Sadie's story helps us think about how policies and practices can be improved. So Sadie's story comes from the domestic and family violence and parenting research project. This project focused on three main research questions. We wanted to look at how inter-parental conflict and domestic and family violence affect mother-child and father-child relationships. There was a gap in the research about this. We also wanted to know how mothers who had experienced domestic and family violence perceived this had affected their relationship with their children and we wanted to understand to what extent and to what effect these mothers had, had contact with services and agencies in the Child Protection, Family Law and domestic and family violence systems. These research questions were addressed through a mixed-methods approach. It involved a literature review completed by Dr Leesa Hooker and Professor Angela Taft from the Judith Lumley Centre at La Trobe University. We also looked at longitudinal data. One element of this aspect of the project was an analysis of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children that was lead by Professor Jan Nicholson from La Trobe University and conducted by her team. We also looked at data from the Family Pathways suite of studies, that AIFS operates. This was work that was done by Dr Lixia Qu from AIFS and it focused on the Longitudinal Study of Separated Families and analysis of the cross-sectional Experiences of Separated parents, data sets. The fourth element of the project was a series of interviews with 50 women who had experienced family and domestic violence and used services in relation to their experiences across the child protection, family law, family violence and sectors. This part of the project was done by AIFS in collaboration with Professor Cathy Humphreys and her team from the University of Melbourne. Before I talk about the findings in more depth I just want to let you know about the terminology we're using. So we use the words domestic and family violence where the research constructs and the measures are designed to measure that experience. We also use the term inter-parental conflict which is the way that the measures in LSAC are described. What we want to acknowledge that there is some overlap between these constructs and there is at a particular point in the spectrum a point where IPC might potentially merge into domestic and family violence. So I’m just acknowledging that complexity.

I also want to acknowledge that there are limitations in survey data. They don't necessarily measure the severity of the harm that’s caused by the experience, they don't provide good insight into the power dynamics involved and we don't understand issues around the context such as whether the behaviour is committed in an aggressive or a defensive way. These surveys also potentially underrepresent parents who have experienced severe violence and that’s why we had the interviews with 50 women as a key element of the project.

So I'm just going to briefly highlight some of the findings from the LSAC analysis around psychological distress and the experiences of mothers who report intimate partner conflict. I'll just highlight the findings around clinical levels of psychological distress. When we looked at mothers who reported no IPC we found that one to two per cent of the sample reported clinical levels of distress. This compares with eight to 10 per cent of mothers who had reported persistent IPC. The findings from the Family Pathways Suite of studies analysis shows similar patterns so we found that domestic and family violence negatively impacts relationships, parenting, finances and children. Where parents reported physical hurt and or emotional abuse, this was associated with negative inter-parental relationships and safety concerns. Higher levels of parenting stress increased financial hardship, especially for mothers and poorer outcomes for children and young people. They had poorer general health and development, poorer socio-emotional development and increased behavioural problems.

Turning now to the impact of domestic and family violence on women and children that we found from our interviews with 50 women. The interview data demonstrate that there are mutually reinforcing lasting impacting of domestic and family violence. The women reported that they had ongoing physical and psychological consequences that included post-traumatic stress disorder and high levels of stress and anxiety. They also reported ongoing psychological and sometimes physical consequences for their children. These included sleep problems, behaviour problems and high levels of stress and anxiety.

The mothers in the sample told us that they and their children continued to be exposed to domestic and family violence where they continued to have contact with the perpetrator sometimes as a result of ongoing parenting arrangements. In these circumstances, children continued to be exposed to poor parenting by the ex-partner including abusive behaviours. One of the interesting findings from the interview data concerned fathers abuse of service systems. 29 of the 50 women reported to us that they experienced systems abusive after separation. They reported that they had to engage with multiple systems and services and that at times perpetrators exploited the inconsistencies between these systems and services. Perpetrators engaged in manipulative engagement or non-engagement with services to exhaust the personal and financial resources of women, including their allocations of legal aid. This manipulative engagement included making counter-allegations in proceedings for personal protection orders and in parenting processes and in mediation. It included non-compliance with court orders and with child support obligations and it was linked in some cases such as Sadie's, to some mothers losing contact with children or becoming the non-resident carer on a permanent or temporary bases.

So if we think about Sadie's story we can see that it demonstrates the dramatic impact of financial violence on financial stability, despite the fact that Sadie has been the breadwinner for her family and maintained two jobs prior to separation. She ultimately became homeless and unemployed despite trying to keep her foot in the workforce and support her family for as long as possible. This had a domino effect for her capacity to be the viable carer for her daughter. Despite the violence and abuse, her daughter remained with the father because he had a roof over his head. As a homeless person or a person living in refuge, Sadie was unable to provide accommodation for her daughter.

