New guide on measuring primary prevention of violence at the population level

Our Watch, a violence prevention organisation in Australia, has published a guide on measuring the prevention of violence against women and their children at the population level.

Counting on change: A guide to prevention monitoring (2017) is designed to help policy-makers, researchers, and other stakeholders develop a 'picture of progress' on prevention activities. The guide is not focused on measuring individual activities or projects, but rather collective progress on preventing violence against women and their children.

The guide provides information on:

• identifying indicators of change for the drivers and reinforcing factors of violence against women
• data sets that can be used to measure those indicators
• processes for pulling this information together into an overall picture.

The guide provides an overview of the process of change and sets out five long-term indicators, 33 medium-term indicators, and 43 suggested measures for prevention infrastructure and programs. It also examines data collection challenges and gaps for measurement. The guide concludes with a brief outline of the key elements needed to collect data, report on findings and reduce gaps in knowledge.

The full guide and a six page summary are available on the Our Watch website.

Related publications from Our Watch

The 'Counting on change' guide was developed to complement Change the story: A shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia (2015), also published by Our Watch. The framework uses international research and Australian experience to outline what drives violence against women and their children and what works to prevent it. It sets out the evidence and principles of effective prevention, and presents a coordinated national approach.

Our Watch has published several other resources on primary prevention including:

• Putting the prevention of violence against women into practice: How to change the story (2017)
• A team effort: preventing violence against women through sport (2017)
• Community based prevention of violence against women and their children: A toolkit for practitioners (2016)

More information on primary prevention

For more information see NZFVC's recommended reading on primary prevention and previous news stories:

International resources on primary prevention of violence against women and their children

New technical package on preventing intimate partner violence from CDC

Related recent reports

The Multicultural Centre for Women's Health, based in Australia, has developed a new guide to help people and organisations to engage immigrant and refugee communities in violence prevention activities. Intersectionality Matters: Guide to engaging immigrant and refugee communities to prevent violence against women (2017) addresses how to approach prevention, essential ingredients for meaningful violence prevention and prevention in practice.

UN Women has launched a new report that assesses global and regional trends in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from a gender perspective. The report, Turning promises into action: Gender equality in the 2030 Agenda (2018), uses data evidence and analysis to demonstrate the pervasive nature of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere. One of the two specific areas examined by the report is ending violence against women.