The Federal Government provided the partnership with $2.5 million in funding to develop these purpose-built homes in response to our dedicated advocacy calling for increased investment into emergency and transitional housing for women and children experiencing family violence in our region. The homes have been constructed to a high standard including a minimum 7-star energy efficiency rating and additional safety features to ensure residents feel safe in their new homes.

The build was managed by Haven Home Safe who will also provide ongoing tenancy services with referral supports from local specialist family violence partners, Annie North and the Centre for Non-Violence.

At the launch, Federal MP Lisa Chesters spoke to the Federal Government’s recognition of the shortage of safe places for women and children experiencing family violence and it’s commitment to continue to build safe places.

The housing will support women and children escaping family violence with a focus on First Nations women and children, women and children from CALD backgrounds and women and children with disability.

As Central Victoria’s leading specialist family violence service provider, we are all too aware of the impacts of family violence on women and children in our region.

Family violence is the leading cause of homelessness for women and children in Australia and our region in particular, is facing a critical housing affordability and availability shortage. Last financial year, CNV provided more than 16,000 nights of emergency accommodation.

Far too often an emergency housing response is a motel room. And for many women and children, this type of emergency accommodation can last up to 5 months. First Nation women and children in particular face barriers to safe and accessible housing options and are more likely to require longer stays in emergency housing.

The build of these three townhouses represent safety, and hope for a future free from family violence – they are purpose built, offering privacy, dignity a safe place to call home, while escaping and recovering from family violence – all with wrap around referral supports provided in partnership with Annie North and CNV. We know that housing security is integral to improved lives and safer outcomes for adult and children survivors of family violence, it is more than a house: it’s connection to community, to schools, to work, to friends and family.

We look forward to welcoming families in the near future into these homes and supporting them on their journey to safety and healing.

CNV welcomes the commitment by the Australian Government to this build. It is hoped that we can continue to build on this successful program with more much needed homes right across our region. We know that improved outcomes for women and children experiencing family violence require a safe place to call home.

It is the hope of the partnership that there is a future where no one experiencing family violence has to make the decision to stay in the relationship or risk homelessness. These safe homes are proof that this future is possible.

CNV also wishes to extend our sincere thanks to Haven Home Safe and Annie North for their commitment to this partnership and initiative.

Frontline Services as Drivers of Change

Our presentation highlighted the unique and essential role frontline services play in prevention.  
Frontline services were founded by feminist activists who understood something profoundly important: that you cannot respond to violence without challenging the social conditions that enable it.

From the very beginning, these services were built on the belief that the personal is political.

They emerged not just to fill gaps left by mainstream systems, but as a deliberate act of political and social change.

Long before national frameworks defined primary prevention, frontline services recognised that preventing gender‑based violence means addressing gender inequality, systemic oppression, and the structures that shape people’s everyday experiences of harm.

At PreventX, the team shared how CNV’s practice has always operated with an intersectional feminist lens and informed by lived experience. Our work is not only about responding to harm; it is also about amplifying voices, identifying systemic gaps, mobilising communities and advocating for the cultural and structural change needed to prevent violence before it occurs.

Prevention is often defined too narrowly as “primary prevention”. We picture whole‑of‑population campaigns, education programs, and social marketing. And while these are important, they don’t tell the full story. We can overlook the constant, everyday prevention work undertaken by frontline services: the advocacy, the identification of systemic gaps, the community activation, the leadership grounded in lived experience, including the lived experience held by the workforce itself.

Our presentation reinforced that specialist frontline services are not just responders. They are advocates, leaders and changemakers. They see where systems need to mobilise and improve, they stand alongside victim-survivors, and help build the momentum needed for long-term transformation.

The team also shared examples of CNV’s advocacy and innovation, from integrated service responses and recognising children as victim-survivors in their own right, to prevention initiatives such as Solving the Jigsaw and men’s behaviour change programs including Making aMENds.

PreventX 2026 provided an important opportunity to elevate the voice of frontline services in national prevention conversations and to reaffirm a core truth: lasting change depends on centring lived experience, challenging inequality and staying committed to advocacy that transforms systems as well as lives. We look forward to continuing to contribute our expertise as a front-line service to prevention initiatives and decision-making in communities and across all levels of government, because together we can end violence against women, children and diverse communities.

As we find ourselves well into 2026, the global rise of extremism and gender-based[1] violence is an unavoidable reality.[2]

Globally a woman is murdered as a result of gender-based violence every 10 minutes.

It’s only early June and already 30 women and 11 children have been killed as a result of violence – most often by someone they knew and at one point trusted and loved.

