Women’s Health Grampians led this collective impact project to successfully develop an extensive Community of Practice across 11 municipalities to address the issue. In its first three years it reached more than 14,500 employees across the region and, as a long-term ongoing project, will continue to reach many more.
“CoRE has led to many powerful conversations in the health service offices, some challenging, but all necessary and productive – we are definitely a stronger community because of it.” Health Service CEO, following Community of Practice session
The Grampians region has one of the highest rates of family violence in Victoria with rates up to 70% higher than the state average. As the region moved from awareness to action, a sustainable community-led way to engage diverse groups in the community and undertake prevention of violence against women initiatives in the region was required. 20 years of local experience, knowledge and evidence enabled Women’s Health Grampians to identify a ‘community of practice’ as the best way to meet this need in an integrated, sustainable and evidence based way.
Snapshot:
- From a target of 40, Communities of Respect and Equality (CoRE) grew to include 105 committed partners from local government, education and training, sports, private sector and state government as well as health and community services reaching more than 14,500 employees across the region.
- Communities of Respect and Equality (CoRE) aims to create a community of respect and equality for everyone. All organisations, clubs and networks in the region were invited to join the CoRE Alliance and take action within their own sphere of influence, internally and externally, to address the drivers of violence against women and improve gender equality.
- Participation in the forums by staff from a broad spectrum of employers led to organisational commitment to the CoRE, enabling significant capacity building within the engaged organisations.
- Baseline data has been captured in the Gender Inequality in the Grampians report that maps the rate of change towards gender equality on a number of structural indicators – such as gender and leadership roles, gender and accessing part time vs full time work, and gender and caring roles. It is anticipated that the CoRE intiative will use this baseline data to map rates of change towards gender violence in the region over the next 5-10-15 years, as well as the rate of change against the Victorian average.
- The CoPs have become a valuable and efficient way to support CoRE members with the actions they can take as a CoRE member to ensure their membership is meaningful
- Comprehensive information about the Community of Practice sessions can be found on the Women’s Health Grampians website including discussion papers, copies of presentations and CoRE videos.