Innovating, expanding and refining
To create a world with no family or sexual violence, we must have ambition, persistence, and the courage to try new things.
Some of the actions in this plan are bold and innovative. They will challenge us to do things differently. For example, Respect Victoria’s Respect Ballarat, a community model which tasks the entire community with actively preventing gender-based violence.
Other actions push us to keep adapting, expanding and refining the way we work to better meet the needs of people affected by violence. This involves building on some of the transformational changes we have made over the last decade.
A unified roadmap
With this plan, we create a single, unified roadmap for addressing family and sexual violence, and all forms of violence against women.
This plan brings together work of other relevant strategies and plans, including:
- Free from violence: Victoria’s strategy to prevent family violence and all forms of violence against women (Free from Violence)
- Everybody matters: Inclusion and equity statement – sets out our vision for a more inclusive, safe, responsive and accountable family violence system
- Framing the future: Second rolling action plan (under Building from strength: 10-year industry plan for family violence prevention and response) – actions to strengthen and support the family violence workforce.
By bringing together actions from primary prevention, inclusion and workforce plans, we can embed these critical efforts in broader reform. This makes sure they are visible, sustained and coordinated drivers of long-term change. We are strongly committed to these important reforms, which will continue to guide our progress.
This plan also includes initiatives from the Strengthening Women’s Safety Package (announced in May 2024). These initiatives will strengthen our ambitious agenda to:
- keep women and children safe
- hold people who use violence to account
- stop violence before it starts.
A deep commitment to self-determination
Consistent with Aboriginal self-determination, actions under Dhelk Dja will remain separate to this plan.
The actions under Dhelk Dja have been developed by Aboriginal people for Aboriginal people, in partnership with the Victorian Government.
These actions are monitored by the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum, which includes:
- community-led Dhelk Dja action groups
- Aboriginal community-controlled organisations (ACCOs)
- the Victorian Government.
This plan includes an action to make sure that our broader work to prevent and respond to family and sexual violence is respectful, inclusive and culturally safe for Aboriginal people. This action is designed to complement Dhelk Dja’s work.
Many of the other actions in this plan also aim to make services work better for Aboriginal people, as we continue to build a system that is:
- more inclusive
- better able to respond to individual needs
- driven by skilled and knowledgeable workers.
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