Career and future intentions

Q69. Overall, what mainly motivates you to work in a role in family violence response?

51% of respondents did not have plans to leave their current role at this stage, whilst 40% did have plans to leave their current role. A further 10% were unsure.¹

Of those who did intend to leave their current role, 44% were planning to leave for another role within the specialist family violence response workforce. A similar proportion (40%) were planning to leave their current role for another role outside of this workforce.

Figure 21 illustrates the broad range of reasons that had driven respondents to consider leaving their role in the next 12 months. Although 26% cited an end of contract, other key reasons included career prospects or lack of advancement opportunities (24%- 29%); and stress / pressure or the role having a negative effect on respondents’ health and wellbeing (24%-28%). On a positive note, few cited vicarious trauma or backlash / resistance.

Furthermore, most specialist respondents indicated that they would consider taking on a role in the primary prevention of family violence workforce in the future (81%)², suggesting that there is an opportunity for shared resources across the specialist family violence response and primary prevention workforces.

Q74. What are your top 3 reasons for planning to leave your current job in the time frame indicated? ‘Don’t know’ excluded

Results differed by some demographic cohorts, as follows:

• Age – younger respondents (aged under 35) were more likely than their older colleagues to:
  • have plans to leave their current role (49% versus 38% of those aged 35-54, and 32% of those aged 55+); and
  • be open to a role in the primary prevention of family violence workforce (86% versus 80% of those aged 35-54, and 74% of those aged 55+).
• Gender – females were more likely than males to indicate that they would consider a role in the primary prevention workforce (82% versus 71%).
• Years of experience – those with fewer years’ experience in their current role were more likely than those with greater experience to be open to considering a role in the primary prevention workforce (85% of those with 4 years’ experience or less, versus 70-73% of those with 5-10 years or over 10 years’ experience in their current role).
• Level of remoteness – those working in metropolitan locations were slightly more likely than those in regional locations to indicate that they had plans to leave their current role (44% versus 39%).
• Organisation type – see Table 7 for details.

Key results by organisation type are shown in Table 7.

*n= indicates the range of the sample sizes across the two key questions.