Sunday March 25 2012

World-Renowned Expert Leads Domestic Violence Training

An expatriate New Zealander working at the cutting edge of domestic violence prevention in the USA will headline a series of nationwide workshops to be hosted by the National Network of Stopping Violence, Te Kupenga.

Graham Barnes is currently with the Battered Women’s Justice Project in Minneapolis, Minnesota – a nationally-recognised initiative of Duluth’s Domestic Abuse Intervention Program.

Graham works closely with community organisations, law enforcement, prosecution, corrections, courts and judiciary as part of a multi-disciplinary team that provides technical assistance to communities that have successfully obtained grants from the Department of Justice’s Federal Violence Against Women Office.

He will lead a workshop – ‘Making a Real Difference: Effective Co-ordinated Community Responses (CCR) to Domestic Violence’ – in four main centres: Wellington (April 24), Auckland (April 26), Hamilton (April 30) and Christchurch (May 2).

The training has been organised by Te Kupenga in partnership with the National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges and supported by the Family Safety Teams and the Ministry of Social Development.

Te Kupenga national manager Brian Gardner says a range of community and government interagency initiatives – providing an effective co-ordinated response to domestic violence – have been developed in New Zealand over the past decade.

Brian says experience and research shows that successful interagency responses increase the safety and wellbeing of individuals, whānau, families and communities.

“But what is it that makes a real difference?” he asks. “How do we measure success?

“The co-ordinated community response model is much more than a networking opportunity. It potentially links government and community agencies into a seamless response to domestic violence intervention, drawing on experience gained in Duluth, Minnesota, and other progressive cities in America who have used a systemic change perspective to address domestic violence in their communities.”

The ‘Making a Real Difference’ workshop will provide participants with:

• Information, resources and case studies on providing effective, seamless, interagency responses to domestic violence.

• An understanding of the diverse experiences of victims of violence and how to maximise their safety and autonomy.

• Skills on how to use effective interagency processes to hold offenders accountable for their violence and engage them in a change process.

• Expertise in building risk assessment into case management.

• A mechanism to track case outcomes.

• Experience on how to constructively solve problems common to co-ordinated interagency responses.

• A range of resources to support the development of interagency groups.

Te Kupenga is a network of 42 independent community-based organisations – from Whangarei to Invercargill – working to end violence and abuse in families.

For more information or to register for the workshop, go to the website www.nnsvs.org.nz.

ENDS

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