Sadie's story also demonstrates the fragmented responses to family violence. Child Protection, Family Law and homelessness systems were all involved in the situation but there was no safe solution for Sadie and her daughter. No service provided for all of their needs. The impact of Sadie's ex-partner and his ongoing impact on Sadie and her daughter were not in the line of sight. No one focused on the fact that Sadie was continuing to be exposed to this behaviour and her daughter continued to live with violence, abuse and neglect.

In conclusion, our research showed that there's insufficient attention paid to the impact on mothers and children of father's family violence. It showed that therapeutic support for mother-children relationships is very important but inconsistent access to therapeutic support was reported by the women in our sample. There is an inconsistent focus on recovery in parent-child relationships particularly mother-child relationships in Child Protection and Family Law services, and there are barriers to recovery identified with the domestic and family violence, child abuse and systems abuse perpetrated through post-separation parenting arrangements.

I just want to acknowledge from organisations that greatly contributed to this research including ANROWS which provided the funding. Our advisory group of practitioners that made a big impact to our research and its validity and relevance to practitioners. The Attorney-General's Department funded the Family Pathway Suited studies and LSSF initially was co-funding by FACTCIA. The Australian Government Department of Social Services, The Australian Institute of Family Studies and the Australian Bureau of Statistics are the organisations responsible to LSAC. Thank you very much for your attention I'm now am going to hand over to Emma and Jackie, thank you.

MS ROGERS: Thanks Rae, our practice experience agrees with what you have been saying that the system is fragmented. What Jackie and I are going to focus on for the next 30 minutes is how we as practitioners work within a fragmented system and what we do bring cohesion to increase safety for mothers and children. First, we would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land of where we are delivering this webinar from, on the Sunshine Coast which is the Gubbi Gubbi Kabi Kabi people and pay our respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. We would also like to honour all the mothers and children we have worked with who we have learnt so much from and who inspire us and motivate us to do this work.

Another thing I think that we want to talk about too in time of you know, COVID-19, we know everyone has this on their minds and that the pandemic will increase the impact of domestic and family violence for adult and child survivors and victims. This is why having a cohesive approach focused on perpetrators behaviours and tactics is pivotal to our work as it helps us to identify how he, the perpetrator can use the pandemic to entrap and control her further and how their status of living with the pandemic possibly contracting COVID-19 makes them more vulnerable to his abuse.

MS WRUCK: Thanks Emma, so working with a fragmented system we will refer to Sadie's story as this highlights, in particular, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture is invisible and how we can bat this in everyday practice as well. So what builds cohesive practice? What we have found is having a consistent approach when working with fathers who perpetrate violence against their families. Focused on their behaviours and them as parents across services and not blaming the mother for the harm he is causing, that is our experience in working with services such Child Protection, Probation and Parole, counselling, police, DV services, family support and indigenous services and the court system.

Creating one system that is focused on him as a parent and his parenting choice to use cohesive control as a source of harm for us children whether they're biological or step-children. This is a shift that we have found has made the difference.

MS ROGERS: Yes, and I think if we look at Sadie's story, the father's behaviours are inviable throughout Sadie's story. As Rae states, the impacts on Sadie and her daughter were not in the line of sight. But also the father's role as a parent and his patterns of perpetrating. His behaviours and tactics are hidden, you know they are hidden by him and the current system supports them being invisible by being fragmented and not co-ordinated and as a society, there's a gender double standard. We are not focused on him as a parent compared to mother. It's this paradigm shift to change this that brings the women and children safety sector together to collaborate and makes their work less fragmented.

MS WRUCK: Right, with dad's choices whether good or bad, impact child and family functioning and the absence of seeing him as a parent reinforces that men are not important. Aboriginal men, in particular, are ignored or vilified by our systems. Helping our men is important to the Aboriginal community and we want to value him as a parent equally to her. Sadie's story also highlights how first nation's people's culture is invisible, the system abuse which stems from racism or white privilege hides culture for us people, that means it makes us invisible in systems, services, policy and practice.

I think that is because there is an underlying racist belief that domestic violence is part of our culture. When we view it as part of our culture, indigenous fathers who are using cohesive and controlling behaviours are not held accountable and not given the chance to be supported to change these behaviours. When his behaviours are visible we can safely plan better.

As we see in Sadie's story little engagement with mum and no apparent engagement with dad made for poorer responses and services not being set up to be culturally safe. There was a lack of understanding that if Sadie's partner is not indigenous how will be use racism as part of his patterns of abuse against her and the children and how he has the privilege to use the system to abuse her further?

