The national Readiness Program trains primary care providers to offer better support to people experiencing, or at risk of, violence.
About 25 years ago Professor Kelsey Hegarty, a GP, began researching how to support patients experiencing domestic and family violence.
She knew she hadn’t been trained to ask the kinds of questions that might encourage patients to open up about their experience of violence, and if a patient did make a disclosure, she hadn’t been trained to know how to respond.
“Today, domestic and family violence (DFV) is a conversation in the public sphere but, on average, medical schools only provide about three hours of training in total in this area. We are still not training people about something that is as common as asthma and diabetes,” says Professor Hegarty, who holds the joint Chair in Family Violence Prevention at the University of Melbourne and Royal Women’s Hospital.
Professor Hegarty began considering how to address this knowledge gap. The result of her research is The Readiness Program, a national government-funded training program for GPs, primary care nurses, Aboriginal health workers and practitioners, and other primary care workers and practice staff.
The program focuses on GPs and people working in primary care because they are the ones who are told about current domestic violence — more than any other health professional and more than police or specialist services. Everyone who works in primary care has a role to play and that includes staff at the reception desk through to practice managers, primary care nurses and GPs says Professor Hegarty.
The Readiness Program is already being rolled out to primary care providers across Australia and it has a number of aims, including improving identification, risk assessment and responses at the point of initial disclosure and providing more support for all families. The program includes training to address DFV in diverse population groups including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, migrant and refugee groups, older people and LGBTQI+ groups.
It also improves skills and confidence to provide care for families that is trauma and violence informed, increases timely referrals for those affected by DFV and provides more holistic care for all family members, including children and people who use DFV.
The program is based on World Health Organization guidelines and has engaged 5000 primary care staff overall, including 100 clinics and 800 staff in the more intensive program. Training is delivered via online learning modules and in practice in collaboration with trained GPs and local DFV services. Sometimes a DFV survivor also co-facilitates training. Some online learning modules are also being delivered to medical students at the University of Melbourne.
Those who’ve taken part in the program so far say it has made them more aware of how common domestic and family violence is and how people might present. They know how to ask questions and are reassured that listening can be an intervention of itself, and that they don’t have to ‘solve’ the problem, says Professor Hegarty.
She adds: “I’d like to think that any clinic in Australia feels welcoming and displays signs that indicate they know about domestic and family violence and that their practice is a safe place to disclose.”
Learn more about the Readiness Program: saferfamilies.org.au/readiness-program