Partnerships are a crucial tool for strengthening community-led primary prevention with multicultural communities, and strengthening practice more broadly within organisations seeking to engage multicultural and faith communities. Taking a partnership approach means looking closely at how organisations work together equitably, not just their project outcomes. Read more.
Working in primary prevention can be rewarding, with many from the Connecting Communities Network sharing how their work is inspiring and rewording. However, working the end family violence and create social change can also take a toll. Designed for decision-makers and managers, this resource presents four key lessons on how to support practitioner wellbeing. Read more.
For gender equality and violence prevention activities to be effective, they need to engage everyone, including men and boys from multicultural and faith-based communities. This resource draws on the existing evidence base, as well as practice examples from members of the Connecting Communities network, to outline their learnings, tools, insights and strategies for working with multicultural and faith-based men. Read more.
This resource has been developed to grow the understanding of values-based messaging for primary prevention practitioners working with multicultural and faith-based communities, highlighting the role of values-based messaging as a tool to engage community, build trust, and address backlash and resistance by creating messages that resonate with communities. Read more.
To achieve a world free from family violence, we have to change attitudes across the whole population. But there’s no one-sized fits-all approach to primary prevention that works for every community. An intersectional approach to primary prevention means involving, consulting and collaborating with the communities you are working with. Read more.
Connecting Communities is a partnership program between MCWH and Safe and Equal, to support recipients of the Victorian Government Supporting Multicultural and Faith Communities to Prevent Family Violence Grant.
Why this project is important
Violence prevention practitioners who work to prevent violence in ethno-specific and faith-based communities face unique challenges for which there is little support. These challenges can include backlash, racism and resistance, which can significantly impact on practitioners' professional and personal lives. Currently there are limited resources or tools to support practitioners or address these challenges.
Promoting gender equality at the same time as promoting anti-racism is essential to prevent violence. Multicultural and faith communities face racism, xenophobia, and faith-based discrimination, like Islamophobia and Antisemitism. These forms of discrimination cannot be separated from multicultural and faith communities' experiences of gender inequality. That is why preventing family violence and promoting gender equality must include anti-racism.
How this project is making a difference
Multicultural and faith-based organisations have unique strengths relevant to family violence prevention. They have specialist expertise which draws on shared community experiences and examples of resilience, survival, and collective care and understands common experiences of displacement, isolation, and systemic exclusion, as well as culturally specific challenges and gendered norms.
Connecting Communities connects practitioners to strengthen their capacity and share their expertise, while supporting practitioners to build resilience.
Project Activities
Capacity building activities such as training, communities of practice, events and practice workshops are running through 2023.
So far, Connecting Communities participants have taken part in:
- Prevention in Practice training
- Event to connect participants and encourage networking
- Communities of practice to offer support and practice reflection. Topics we have covered so far have included: Challenging 'cultural' explanations for violence, Building equitable partnerships and Co-designing prevention initiatives.
Practice workshops for 2023 will include sessions on:
- Intersectionality in practice
- Transforming resistance – faith and culture
- Migrant men and masculinities
- What we can learn from Aboriginal PVAW
- And more to be confirmed.
For more information about our 2023 activities, please contact: multicultural@safeandequal.org.au
Connecting Communities is a partnership between Multicultural Centre for Women's Health and Safe and Equal, and is supported by the Victorian Government.
Guides for primary-prevention in multicultural and faith-based communities
As part of the Connecting Communities project, the Connecting Communities network have developed a series of guides on primary prevention. These guides were developed after the Connecting Communities network - a group of practitioners who all work in multicultural and faith-based communities - expressed a need for short, concise and practical resources in topics relating to primary prevention work.