What is the VOICES project?

The VOICES project captures the experiences and perspectives of victims and survivors, people who use violence, and service providers. By building an understanding of help-seeking journeys, this project has addressed a gap in the evidence base which has previously been limited to discrete contexts of help-seeking, such as emergency departments, primary healthcare providers and the court system.

The broader view of the help-seeking journey in this study informs service design and policy responses across service systems. The study was a collaboration between the Safer Families Centre and ANROWS.

The research objectives:

The research generated empirical evidence about the following key issues:

• the lived experience of intimate partner and sexual violence by a group of women throughout their life

• patterns of intimate partner and sexual violence used by the people who use it, over their lifetime

• mapping the different service needs and supports for women and people who use violence, and outlining what was valued in and expected from services

• an examination of service insights into what currently works when responding to victims and survivors and people who use violence, and what is required for change.

Participants

Online Engagement:

• 95 sector stakeholders (participants were practitioners, service designers and managers, and researchers)

• 1,122 victims and survivors

• 563 people who have used IPV and/or SV.

In-depth qualitative interviews with:

• 30 victims and survivors

• 8 people who had used violence.

Project Team

Project Lead: Kelsey Hegarty

Associate Professor Dr Laura Tarzia, University of Melbourne

Dr Kristin Diemer, University of Melbourne

Dr Minerva Kyei-Onanijiri, University of Melbourne

Dr Mandy McKenzie, University of Melbourne

Matt Addison, University of Melbourne

Jacqueline Kuruppu, University of Melbourne

Dr Maria Koleth, ANROWS

Dr Patricia Cullen, University of NSW

Associate Professor Dominiek Coates, ANROWS

Project Advisory Committee

Australian Institute of Criminology, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, No to Violence, WA Health, WEAVERS, University of Melbourne, National Association of Services against Sexual Violence, Queensland Department of Justice, Settlement Services International, Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department, ACON’s Sexual, Domestic and Family Violence Team, WA Department of Communities, and the Office for Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence.