Projects

The Changing Ways MARAM Alignment Project is a three-year initiative (2024–2027) funded by Family Safety Victoria (FSV) to strengthen the alignment, implementation, and capability of practitioners and organisations across the Bayside Peninsula Area (BPA) in relation to the MARAM Adult Using Violence (AUV) practice guide and tools. The project aims to build a unified, culturally safe, and accountable system where all organisations —regardless of primary service type — understand their MARAM responsibilities, work collaboratively, and embed consistent practice when assessing and managing risk with adults using family violence.

Objective: Identify strategic priorities and actions to address MARAM Alignment activities as pertain to AUV tools and practice guides, and FVISS, both informed by consultations with BPIFVP members, people with lived experience of family violence and other key stakeholders.

BPA Mapping Report: This report presents the findings of the Changing Ways MARAM Alignment (CWMA) Project’s Year One mapping exercise managed by the Bayside Peninsula Integrated Family Violence Partnership (BPIFVP). The mapping exercise was inclusive of both consultations with BPIFVP member organisations regarding MARAM alignment and desktop research on the current socio-economic status of the Bayside Peninsula.

Read the report here

This Plan is eight months in the making and is a true collaborative effort of all our Partnership members. Our amazing consultant, Lisa Abbott brought our collective ideas, vision and goals together in a co-design partnership with our Lived Experience Advisor, Katie. In her consulting role, Suze Radford shared invaluable First Nations insights and wisdom to ensure that our local communities would be central to our work and the Strategic Plan. Our graphic designer Kim East then worked her creative magic on our words and vision to produce a beautiful document that will be front and centre of our work over the next three years.

Read our plan here

The project is the result of a  collaboration between the Southern Melbourne Family Violence Regional Integration Committee (SMFVRIC), Bayside Peninsula Integrated Family Violence Partnership (BPIFVP), Dandenong and Districts Aborigines Co-operative Limited (DDACL), Ngwala Willumbong Aboriginal Corporation (Ngwala), Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency (VACCA) and Sue Radford (Ngarrindjeri woman, Mental Health Social Worker, Family Therapist & Specialist Family Violence Advisor)

The project will develop a training package and resources to improve the cultural understandings and skills of clinicians using the MARAM tools – to undertake culturally sensitive risk assessment screenings with First Nations people who are victims of family violence, strengthening:

1. Understanding of contextual history of how continued violence/ genocide/assimilation towards First Nations People continues to influence violence towards Aboriginal people in contemporary society.
2. Multi sector workforce’s understanding and implementation of culturally responsive MARAM assessments for all First Nations peoples, whether using the screening and assessment, brief and intermediate or comprehensive risk assessment and safety planning tools.
3. Connections to our Southern Region Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations to facilitate secondary consultations, information sharing and community engagement opportunities.

The Building Our Workforce (BOW) project will work collaboratively with member agencies across the Southern Melbourne Family Violence Regional Integration Committee and Bayside Peninsula Integrated Family Violence Partnership to collectively drive workforce attraction and retention initiatives across family violence and sexual assault sectors.

Targeting practitioners at different stages of their career journey from student placements to more experienced professionals, the innovative non-salaried approaches to workforce attraction and retention being designed and piloted through the BOW project include:

• Centralised Regional Student Placement Program to attract Master of Social Work final year placement students and strengthen transitions into entry level positions. Consideration will be given to working with education providers and agencies to design a program that is culturally safe and addresses systemic barriers, particularly for students from CALD and First Nations backgrounds.
• Synchronised secondment program conceptualized to provide practice development and knowledge transfer opportunities across agencies for mid-career professionals.
• Wisdom in Practice, centres lived experience through a reverse mentoring program for early career professionals. Victim survivor designed and led, this retention initiative addresses power, creates reflective practice and develops a client centred approach to practice.
• Regional Professional Development Calendar fostering professional development and practice collaboration to build a strong, connected and stable workforce across the region. With a diverse mix of agencies engaged in the project, this calendar provides an opportunity to capitalise on their expertise in areas such as intersectionality, trauma informed practice, working with person using violence and engaging with priority communities to the broader regional workforce.

Importantly, the BOW project works to build an evidence base for a cross agency collaborative approach, through the structure of the Family Violence RICs/Partnerships, to address workforce attraction and retention issues.

Read final report here