"I see the voice of lived experience located where policy intersects with pain. What is the point of policies, programs, processes if they do not intersect with what people need? If they do not help where people hurt? If today, in your work, you do not know where that intersection is, then ask a victim survivor. They will tell you."
VSAC member
Partnering with people with lived experience has been a new approach for the Victorian Government in delivering the family and sexual violence reforms. Family Safety Victoria (FSV) acknowledges the collective of voices who have shifted perspectives, raised awareness and built a responsive service system over time. See: Journey.
There is a clear and growing movement to support the inclusion of lived experience in the design, implementation and evaluation of family violence services and for communities to participate in decision making on the issues that affect their lives[1][2][3][4]. The Victorian Government’s formal journey to incorporate lived experience into service design, policy development and law reform began in response to Australia’s first Royal Commission into Family Violence held in Victoria in 2016. This followed the courage and wisdom of Rosie Batty and others in sharing their lived experience to create social change. The landmark Royal Commission offered people with lived experience of family violence a public platform to share their experiences of family violence and the Victorian family violence system.
In implementing all 227 recommendations, the Victorian Government committed to engage with people with lived experience to design and develop policy and programs and inform legislative change. As people shared these stories, a cultural shift was occurring in the media and in public discourse, where family violence, and violence against women more broadly, was no longer a secret. Advocates took on the burden of sharing their pain to help others understand the complexity of this issue and the state’s response to it. It was these voices and stories which shaped the Commission’s final report and 227 recommendations. These recommendations highlighted the ways that Victoria can prevent and respond to family and sexual violence. This included creating a more responsive family violence system that meets the needs of the Victorian community. It also included the creation of FSV, an agency dedicated to drive key elements of the reform, including engagement with people with lived experience.
The Royal Commission recommended that lived experience must remain at the heart of the family violence reforms to achieve meaningful change. This recommendation has been a critical part of the lived experience work to-date, creating an expectation that as the reforms are designed and delivered, they must also seek to establish the channels and structures which make space for lived experience.
In the first phase of the family violence reform, the ways that lived experience was reflected in government’s work was predominantly through the expression of individual victim survivors’ sharing their stories and experiences and their desire to advocate for social and systemic change.
The Victims’ Survivors Advisory Council (VSAC), a formal advisory body, was established in 2016 to provide formal advice to the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, to share victim survivor perspectives on family violence reform governance groups. This was an important step in challenging traditional government thinking in its approach to service delivery and design. The first Council was critical to disrupting the status quo, and VSAC remains vital in ensuring that government continues to focus on working together with people most impacted by its policy and service design.
Through the establishment, evaluation and continuous improvement of the VSAC model over the past five years, a clear connection has been established between the improved design of policies and services and engagement with people with lived experience. Despite its success, the VSAC model was never intended or designed to be the sole channel for government’s engagement with people with lived experience. Evaluation of the model, alongside insights from past and current members of the advisory council, have highlighted that this work cannot be driven solely by individuals pushing for social and systemic change. Government must also have built-in structures promoting engagement with a broader range of individuals and communities and for people with lived experience to take up leadership opportunities.
Government is now in the next phase of its work engaging with lived experience. This involves expanding channels for a greater number of people with lived experience to participate in the reforms and creating the conditions required for partnership and leadership of victim survivors in the co-production of policies, programs and services. FSV recognises that it must create the structures and culture for this leadership to bring the lens of lived experience into our work.
This strategy is aligned with and has adopted similar principles of other significant approaches of engagement as developed by Dhelk Dja:Safe Our Way, Everybody Matters: Inclusion & Equity Statement, The Family Violence Experts by Experience Framework[5] and Department of Families, Fairness and Housing Client Voice Framework for community services.
References
[1] State of Victoria 2016, Royal Commission into Family Violence: Summary and recommendations, Parl Paper No 132 (2014–16).
[2] Department of Health and Human Services 2019, Client voice framework for community services, State Government of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.
[3] Lamb K, Hegarty K, Amanda, Cina, Fiona, and the University of Melbourne WEAVERs lived experience group, Parker R. 2020, The Family Violence Experts by Experience Framework: Domestic Violence Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.
[4] Wheildon, L J, True, J, Flynn, A & Wild, A 2021, ‘The Batty Effect: Victim-Survivors and Domestic and Family Violence Policy Change’, Violence Against Women, vol.0(0), p.1-24.
[5] Lamb K, Hegarty K, Amanda, Cina, Fiona, and the University of Melbourne WEAVERs lived experience group, Parker R. (2020) The Family Violence Experts by Experience Framework: Domestic Violence Victoria. Melbourne, Australia. https://safeandequal.org.au/resources/family-violence-experts-by-experience-framework/
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