Whittlesea CALD Communities Family Violence Research Report 2012 | Page 11
Moving Forward
2015 promises many exciting opportunities to continue to expand and enhance the WCFVP.
A second round of Women’s Support Group Grants will allow more CALD women in
Whittlesea to build friendships and connect with their community, whilst learnings from
round one inform a closer approach to capacity building the groups through training and
workshop opportunities.
Existing partnerships with community and/or religious leaders will be strengthened and
new relationships developed, as we support these leaders to advocate and deliver antiviolence messages in their communities.
Implementation of the pilot Arabic-speaking Men’s Family Violence Group will produce
valuable learnings to support our efforts to secure funding for an accredited Arabicspeaking Men’s Behaviour Change program.
The Women’s Advisory Group will continue to provide ongoing feedback and input into
the WCFVP as well as work with us to develop a trial group of FV resources targeted to a
handful of CALD communities within Whittlesea.
Funding will continue to be sought for unfunded elements, including a pilot whole of
school program and project worker wages beyond June 2015.
In addition to the original WCFVP model, the project won selection to design and deliver
prevention-focused activities with Whittlesea’s Iranian community. Funded by the State
Government and managed by peak national prevention body Our Watch, this project will be
overseen by lead implementing partners Whittlesea Community Connections, The Salvation Army
Crossroads, and Women’s Health In the North with support from other steering group members.
The partnership will receive one-off funding of $150,000 to engage with representatives of the
local Farsi-speaking Iranian community to design and deliver a range of culturally appropriate
and linguistically relevant strategies to prevent violence against women and children. Strategies
include empowering women and engaging men by supporting and resourcing community
groups; building the capacity of community and religious leaders as PVAWC advocates;
supporting newly arrived community members through early settlement legal education; and the
development and design of other community-led PVAWC activities. The WCFVP worker will be
seconded to this project for three days and a support worker brought in to backfill this position.
The project will intersect and complement WCFVP work, and allow the piloting of early
settlement legal education (WCFVP element 4) with the Iranian community.
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