So now we will cover briefly what guides our practice and then the four areas that build a cohesive approach. So as discussed earlier, a culturally significant approach and a domestic and family violence and form practice together is needed when working with indigenous families who experience family and domestic violence. Our main guide is a Safe & Together model which is a strength-based child-focused and used as a perpetrator pattern-based approach. I like it because it is holistic in working with families and has been in my guide when working with my people.

This model gives language and a frame of reference to assist when working across services. Also using it on the ground, we have seen the crucial difference in the reduction of unnecessary removals of in Child Protection and instead of rescuing children from mothers who have the capacity to care for their children, Child Protection is now focused on him as a parent and now interfering with the father to reduce the risk he possesses to the children and create safety. I don't have time to talk more about this model however there's a link in the resources for the Safe & Together Institute website for you to investigate further. Over to you Emma.

MS ROGERS: Well yeah and I think you know another influencer, our practice on the ground has been participating in several community of practices and now we have had four community practices in Queensland which the Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women in Queensland have been involved in. Community of practices has had a tremendous influence on increasing our domestic and family violence inform practice across the agencies and strengthening our multi-agency work together with us, in this community of practice applying the Safe & Together model for our cases. So two of these community practices we've developed research and headed up by Professor Cathy Humphreys with David Mandel and Kyle Pinto from the Safe & Together Institute, and they provide key findings and guide in intervening with fathers as parents use violence. The resources from a visible practice research focuses on key skills identified for working with fathers who use violence and control and there is a link below to this resource on this website.

The second research community practice in Caboolture in Queensland was named STACY which stands for Safe & Together Addressing Complexities and this community practice for all those agencies involved really advanced our knowledge further looking at domestic and family violence and the intersections with complexities with substance misuse, mental health issues and developing a guide from STACY, from this research which will no doubt be on the ANROWS website that we can use for our practice on the ground.

The other influencing guide for us in our practice has been the Walking with Dads program which is a real unique program that both Jackie and I have been involved with. So it's an initiative by the Queensland Department of Child and Safety, Youth and Women and has been in operation since 2016. It's in four Child Safety service centres which is Caboolture, Gympie, Caloundra and Mount Isa and it's where a DV specialist works in the Child Safety service centre to embed the Safe & Together model and focus on a response to fathers who perpetrate domestic and family violence.

So the Walking with Dads worker just to give you an idea, contributes to the overall case management of the family, has a specific focus on perpetrator accountability and the need for intervention with the father. You know, as we know historically fathers have been invisible in Child Safety work leading to that you know failure to protect model which blames and holds mothers responsible for father's abuse against the family. So the Walking with Dads practice is built upon two strong foundations, so the first is that the safety of mothers and children is paramount and the second, is that the partnership with the mothers and sometimes children as well, and young people we partner with them too is the foundation from which to plan the family safety and effective intervention with fathers.

So – and Walking with Dads is also, focuses on supporting fathers in their behaviour change journey. So that's sort of a little overview of our influences that have guided our practice. So we'll just go on to that next slide.

MS WRUCK: Thanks, Emma. So we're up to the key areas of focus for cohesion and integration so my mate Emo and I have been trying to think about key focus areas that make a difference, and we've come up with four. Can we have a drumroll, please? And we'll address each of them.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

MS WRUCK: So Emma with the perpetrator base.

MS ROGERS: Okay. So, the perpetrator pattern-based approach we see is a Safe & Together model term and we see as an essential key area that you need in actually bringing cohesion to the services. So, basically having this approach is it focuses on safety, so it focuses on the patterns of coercive control, and it's effective because it identifies the perpetrator's pattern as a source of harm instead of mum's choices, or relationship status, or living arrangements which we have seen happen when we've been involved in those multi-agency working. So, it's the domestic violence perpetrator and his pattern of behaviour as a source of harm, what we look at for risk, and not the adult survivor. So, 'Is she going to leave?' We'll then shift to instead, 'What are his behaviours and tactics?' So, mapping his behaviours is an effective way to understand the risk he poses to her and the kids and actually gives us that full risk assessment.

MS WRUCK: So, the perpetrator pattern-based approach names the behaviours and does not attack the man's essence. And that's very important for indigenous people, as we don't want - you know, our people don't - our women don't want our men to be oppressed further. And this has led to suicides or incarcerations, mistreatment by authorities, and this is based on our history, this occurring. So, with my mum, she didn't want my dad incarcerated and she wanted someone to support Dad to stop and help him, but that never occurred. When we don't see the importance of men's behaviours, we're kind of out of alignment with the adult and child survivors' experiences of reality.