Concurrently, we are seeing a rise in extremism in our communities, from the Bondi Junction mass killing in 2024, to violent machete attacks in Victoria, to the Bondi shootings in 2025. It would be remiss to regard these as isolated incidents. Rising extremism and its ties to misogyny are well founded in the research.[3]

There can be no doubt—patriarchy, misogyny, domestic abuse and mass murder are associated, and have been for a long time […].[4]

Violent extremism has been identified as an emerging national security concern in Australia and identifying and addressing the drivers of radicalisation has become an important area of research for the Australian government.[5]

What a growing body of research both here in Australia and globally is showing, is the causal links between misogyny, violent extremism and community understandings gender and masculinities.[6]

A 2024 policy brief out of the University of Melbourne highlights the need to provide a ‘holistic approach to redressing racist and misogynistic attitudes [amongst broader general community] as a matter of security urgency.’[7]

Similarly, researchers Johnston and True (2019) state that their findings clearly demonstrate that support for violence against women is the common underlying driver that predicts violent extremism.[8]

And at a time where we are facing a national crisis of violence against women in Australia, with growing calls for a Royal Commission into Femicide[9], it’s time we begin to seriously examine the drivers of violence, it’s inextricable links to understandings of masculinity, and how we must as a national priority, challenge the masculinity myth. If we are to ever realise gender and social equality in a violence free world, we must see that this work will have to take place right across the continuum: from prevention and early intervention to crisis response and therapeutic recovery.

So, what are the drivers of violence?

Backed by decades of extensive and robust research[10], we know that there are four broad factors (drivers) that help us to predict gender-based violence:

1. Condoning of violence against women and girls: occurs both through attitudes and social norms and through legal, institutional and organisational structures and practices that justify, excuse or trivialise this violence or shift blame from the perpetrator to victim survivors. This where we see, for example, the privacy of victim survivors vetoed through subpoena of medical and therapeutic records, while perpetrator identity and right to privacy is simultaneously upheld.
2. Men’s control of decision-making and limits to women’s independence in public and private life: occurs when men make decisions about what a woman should, or should not be, wearing, or how women should be behaving. It also plays out in the public sphere were the gender pay gap stubbornly remains at close to 27% – limiting women’s independence and decision-making. All of this informs community attitudes that condones a lowering of women’s social value and vis a vis renders women as less worthy of respect.
3. Rigid gender stereotyping and dominant forms of masculinity: societies, communities and relationships where there are more rigid distinctions between the roles of men and women, and more stereotypical notions that prioritise male aggression, dominance and decision-making typically sees more entrenched sexist attitudes and higher rates of violence against women.
4. Male peer relations and cultures of masculinity that emphasise aggression, dominance and control: following dominant notions of masculinity not only increases men’s reluctance to take a stand against violence, it also often increases the use of violence itself. This has become particularly pertinent in school settings where staff and students are reporting increased rates of misogynistic attitudes and behaviours from male students in the classroom.[11]

Inaction and an unwillingness within society, including in our own local communities to hold violence and misogyny to account should be giving us all pause. We are seeing in real time the impact of misogynistic and hyper-masculine behaviours and attitudes, playing out not only on a global stage and in our communities but also in our very own homes.

The rate of serious risk and harm is on the increase in all family violence incidents right across Victoria. At CNV our data is telling us that year on year there is more demand on services, more complexity of need, and concerningly a rise in the number of lethality indicators present in our risk management screening of victim survivors.

In 2024-2025, staff at CNV completed comprehensive risk assessments (MARAM Assessments) for 2,443 victim survivors, against 17 lethality indicators. These findings reveal a significant escalation in the severity of risk experienced by clients.

Notably, the proportion of victim survivors presenting with 10 or more lethality risk factors increased from 27 per cent to 42 per cent, representing a rise of more than 50 per cent.

Perpetrators of family violence are also frequently recorded with high-risk factors.

In 2025, of the 55,437 unique perpetrators identified, 86 per cent had at least one high-risk factor recorded. Within this group, 10 per cent (n = 5,351) were classified as ‘highest risk’, with 10 or more distinct high-risk factors recorded by police in the most recent year.

Taken together, these data points demonstrate a clear pattern of escalating and intersecting risk: as perpetrator risk intensifies, so too does the severity and complexity of harm experienced by victim survivors. This dynamic is particularly pronounced in regional and rural communities, where higher concentrations of severe risk are observed.

These disparities underscore the urgent need for increased investment and resourcing to strengthen early intervention, risk management, and integrated support responses to improve safety and wellbeing in regional and rural communities.

The latest Victorian Crime Statistics[12] have also echoed this rise in the number of reported family violence incidents right across the state. The data also shows a distinct rise in the number of children present during a reported family violence incident.

In reflection of this, we welcome some of the recent changes to the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill (also known as the Women’s Safety Package) that prevents children from ‘ageing out’ of protective orders when they turn 18.

Children and young people must be recognised and responded to as victim survivors in their own right. By providing tailored resources that focus on a child or young person’s experience of family violence in our practice approaches, we are able to increase victim survivor safety and wellbeing and hold adults using violence to account.

