Practice staff play a vital role in creating a safe, welcoming and confidential environment for individuals and families affected by family and sexual violence. Reception and administrative teams are the first people patients see and speak to at the practice when they come in, making their awareness essential.
The Pathways to Safety workshop, delivered by local GPs, family violence workers and lived-experience experts working with the Safer Families Centre, the University of Melbourne, equips non‑clinical staff with practical knowledge to identify signs of family and sexual violence, respond appropriately within their role and support the whole of practice approach to safety.
Participants will learn how to create safer practice environments, safely engage with patients experiencing sexual and family violence, and assess current clinic protocols and resources to better enhance their clinics response.
There will be breakfast provided and we invite all practice staff to join us for this free workshop.
Additional workshops for clinical staff will be offered to provide a whole of practice approach to addressing the issue of family and sexual violence. Details can be found here: Clinical session
Don’t live in Hobart? Please submit an expression of interest to be notified when a workshop will be held in your area via this form.
Learning outcomes:
- Identify types and signs of family and sexual violence and how members of the family might present in the waiting room.
- Identify and critically examine barriers to disclosure and seeking support for patients experiencing family and sexual violence in general practice, to inform safe and effective clinical responses.
- Apply appropriate, respectful and culturally safe engagement strategies with patients experiencing family and sexual violence.
- Assess current clinic protocols and resources for responding to family and sexual violence to identify areas where changes are needed to enhance response.
Speaker information:
Professor Kelsey Hegarty leads the Safer Families Centre of Research Excellence. Kelsey also holds the joint Chair in Family Violence Prevention at the University of Melbourne and the Royal Women’s Hospital.
An academic general practitioner, her research includes the evidence base for interventions to prevent violence against women; educational and complex interventions around identification of domestic and family violence in primary care settings and early intervention with men, women and children exposed to abuse.
Kelsey focuses on interventions for delivery through health care and through the use of new technologies. The Composite Abuse Scale is a validated multidimensional measure of intimate partner abuse that she developed. It has been used extensively globally and is available in 10 languages.
Kelsey co-edited the book, Intimate Partner Abuse and Health Professionals and is on two Cochrane systematic reviews of screening and advocacy interventions for domestic violence. She led the development of Royal Australian College of General Practice White Book on Abuse and Violence and its associated GP learning module, and develops and teaches a range of curricula for health practitioners including domestic violence and mental health issues.
Providing regular expert advice to the World Health Organisation, Kelsey is also Director of the Postgraduate Primary Care Nursing Course in the Department of General Practice at The University of Melbourne. She works in general practice 1 session per week.
Alina Thomas has an established career in the Community Sector with over 30 years of experience across health and community projects with a focus on women’s rights, health and wellbeing. Residing in nipaluna/Hobart, lutruwita/Tasmania, she is a spokesperson on family violence and gender inequality. For the past 13 years she has served as the CEO of Engender Equality, where she has developed Engender’s therapeutic services and delivered comprehensive family violence prevention and response strategies. She holds a degree in Social Sciences (Community Services) and a postgraduate degree in Women’s Studies. She has also trained under the United Nations in Gender Mainstreaming. She is a dedicated ally to people who use illicit drugs, sex workers, and criminalised women. She advocates for rights, safety, and dignity, working to challenge entrenched stigma and systemic barriers.
Shell is a passionate domestic, family and sexual violence advocate who is engaged with a number of Tasmanian and interstate Government and community organisations, using her lived experience and insights to help improve the primary health care response to domestic, family and sexual violence and is currently co-facilitating the Pathways to Safety training program nationally for Safer Families Centre. She has an interest in domestic, family and sexual violence technology facilitated abuse and she has participated in many research opportunities that seek to encapsulate domestic, family and sexual violence short- and long-term repercussions that detrimentally affects an individual and their community and Australia as a whole.
For more information on Strengthening the response to family and sexual violence in Tasmania: A primary care learning initiative including Pathways to Safety workshops and collaborative learning opportunities, visit the Primary Health Tasmania website
Disclaimer: De‑identified registration and evaluation data for this workshop will be shared with the SAX Institute for reporting to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. All data handling will comply with Primary Health Tasmania’s ISO27001 Certification requirements