So, Aboriginal people are more communal in our values, so Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men have been marginalised and targeted. So, having a framework around the importance of fathers' behaviours and choices to the family is culturally safe, because it reinforces the idea that helping men is important to the health of the community. So, I want you to think about, you know, help - help us to - it helps us to identify domestic violence perpetrators, their roles in the family harm, as well as the positive input non-violent fathers are having. And it gives us a way to start equalizing out our expectations of men and women as parents. I'm not in any way trying to excuse his behaviours, but I can tell you, that Aboriginal women want the community to be able to address this.

Mum loved my dad, and we loved our dad, and my mum did not want our family to be split up. Like most Aboriginal women, we do not want to leave, you know, our community or the father of our children, and we want services that can address their behaviours and give our men the opportunity to change. Again, the mother and children will guide our intervention and we must respect Aboriginal women in their views. We must take their lead as they will tell us what is the safest way to intervene. Again, like we have said, focusing on his behaviours takes the blame from Mum and it directs it back to the source of harm of the child and family functioning. This is important for child safety as they often work from a failure to protect model, which actually blames Mum for fathers' destructive behaviours and the harm to children.

So, I'm going over to key No.2 which is about partnering, and partnering as a default position. And I must say, this is essential to our work. And if you are not doing it, you're probably doing unsafe work. If you are thinking about working across the system and you're a service that doesn't engage with survivors, then I suggest you engage and connect with a service which is partnering with the survivor just to create safer work. We listen closely to her experiences and map his patterns of behaviour in order to inform safety planning and interventions with the dad. When we partner well, we identify all the actions she has taken to keep her children safe and what has worked in the past and we can see how we can enhance her safety plan. So, like the slide says, the strength-based technique is where we are all in alliance and partners in safety with the survivor.

If we partner well with her, what we find is that his - we find his pattern of coercive control and the details and the themes of the abuse, we find out what she is doing to keep the children and herself safe, we actually discover best ways that we can help keep her and the children safe and how we can actually intervene with him safely because we need her lead on that. We also identify who are influencing family members and friends to help hold him accountable and responsible for safety, and evidence of - we gain evidence of increased safety and parenting improvements that Dad has made. So, to sort of demonstrate this, I probably would like - well, Emma and I are going to do a roleplay. So, I'm home alone, not like the little kid, but anyway, Emma is the worker and I'm the survivor and Emma's come to see me at my home to talk about an incident.

MS ROGERS: Okay. So, I'm first going to, like, talk to you Jackie in a non-partnering way, okay? So I'm going to do that first. So here I go.

MS WRUCK: Okay.

MS ROGERS: So, Jackie, I'm here to talk to you about a DV incident that you and your partner were involved in and how this is unsafe for your kids. I'm going to talk to you about how you both need to stop DV because our role is to keep your kids safe. So, what I'd like to see you do is not let Dad back in the home, I'd like you to take a DV order out or a protection order to stop him and - so this doesn't happen again, and he can't come in the home. And I - when I come back I'd like to see that he's not here because if he is here, I probably have to report you. So, that's the non-partnering way, so how did you feel when I spoke to you in this non-partnering way?

MS WRUCK: Oh, Emma. I didn't feel good. I felt like it was my responsibility and that Emma thought I was involved in the violence, and she lumped me in with Dad. So she kind of mutualised the behaviours and I was just as guilty as him. So, as an Aboriginal woman, I was fearful for my kids being removed, and she actually separated my kids' safety from me, as she wasn't worried about my safety. And then she made it - made me feel uneasy and that she believes that the kids are safer without me. I also felt that you know, she thinks she knows better than me then, you know, asking me to get a DVO. I know that the DVO may not protect me or my children. So, the other thing is that I'm under five foot, and my partner's six-foot, how am I going to stop him from coming in the home? I'm buggered. So - - -

MS ROGERS: Yeah.

MS WRUCK: Yeah, please, Emma, can we do the partnering way? Because I'm feeling a bit unsafe here.

MS ROGERS: Okay. Okay. So now I'm going to do it in a partnering way. Okay. So, Jackie, I'm here to talk to you about your partner's behaviours and his role as a dad, and how I'm really worried about your safety and your kids' safety. I know that you are doing a whole heap of things to keep your kids safe and well, and I'd really like to talk to you further about this. And also about how I can work with Dad to assist him to be safer with you and the kids. I really want to take your lead on what's best for you and the kids and how I can work with Dad to help him be a safer dad. So, how did you feel when I just used the partnering way to talk to you?

MS WRUCK: I felt much better, thanks, Em. I wasn't blamed for his behaviours for starters, um, and I felt that you cared about me and my kids and you actually saw me as a protector, and that you are looking to take my lead on how to work with him. So that really made me happy. You also included that he was accountable and you said you wanted to support him to be a safer dad, so I felt that you're not trying to split the family up, and you didn't want to totalise him by his violence. And instead, you wanted to work with me and not forcing me to do things that were going to make me unsafe, so thank you.

