Update on Family Violence Campaign & New Round for Community Action Fund

The Campaign for Action on Family Violence Team in the Ministry of Social Development have released the following update for April 2008: The campaign is busier than ever and there’s lots of positive news to report.

Police say the campaign is helping to reduce tolerance to family violence, our TV ads are attracting widespread interest and we are being told regularly by frontline workers that people are seeking help as a result of the campaign. We are also starting to see the results of our media advocacy work with family violence reported in a more accurate and responsible way.

Community organisations continue to inspire us with the energy and innovation they are investing in their projects and we have just announced a new round of funding for the Community Action Fund. Young people are showing increasing interest in the campaign and we are now taking our campaign messages to business and sports organisations.

Police statistics

New police statistics show a 31.5% increase in reported family violence incidents categorised as violence. Overall, there has been a 24.3 percent increase in reported offences involving family violence across all categories.

Police Assistant Commissioner Grant Nicholls said "This is not surprising when we take into account that there has been a huge focus on family violence with publicity and campaigns such as the It’s not OK campaign designed to reduce tolerance to domestic violence…..Public awareness, encouraging women to report violence and making offenders accountable for their actions are positive steps and we’ll see more of this in future.”

TV Advertising

The four men who fronted the second set of TV ads telling their positive stories of change have shared their stories with media throughout New Zealand. And it seems like their message is getting through. This week we had received this from Relationship Services:
‘A man referred himself for counselling to address his verbal abuse of his daughter. He was deeply ashamed of his behaviour and knew he needed help to heal the damage he had done. Seeing Brian’s story on TV gave him courage to put his own shame aside and reach out. He talked about the impact of Brian’s words in his first session as being a significant motivator. The campaign is working!’

And it’s not just in the main centres. Before the campaign, the Violence Free Motueka group was seeing 1- 4 men a month. Now they are dealing with about 11 men every week and most of them are self-referrals.

The TV ads also generated an immediate increase in calls to the 0800 Family Violence Information line. Operators handled 383 in the first week the ads showed on TV, a record number of calls for one week.

A panel discussion involving the four men on TV1’s Good Morning programme on 12 March was so successful the producers ran a second programme with the men on 26 March, discussing what helped them to stop being violent. Both programmes prompted an immediate increase in calls to the 0800 line.

One member of the public contacted the producers saying: “I loved the programme – at last we see men owning, acknowledging, encouraging and supporting others with their true life experiences.”

An article in the Women’s Weekly featured George Ashby, his wife Mary and three of their children and a large article and photograph in the New Zealand Herald featured Vic Tamati talking about his violent life and how he stopped being violent towards his family. Brian Gardner featured in an article in Hawkes Bay Today where he talked about he stopped being violent.

The ads have attracted extensive and positive TV coverage with stories onTV1 News, TV1 Late News, TV3 Midday News and Close Up.

Community Action Fund

We have just announced details of the third round of funding for the Community Action Fund. Visit the family and Community Services website www.familyservices.govt.nz for details and an application form. Applications close on 10 June, with an announcement about successful applicants due by the end of July 2008. Check out the website also for examples of the kind of work that has been funded by CAF.

There are 62 projects currently supported by the Community Action Fund. Projects come in all shapes and sizes. This is a snapshot of the type of activities projects are currently leading:
The Auckland Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children held a memorial service on 7 March 2008 celebrating International Women's Day. The service remembered women who have been killed due to family violence. The service attracted 150 people including academics, family violence service providers, the Auckland Central Family Violence Court judge, families, and other social service providers.

A Masterton based Community Action Fund project is focusing on making the local Pak n Save supermarket a ‘violence free’ space. They will be providing training for staff and management about family violence as well as displaying signs stating that violence will not be accepted.

A West Auckland Community Action Fund project is planning to use YouTube to engage with young people. The TV ads from the campaign and the community initiatives video prepared for the national launch will feature, alongside international campaign material. Contributions from young people in West Auckland will be added to the site.

The Chinese Mental Health Consultation Services Trust (CMHCST) has produced a family violence prevention advertisement for screening on World TV (New Zealand's Nationwide Asian TV provider) on the SKY network. CMHCST is also using half page colour advertisements in the Chinese newspapers to promote violence free messages and articles that support these messages. They have also developed calendars and book marks with family violence prevention messaging which have been distributed nationwide to organisations working with Chinese community groups.

Training

Family and Community Services, the National Collective of Independent Women's Refuges and Preventing Violence in the Home (PVH) have worked in partnership to develop a package of family violence awareness training to be delivered to networks and the staff of community and government agencies. Interest has been high with most places already filled.

Research

The next stages of campaign research include a Reach and Retention Survey looking at the impact of the second phase of TV advertisements, a Face to Face National Survey is due to begin soon and an in-depth Community Study is due to start in May/June 2008. There will be more details about this work in coming weeks.

Child Maltreatment Literature Review

Last year CSRE worked on a literature review of the New Zealand and international research on child maltreatment. The review is now complete and identifies what is known about the predisposing, perpetuating and precipitating risk factors for child abuse and neglect, as well as those factors that contribute to primary prevention. There was a particular focus on research relating to motivating and enabling adults in the family and the community to intervene when they suspect a child is being abused. The review highlighted six primary prevention approaches designed to address the underlying causes and other factors which contribute to the prevalence of child maltreatment. The research findings will be available on the campaign website by mid April.

Media advocacy

Media advocacy is proving to be a highly successful component of the campaign. Media training means that local spokespeople are talking to their local media with confidence and authority and work with journalists means that the stories being produced are more accurate and responsible.

The third media audit report for the campaign covering the October-December 2007 quarter shows that media interest in the campaign and the issue of family violence has been sustained and the media advocacy work is effective. The number of stories portraying family violence as unacceptable has doubled, the number of stories containing a family violence message has increased and the number of stories containing a family violence myth has decreased. Community agency spokespeople are visible in the media and local coverage of national family violence issues has increased.

Staff of 29 Community Action Fund projects have received media training through the campaign and are using the media extensively to promote campaign messages to their local communities. Many have regular spaces in newspapers and on radio and there have been more than 70 articles about Community Action Fund projects that have got into local and regional papers in 2007.

Website and resources

The website is a key component of the campaign. It had its busiest month in March, attracting 6.220 visits. The ‘What’s new’ section continues to be popular, with some visits to the section lasting up to 16 minutes. New online versions of the two new campaign brochures are also available. Since the national launch in September 2007, we have distributed nearly 118,000 copies of the three campaign booklets, 71,486 of the Are you OK booklet, 24,852 of the children’s booklet and 21,464 of the men’s booklet.

Youth

The campaign message is also getting through to young people. Two schools are basing their Stage Challenge performances on the campaign and a group of IT students in Auckland are studying our campaign website for NCEA. The campaign team is also receiving a range of requests from young people wanting information for assignments and school projects.

Finalist

The Campaign for Action on Family Violence is one of four finalists in the Working Together category of the IPANZ Excellence Awards. Winners will be announced in May 2008.

Feedback

We are always keen to hear your feedback, any comments you may have heard or events or projects we might not know about. Just drop us a line by email via the campaign website: www.areyouok.org.nz

http://www.areyouok.org.nz