Assessment 1 – presentation of overview of the issue from your service perspective

For this assignment you will need to prepare a 10 minute presentation that outlines your service delivery model and identifies the biggest challenges for responding to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children in terms of addressing clients’ priority needs in a culturally appropriate way. Your target audience are practitioners from various practice backgrounds including specialist and mainstream service providers.

You will need to address the following questions:

• How do you incorporate the knowledge base around Indigenous victims’ help-seeking into your service framework (e.g. how do you become more accessible and visible as a service)?
• How do you develop a whole-of-community approach around working with women and children affected by DFV (e.g. community education, awareness raising activities).
• How do you overcome limitations in service provision (e.g. address the role of culturally appropriate referral pathways, partnerships, and integration of responses)?

This assignment should be presented in the form of a recorded video presentation. Your slides should offer a guide through your presentation in form of succinct dot points. Avoid lengthy sentences or paragraphs on your slides. Overloading your slides with written information is a poor substitute for your own words. There is no word limit but your presentation should not exceed 10 minutes in length and your slides should not be overloaded with written information. You may wish to use some images to bring your presentation to life. You should draw on the academic and grey literature around the intersection of culture (Indigeneity) and DFV to substantiate any claims you make around the nature and extent of the issue (i.e. DFV and Indigenous victims’ barriers to help-seeking), implications for community-based education and interventions as well as culturally appropriate referral pathways and responses to DFV. A minimum of six references should be incorporated. References may include academic publications, government publications and grey literature. Please ensure your final slide contains a list of references used throughout the presentation.

As part of this assignment you will need to upload your PowerPoint slides along with your video recording. Video recordings will need to be uploaded to YouTube or Cloudstor and a link to the recording will need to be emailed to the course coordinator by the specified due date. Instructions on how to upload videos to YouTube or Cloudstor will be provided via Moodle. For this assignment, you will be marked based content and presentation style reflected in your recording as well as your slides.

Additional notes to students:

For this assignment you will either require a webcam and relevant presentation capturing software or any video recording device if you choose to capture yourself next to a computer with your PowerPoint presentation. I would encourage you to use the webcam and presentation capturing software option as it will help you capture consistent voice, video and slide quality. For this purpose you may wish to use something like Screencast-O-Matic (which you can access free of charge for presentations of up to 15 minutes here) or Camtasia, which also offers free trial access here. These software tools will allow you to share your screen (i.e. your PowerPoint presentation) while talking to the camera (attached to or integrated into your computer) and record your presentation at the same time (similar to the Echo360 lecture recordings you are used to). However, if you are familiar with another software tool or you wish to record yourself using another recording device (e.g. an iPhone) while delivering your presentation next to a computer screen, that is also acceptable. Your choice of recording or software will not affect your mark as long as both your slides and you as the presenter are captured in the recording and video and voice recording quality is adequate.

Assessment 2 – Developing a safety plan (1,000 words, +/-10%)

For this assignment you will need to develop a safety plan for a female, adult client accessing your service. Based on the vignette provided below, you will need to identify the level of risk to the client’s (and her children’s) safety along with resources the client can draw on (e.g. informal, formal and tangible support). You will also need to consider external safety mechanisms that need to be put into place (e.g. involvement of other agencies/service sectors).

This is Marlene’s story. Marlene has left the residence she shares with her abusive partner the day prior to accessing the victim support service where you work as a case worker. She took her 5 year old daughter and her 12 year old son with her and spent the night at her sister’s place. This is no long-term solution because her sister has limited space and Marlene’s partner knows where she lives and has already rang the sister to try and get to Marlene. This is the first time Marlene has actually left the house with her children. She has rung DFV support services in the past for information but had not made the decision to leave previously. Marlene is worried about returning to the family home because the emotional and physical abuse has been escalating in recent weeks but she is also unsure where to find safe and sustainable accommodation. You will need to consider safety measures suitable for someone who has left an abusive partner very recently and has two minor children in her care.

Kieran and I have been together for 14 years. He has always been jealous but didn’t touch me to start with. He starting calling me all sorts of names after our son was born and I became a stay at home mum. He made me feel useless, like I was too stupid to do anything on my own. He always pretends to be the caring nice guy when we’re with other people but as soon as it’s just the two of us it’s like he becomes this other person. Initially he would never call me names or hurt me in front of the children but this has changed. Over the last two years he has often put me down in front of the children and calls me a bad mother.