MS ROGERS: Okay. Well, that's good. So look, that conversation leads us to holding Dad accountable and responsible as a parent, so that takes us to the key area No.3, so we'll go onto that. So, holding him accountable or responsible across the system, his behaviours and the impacts are no longer invisible when we document and communicate about it with the perpetrator, other services, and with survivors like we were just doing then in the partnering. We are then actually seeing his behaviours and him using those behaviours as a parent in choice. So, his responsibility is much more than not being violent, it's rethinking what his role is as a father and having higher expectations how he will support the mother and be a safer dad.

So, naming his behaviours and impacts on the kids and the family functioning family ensures that he is held accountable for his decision to use violence. And services asking him what he is doing for the safety, healing, nurture and stability of his children will enable us to question his parenting and focus him on his parenting responsibilities, and hold him to the same standards as we do for Mum. So that's I think really important. Our experience is that dads are motivated by being better fathers. So, this is the area we want to focus on across the system, and where we have had the most success in fathers reducing and ceasing violence as well and - so what we have found that when we have done that and the system, so services such as probation, parole, neighbourhood centres, other services involved when we're talking and using the language of accountability across the system we actually have a much better impact on him and motivating him to cease and reduce behaviours.

So, I'm just going to go onto the next slide just to give an example of a tool that we use, it's a Safe & Together tool and it's known as the case plan grid, or we call it sometimes the accountability plan or risk management plan, and it demonstrates how we on one document can have his patterns of coercive controlling behaviours, we have the impacts on the kids and the family functioning that his behaviours have caused, and we also have on that plan what we want him to change and then who can support this change and how we know it will be different. So, it's a document - so if we go to the next slide we'll see this plan and we can see how this is a document that we can use across the system, across services. So, we don't have time to go through all of the detail on that document, but I just want to draw you to a few things on that document.

So, if you look under, for instance, 'Interventions,' you can see the different services that in this case were involved with this father. So, we had police who were monitoring him and breaching him if he doesn't abide by the order, we've got child safety involved, we've got probation parole involved, we've got behaviour change involved. So it shows you - it's really clear about what services are involved and what they are going to do in regards to holding him accountable and responsible. And so I think that the other thing I wanted to focus on here but most importantly that - is the last column focuses on the change we need to see. Because this is not about him attending services, rather, his commitment to demonstrate as a father that he's choosing behaviours that are safe for his kids and family.

So you can see there that what we need to see is that immediate safety has increased for the kids, that he can acknowledge his destructive behaviours and the impacts on the children and their mother, that he's abiding by the DVO. So, there's a list of things that we can put there that we know that there's change. What's fantastic about this tool and what - how we've used it is that this is, again, designed and created with mothers and children and young people. So they actually - so in this case, this is a de-identified case, this is a mother who's actually said what his behaviours are, the impact on her and the kids, and what she wants to see change. So, I think that's again where mothers and children and young people are leading the intervention with fathers. And, you know, we might have some more questions about this and we can discuss that further at the end of our presentation.

So, this takes us to the last key area, No.4, which is, we've got to have multi-agency work and an integrated service response if we're going to do this well. And the system just can't do this effectively unless we're using a perpetrator pattern-based approach. So, if we've got every service using a perpetrator pattern-based approach it means that we're always communicating about his behaviours and the impacts these behaviours cause rather than focusing on what the survivor can do. And that's really what we've seen as the current failings of integrated service responses on the ground, is that we end up focusing on mothers and what they're doing, when we really want to talk to - across these services we really want to talk about his behaviours, the patterns of his behaviours, and the impacts on the kids and family functioning.

So, just going to that next one there, we want to focus always on how we can hold him accountable and responsible, and services again who - I think Jackie you spoke to this, but services who only work with perpetrators have an opportunity and need to proactively connect with services that are partnering with survivors for ongoing risk assessment, risk management and effective safety planning. Rather - and checking in with her, rather than safety plans being done to survivors, instead survivors are there, you know, leading the way and that, that's really important. Okay. So over to you, Jackie.

MS WRUCK: So, I just want to bring up that multi-agency work needs to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations or identified staff. For indigenous dads it's important to have indigenous services that's designing behaviour change programs and not just anger management or parenting programs, they need to work with dads and speak to coercive control and behaviour change. Domestic and family violence is not men's business, it's everyone's business, and it's important to note for non-indigenous fathers, their responsibility is to support their children's healing and connection to culture, as that's very important for our Aboriginal children's identity as an Aboriginal child. So, the last slide, and we want to see the difference for Sadie and her children, you know, in a very cohesive system, so some of the good things is that we're focused on the perpetrator's behaviours as the source of harm, and avoids being deflected to failure to protect approach.

