TRANSFORM

• 
  Project Leader
  Professor Kelsey Hegarty

  k.hegarty@unimelb.edu.au

  View researcher's webpage

  +61 3 8344 4992

Project Details

The TRANSFORM Project aims to develop and test a trauma and violence-informed ‘model of care’ for health services who are visited by people who may be experiencing family violence.

What is this research about?

The vast majority of people are in contact with health services. General practitioners (GPs) and other health professionals (nurse, psychologist, therapist) are the highest professional group told about Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).

Unfortunately, there is evidence that practitioners often lack essential skills with many barriers needing to be overcome including: personal barriers (e.g. reluctance to “interfere”); resource barriers (women being accompanied, inadequate training, lack of time and referrals); perceptions and attitudes (victim-blaming attitudes, fear patients will be offended); and patient-related barriers (language, cultural, confidentiality, mandatory reporting). There is an urgent need for a tailored response through the health sector to children, young people and parents as experiences vary for families, with people at different stages of readiness to act.

This research aims to explore ways that trauma and violence-informed care can be enabled through the health system so that victim/survivors and their families can be supported on their pathway to safety and care no matter which health service they access.

Focus groups

The Safer Families Centre is running a series of focus groups to explore how the health system can be transformed so that any health service can effectively and appropriately identify and respond to victim/survivors and their families and support them on a pathway to safety and care.

The focus groups will invite practitioners from four key settings:

• Aboriginal community-controlled health
• Hospital antenatal
• General Practice
• Maternal and Child Health

A comprehensive evidence brief is provided to each participant prior to the workshops which is used to inform the discussion.

Health system pilot

Outcomes from the workshops will directly inform the development of pilots to be undertaken in two Aboriginal community-controlled antenatal health settings (in Victoria and South Australia), two hospital antenatal settings (at The Women’s), two general practices, and two maternal and child health services (rural and metro).

Evidence Overview

The Safer Families Centre has gathered evidence to determine the key elements or changes within the health system that can enable staff to more effectively identify and respond to families experiencing domestic and family violence.

The key elements may need to operate at all levels of a health care setting in order to work, including environment, management and leadership, staff support, referral pathways, information sharing, protocols and policies, and community linkages. See elements of a healthcare response.

Visit Website

Researchers

Kelsey Hegarty

Renee Fiolet

Leesa Hooker

Elizabeth McLindon

Cathy Leane

Karen Glover

Kimberly Taylor

Deepthi Iyer

Simone Gleeson

Collaborators

La Trobe University

SA Health.