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Research

Our research

Violence against women and children affects everybody. It impacts on the health, wellbeing and safety of a significant proportion of Australians throughout all states and territories and places an enormous burden on the nation’s economy across family and community services, health and hospitals, income-support and criminal justice systems.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

News and events

ANROWS hosts events as part of its knowledge transfer and exchange work, including public lectures, workshops and research launches. Details of upcoming ANROWS activities and news are available from the list on the right.

ANROWS

About ANROWS

ANROWS was established by the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments of Australia to produce, disseminate and assist in applying evidence for policy and practice addressing violence against women and children.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

Resources

To support the take-up of evidence, ANROWS offers a range of resources developed from research to support practitioners and policy-makers in delivering evidence-based interventions.


EXTERNALLY FUNDED RESEARCH PROJECTS

A community mobilisation program to prevent violence against women in metropolitan Melbourne: A qualitative evaluation of first-year implementation

Background

Primary prevention approaches such as community mobilisation (CM) prevent gender-based violence (GBV) through program activities that mobilise communities to take action against the gendered drivers that underpin GBV. CM is a promising prevention approach and program workers have been identified as key catalysts to mobilising change. However, little is known about the experiences of program workers or the implementation of CM approaches in Australian metropolitan settings. Taking Action in our Community (TAC) is a CM program that supports neighbourhood and community house settings across one region of metropolitan Melbourne to promote gender equity and mobilise community action on GBV.

Aim

This qualitative descriptive study explores the enablers and barriers to the supportive capacity of program workers (from community house settings) who design and facilitate CM activities. The current study aims to answer the following questions:
1. What enables CM program workers to support those in the community to take action?
2. What barriers do CM program workers experience in their role supporting community members to take action?

Methods

This project is a qualitative evaluation. Program workers (paid employees or volunteers) who were involved in the TAC program were purposefully sampled to participate as informants. Consenting informants participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews over the phone. Interviews were audio-recorded and then transcribed. Transcripts were analysed using inductive thematic analysis.
Ethics approval for this study was received from Deakin University’s Human Ethics Advisory Group – Health (HEAG-H128_2019).

Significance

To our knowledge, this is the first Australian qualitative study of a CM program that aims to prevent GBV against women in an Australian metropolitan context. It presents insights into the enablers and barriers to the supportive capacity of program workers who design and facilitate CM activities. The findings may strengthen future implementation of CM programs in similar metropolitan settings around Australia.

Project start date

February 2020

Expected completion date

June 2021
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