It improves partnerships with the survivor and children, and it improves our safety planning, engagement and/or intervention with perpetrators no longer invisible. They can now - that can lead to increased safety, support and recovery for survivors and children based on his impacts, and evidence for court so that magistrates can make informed decisions because, in Sadie's case, she didn't have an affidavit and no one thought about capturing what's going on for her and the children. Sadie would have felt, you know, believed, listened to and safe to disclose information without fearing any repercussions on her and her children. And she would have felt some form of self-determination for having a say on what safety looks like for her and the children and have family that she trusted and needed in her life, not a, 'He sort of wanted to be present.' So, thank you.

MR DEAN: Well, thank you very much, Jackie and Emma, and thank you to Rae. We're going to go to some questions now, thank you to everyone who's submitted a question, there's many of you on the line so we'll try and get to as many questions as possible. I just want to check that Jackie, Rae and Emma can hear me at the moment?

MS ROGERS: Yes.

MR DEAN: Can you just give a shout out?

MR LOCK: We can.

MR DEAN: Yep, you can, yep, great.

MS KASPIEW: I'm good, Adam.

MS WRUCK: Yep. I'm good.

MR DEAN: Brilliant. Okay, so I've got a - the first question that we'll go to is probably - oh, and I should just say Steven Lock is going to join us for the Q and A session too, so thank you, Steve, for joining us. The first question that we have, this is probably best addressed by Emma and Jackie or Steve. So, what would be the most useful thing that a practitioner could do to help someone in Sadie's position?

MS ROGERS: So, it's Emma here. I'm just - I think that probably what we would say is what would be the most important thing is to do partnering with Sadie, so that was that key area 2 that we discussed. If we're thinking about that safety is paramount for Sadie and her child or, you know, for women and children, this is the first step in understanding the risk he poses to her and the children and what she's already doing in the context of his abuse and keeping her and the kids safe. So, I would say that would be your starting point.

MS WRUCK: Yeah.

MS ROGERS: Did you want to add at all, Jackie or Steve?

MS WRUCK: Yeah, I wouldn't mind saying a couple of things. You right, Steve?

MR LOCK: After you, Jackie, yeah.

MS WRUCK: Yeah. I just want to say, like, probably the partnering is the most important thing. So, probably don't assume especially with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, you know, families and women and stuff like that. Be careful on how you approach the situation and language is very important, so to build that trust to start with is your key thing. From that trust and that rapport, you're going to start getting information that's going to be crucial to, you know, mapping behaviours. So, don't assume anything. And I think you have to engage, like, as many people - Indigenous organisations as you can but, you know, make sure that everyone's DV informed, don't put culture over safety.

MS ROGERS: Yeah.

MR LOCK: Thanks. Thanks, Jackie and Emma.

MS ROGERS: Thanks Jackie, Steve.

MR LOCK: Yeah, I just wanted - it's Steve. I just wanted to add, I couldn't agree more to what Emma and Jackie have said. The thing about the partnership is that in lots of ways it's - the Walking with Dads work we've done over the last three or four years, the partnership becomes a foundation. You know, one of the mistakes you can make is thinking that this way of working, the thing to do is to get out and engage for dads and engage the perpetrators, but I think what we've learnt and Safe & Together has been so influential is that a partnership with the mother, the victim, is the foundation from which you do that work with him. So, I think it's a mistake to think that you can do work with him without either you or someone in your professional network having built a strong partnership with the mother. Because the two things are so dependent on each other.

MS WRUCK: Yeah.

MR DEAN: Thank you, really good responses there. We have another question for Jackie, Emma and Steve. How can we hold the perpetrator accountable if we don't or cannot work with him?

MS WRUCK: Steve?

MR LOCK: Um - - -

MS WRUCK: I thought you - - -

MR LOCK: I think that this is a big question that comes up all the time, you know, like, the work that all three of us do that this will be a common thing, it will be the sense of either, 'My agency doesn't work with dads, perpetrators,' or it'll be, 'We try to, but they just won't have anything to do with us,' or, 'We can't find them, or they're evasive or abusive.' And the answer here is really important, it's that actual accountability can be achieved, Emma and Jackie talked about it very well, can be achieved through documentation. It can be achieved through much more diligently recording what he is doing and he isn't doing. And it can be achieved by making notes that say, 'I phone him, and he told me that it wasn't his problem,' we should be speaking to the mother.

Making a case note that says that and then adding some comment to it that the - in your view, in your assessment, this means that he was taking no responsibility for the welfare of his children. And maybe feeding that back to him that that's the kind of case note you're making. And Emma and Jackie talked about perpetrator behaviour mapping, that's another really important part of accountability. So, if you can really diligently document what he's doing and how it's arming the family, that is accountability, you don't even need to see him.