He always controlled our finances. His money goes into his own bank account and my paycheck goes into our joint account. As soon as my paycheck comes in he clears the account and only gives me some cash to buy the groceries and stuff for the kids schooling. I have thought about leaving him before but he always threatened to hurt the children or get them taken off me by the family court if I left him. He has a lot of money and control and I don’t really have any of that. I don’t even have family to stay with in the long run. Last night he rang my sister. He knew we would be there because I don’t really have anywhere else to go. I lost most of my friends over the years because of Kieran’s behavior.

In 1,000 words, identify the key risk indicators that emerge from this vignette. You will need to draw on the relevant academic literature around risk assessment and safety planning to identify why Marlene and her children are at an increased risk of harm and what mechanisms need to be put in place to maximise their safety. You will need to incorporate what research and practice has to say about crisis responses and protection for mothers with dependent children and some of the challenges that may be associated with this (e.g. access to accommodation; children’s contact with the abusive parent). A minimum of six references should be incorporated. References may include academic publications, government publications, grey literature and relevant practice guidelines.

Written Assignment – Essay (2,000; +/-10%)

You are required to write an essay which provides you with an opportunity to thoroughly investigate and address a key issue in domestic and family violence practice: factors enabling or hindering victims’ help-seeking decisions

Research identifies a range of factors that may enable or hinder the disclosure of DFV to external support sources. What are these factors and how do/can they affect help-seeking decisions?

Seeking help when experiencing domestic and family violence plays a crucial role in (re)-establishing safety and overcoming experiences of trauma and abuse. However, disclosing domestic and family violence to external support sources can also be a point of heightened risk because it challenges the abuser’s power and control over the victim. For most victims, help-seeking is a process that evolves over time and is shaped by experiences of abuse as well as opportunities to respond. While some victims remain silent for years, many engage in proactive help-seeking decisions.

For this essay, you need to critically discuss the factors that may hinder and/ or encourage those affected by domestic and family violence to seek help. You are expected to demonstrate a high level understanding of how different factors can influence victims’ help-seeking decisions. You will need to consider that different factors may act as a deterrent factor at one point in time but as a push factor to seek support at another. Where research suggests that some factors can be a hindering as well as enabling factor, you are expected to identify and discuss this.

The essay needs to address the following aspects:

· The importance of help-seeking (introduction)

· A brief overview of types of abuse to refer back to when unpacking how certain abusive tactics may keep victims from or encourage them to seek support;

· A brief distinction between informal and formal sources of support and the role these play in the help-seeking process;

· At least four factors that may hinder victims’ decision or ability to seek help and at least four factors that may enable help-seeking;

· A critical discussion of how and why the factors you identified act as barriers to or enablers of help-seeking;

· A consideration of the role of intersectionality as it applies to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, i.e. how may culturally specific factors further complicate victim’s help-seeking decisions?;

· Implications for service responses when victims do seek help (i.e. what is seen as good/ best practice in supporting victims who disclose domestic and family violence and ensure their safety.

You will need to identify and critically review the help-seeking literature as it relates to enabling and hindering factors. You will further need to link the help-seeking and intervention literature to establish how service responses can best support victims who disclose experiences of abuse. You need to demonstrate a high level understanding of why victims may or may not seek help at different points in time, how situational circumstances may affect help-seeking decisions and how some factors may on the one hand be used to silence victims but also act as an enabling factor under different circumstances or at a different point in time. Your essay needs to link what we know about victims’ help-seeking decisions to the support required when external support sources are expected to respond. You will also need to consider how help-seeking decisions may further be complicated by culturally specific experiences. This should be done summarising how challenges associated with seeking help may be further exacerbated by the role of culture more broadly rather than for each of the hindering factors you have identified.

You will need to draw on national and international literature around theory and practice as it relates to help-seeking. You should include at least fifteen references in your essay. At least eight of these should be academic journal articles based on empirical and/ or theoretical examinations of the issues relevant to the essay question. Remaining references can be sourced from the grey literature. Please avoid using website information as a reference.

This assignment is worth 40% of the total assessment for this subject. /100