MS ROGERS: Yeah. Yep. I think even how we talk to survivors about him, that you have to have a language of accountability in that, you know, that we're talking about - and that's certainly what we've - you know, how we tried to shift in child protection, is talking about him as the problem, we're involved because of his behaviours. And that roleplay that we did was really demonstrating that, that that was accountability even how we're talking to her about him and his behaviours.

MR LOCK: Yeah. Absolutely.

MR DEAN: Thank you. I'm not sure if Rae had anything to add to that, or we might go to another question?

MS KASPIEW: I'm happy to take more questions, Adam. I think Jackie, Emma and Steve have covered it admirably.

MR DEAN: All righty. So we have another question which leads on from the last one, and I think it's just a question of kind of clarification. And the question is, how do you engage fathers in this work and are they court-ordered to participate?

MS ROGERS: I was just going to just check, do they mean in this work in regards to Walking with Dads I'm thinking, is that what we think that means? Or - - -

MR DEAN: Well perhaps just respond to - yeah, perhaps just in that program, but if even more broadly - - -

MS ROGERS: Yeah.

MR DEAN: - - - if you can - yeah.

MS ROGERS: Yeah.

MR DEAN: Consider more broadly, yep.

MS ROGERS: Well, actually, Walking with Dads is not, it's actually voluntary engagement, so it's not - you know, it's not court-ordered, it's not, you know, the - you know, probation, parole, community corrections in regards to, you know, when we work in Walking with Dads. We can certainly work with them to - you know, that we're all on the same page, that's really why we like those risk management or accountability plans that we're all working together. But I think that sometimes, yeah, fathers are mandated to do things, sometimes they're not mandated but, you know, we have found that we have a range of responses from fathers who use violence and abuse when they're mandated and when they're not as well and of course, you know if we're working in child protection we're motivating them around their kids. So, you know, we're - we want to work with them so they're - you know, they're safer and better-connected fathers. So, we have found that is a motivator for working with fathers that use violence and abuse.

MS WRUCK: That's right. I just wanted to add that when we are engaging the fathers it's all about their role as a parent and their role as a father and what that means. So, once you start going away into a way where it's about behaviour and how that's affecting their children then you see a different, you know, attitude in regards to them wanting to work with you or not. So, you're not going to save everyone, but yeah, you definitely get that shift when they see that - you know, because most of the time these guys don't want to perpetrate, all right? These guys just don't know, and they don't have anyone to help them work through sorts of things that are probably being second and third generation now of domestic and family violence, so language is very important in how you engage them, and always pivot back to the children.

MR LOCK: And I would add to what - - -

MR DEAN: Thanks, Emma and Jackie - go on, Steve. Sorry.

MR LOCK: I would just add to what Jackie says, because I think it's so important that Jackie says that, you know, we recognise them as a parent. And that thing about their motivation around their kids, one of the things we're saying is, well, as a parent, the way to be a good dad, a good parent, is to support the mothers of your children. So, we're not allowing them to kind of just say, 'Oh, I am nice to the kids, but she's my problem.' We're kind of making it very clear that, actually, if you care about your kids, you've got to support the mother of your kids. So, we're really - we're not allowing them to kind of slip away on, 'I'm only' - you know, 'I'm only doing this for the kids,' we're making it very clear that - - -

MS WRUCK: Yep.

MR LOCK: - - - as a co-parent, your respectful support for the children's mother is absolutely what it's about.

MS ROGERS: Yeah. That's true.

MS WRUCK: Because - sorry to hark on, but because through colonisation they lost their role as parents and, you know, as a caregiver and stuff like that, so that all comes into play. And if we start showing that we support - we want to support them as parents, you know, you get a different attitude and stuff like that. Thank you.

MR DEAN: Thank you all, we really appreciate your responses to that question. I'm just mindful of the time. We're going to extend this for another maybe five minutes, but in recognition of anyone's time, if you need to jump off the webinar now, please feel free to do that because the webinar will be recorded and will be made available on the CFCA website soon. But if you are able to join us for another five minutes we'll get to some more questions. So, another question that's come through is, what if your work with the perpetrator might make things worse or dangerous for the mother and the kids? How would you respond in a practical way to that situation?

MS WRUCK: Em, you want to go first or - - -

MS ROGERS: Oh, me?

MR DEAN: Yeah, Emma. Do you want to answer that, if you can?

MR LOCK: We might have lost Emma.

MR DEAN: We may have lost Emma.

MS WRUCK: We must have.

MS ROGERS: Oh, no, sorry about that. I'm back again, sorry, I was stuck on mute there. Yeah, this is going to bring us - can you hear me?

MR DEAN: Yes, we can. Take it away.

MS ROGERS: Okay, sorry about that. Yeah, well this is going to bring us back to the partnering because when we are intervening with fathers, mothers are a lead on that. And children too, I mean, what we've found in doing this work, we're asking children and young people too about how we're engaging with dads and what we can talk to him about and what we can safely say without any repercussions for mum and the kids. So, that's why the partnering is the foundation of the work and, you know, we would say that it's real concentrating partnering, everything that we do with him before we meet with him, we talk with her afterwards, we check back in with her and the kids. So it's really based on that partnering. And of course mum's the lead and she'll tell you what's safe and what's not safe, and those grids that we put up there, that accountability plan, is a great way to do that. We've had mums that have put all the behaviours and impacts and then they've highlighted with a highlighter what we can talk to him about, and then over time they might say, 'Yep, now I want you to talk to him about this,' and they highlight what we can talk to him about safely. So, again, you know, it just brings us back to that partnering.

MR DEAN: Thank you, Emma. Due to the present situation and we are all working by telephone with no face-to-face allowed, how can we best check that the mother and her children are safe and okay? Do you have any thoughts about that? Either Steve, Jackie or Emma. And I think we've lost Emma again, but Steve, did you have anything to say?

MR LOCK: Yeah, I can probably comment, you know, I mean it's a rapidly evolving situation with COVID obviously, and I think we're at a hugely challenging point because the question has raised this issue, you know, again and it's come up again and again in our work in the last few weeks. Basically COVID is a huge opportunity for some men, some perpetrators, to isolate and control mothers. And we know that those situations make mothers, victims more vulnerable and their children more vulnerable. I'll try and say one or two things, but I'd also strongly recommend that people go to the Safe & Together website where David Mandel is every day putting on new material about how best to manage in this situation. I mean, the question - rather than give you kind of, you know, perfect answers, the question really becomes how can you maintain those kinds of partnerships that Emma and Jackie are describing in the situation where you can't see her face-to-face, and you're then trying to deal with a situation where phone calls or Skype links or any other form of communication may be monitored by her partner, the perpetrator. So, I'm not going to attempt to give the definitive answers to those questions, but it just gives another big piece of thinking that needs to be done about how you build partnerships in the absence of one-on-one direct contact with mothers, victims. Jackie, did you want to add?

MS WRUCK: Yeah, look, I think that's a very difficult question there and, you know, I'm just wanting to say that if you have been working with a mother in the past hopefully before COVID had occurred that there was that safety plan that you were doing with her, and should this happen, what would you do. So, I'd probably be looking at every resource that you can get out there, especially David Mandel's and any other ones that you can get just to see how to approach that because every situation is different. And depending on

MR LOCK: And I'd certainly add

MS WRUCK: on your relationship.

MR LOCK: I'd certainly say that you know, if there's ever a time when multi-agency, cross-agency communication and planning is critical, it's now. Because it really means that - - -

MS WRUCK: Yes.

MR LOCK: sometimes, of course, the domestic violence services are the very best people in understanding how we might be able to communicate with mothers safely. So, it's always critical that we do a lot of cross-agency assessment, risk management, but it's probably more important than ever right now. Because probably no one agency's going to have all the answers, you know as if they're (indistinct).

MR DEAN: Well thanks everyone for participating today. Once again I would like to acknowledge and thank ANROWs for collaborating to produce this webinar. For more information about the research projects discussed throughout the presentation including Domestic and Family Violence and Parenting, Mix Methods Insights into Impact and Support Needs by Dr Rae Kaspiew and the research reports Invisible Practices and the Patricia Project lead by Professor Cathy Humphry’s you can find those on the ANROWS website. A recording of the webinar will be made available both on the CFCA and ANROWS websites.

WEBINAR CONCLUDED

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1. How does inter-parental conflict (IPC) and domestic and family violence (DFV) affect mother-child and father-child relationships?
2. How do mothers who have experienced DFV perceive this has affected their relationship with their children?
3. To what extent have these mothers had contact with services and agencies in the child protection, family law and DFV systems?

• Literature review (La Trobe University, Dr Leesa Hooker Prof Angela Taft)
• Longitudinal data
  • Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (La Trobe University, Prof Jan Nicholson and team)
  • Longitudinal Study of Separated Families (AIFS, Dr Lixia Qu)
• Cross-sectional survey data (AIFS, Dr Lixia Qu)
  • Surveys of recently separated parents
• Interviews (AIFS and University of Melbourne, Prof Cathy Humphreys and team)
  • 50 mothers who had used services in relation to DFV experiences