The long-term impacts of family violence on children are well documented and can include negative impacts on:

• physical, neurological and emotional development
• sense of security and attachment in relationships
• mental health and cognitive and behavioural functioning
• ability to cope and adapt to different situations and contexts

The latest Victorian Crime statistics have also reported a rise in the number of young people (under 17 years of age) who have previously experienced family violence entering the youth justice system.[13] Criminalising children, who more often than not have experienced family violence themselves, through adult legal frameworks (ie. children as young as 12 having an intervention order made against them or ‘adult time for adult crime’) does little in recognising the underlying factors that drive violence and importantly present challenges to achieving long-lasting change and improved wellbeing.

The rise of the ‘manosphere’ and its negative impact on the attitudes of boys and men in Australia has been identified as a growing concern, not only by governments but also within the education and family and sexual violence sector. However, we push back on knee-jerk policy reactions that seek answers solely through a criminalisation lens.

Instead, we must remain focused on providing wrap around supports for children and young people, particularly with those who have or are experiencing family violence and through this work, address the drivers of violence.

Importantly, therapeutic early intervention for children and young people experiencing family violence is a crucial part of this approach. CNV has been working to develop a suite of tailored resources and programming for children and young people, including our newly launched Healing Together therapeutic resources as part of our Safe, Thriving and Connected (STC) program. Through these tailored resources we are able to work with children, young people and their protective parent and/or caregivers and community to provide holistic, trauma-informed and preventative support to increase the safety and wellbeing of children and young people experiencing family violence.

The reality is that solutions to ending family and sexual violence are well known: gender equality sits at the heart of all peace-building, conflict resolution and falling rates of gender-based violence. We just need governments to recognise that gender and social equality in a violence-free world is possible, but solutions cannot be found in punitive approaches – it requires us to do the deep work of challenging the drivers of violence to stop the violence before it begins.

[1] Yardley E and Richards L 2023. ‘The Elephant in the Room: Toward an Integrated, Feminist Analysis of Mass Murder,’ Violence Against Women 29(3–4), 752–772.

[2] The United Nations has recently reported that reported conflict related sexual violence cases have more than doubled in 2025. To read more: Conflict-related sexual violence cases more than doubled in 2025, UN warns | UN News [accessed: 2 June 2026]; see also: UN Women 2025. ‘War on women escalate as global conflicts reach record highs’, press release, October. Available from: Wars on women escalate as global conflicts reach record highs | UN Women – Headquarters [accessed: 2 June 2026]. In the two years since 2023, the UN Secretary-General’s report on Women, Peace and Security highlighted that ‘Civilian casualties among women and children quadrupled compared to the previous two-year period, and conflict-related sexual violence increased by 87 per cent in two years.’ See:  S/2025/556

[3] Phelan, A, White, J, Wallner, C, and Paterson, J. 2025. ‘Gendered Narratives and Misogyny as Motivators Towards Violent Extremism: The Case of Far-Right Extremism in the UK and Australia’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 37(7), 961–978. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2025.2498505

[4] Yardley E and Richards L 2023. ‘The Elephant in the Room: Toward an Integrated, Feminist Analysis of Mass Murder,’ Violence Against Women 29(3–4), 752–772.

[5] See: Australian Government 2025. ‘A Safer Australia: Australia’s Counter-Terrorism and Violent Extremism Strategy 2025’. Available from: A Safer Australia | Australia’s Counter–Terrorism and Violent Extremism Strategy 2025 [accessed: 2 June 2026]

[6] See: Johnston M and True J 2019. ‘Misogyny and Violent Extremism: Implications for Preventing Violent Extremism’, Policy Brief, October, Monash University and UN Women and Meger S, Johnston M and Riveros-Morales Y 2024. ‘Misogyny, Racism and Violent Extremism in Australia’, Policy Brief, June, University of Melbourne: Melbourne.

[7] Meger S, Johnston M and Riveros-Morales Y 2024. ‘Misogyny, Racism and Violent Extremism in Australia’, Policy Brief, June, University of Melbourne: Melbourne.

[8] Johnston M and True J 2019. ‘Misogyny and Violent Extremism: Implications for Preventing Violent Extremism’, Policy Brief, October, Monash University

[9] More than 100,000 people have signed a petition to the Federal Government to initiate a Royal Commission into Femicide. See: Hill J 2026. ‘Australians want a royal commission into femicide. What haunts me is wondering if it’ll be enough to make leaders act’, The Guardian, 28 May. Available from: Australians want a royal commission into femicide. What haunts me is wondering if it’ll be enough to make leaders act | Jess Hill | The Guardian [accessed: 1 June 2026]

[10] See: Our Watch 2021. ‘Change the story: A shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women in Australia (2nd ed.)’. Available from: https://www.ourwatch.org.au/change-the-story/change-the-story-framework [Accessed: 18 February 2026]

[11] Westcott S and Roberts S 2024. ‘Gendered violence in schools: Urgent need for prevention and intervention amid rising hostilities’, Politics and Society, 26 November, Monash University: Melbourne, and Victorian Women’s Trust 2024. ‘Malevolent Influence: Schools and the Shadow of Andrew Tate’, Webinar, 1 May. Available from: https://www.vwt.org.au/watch-malevolent-influence-schools-and-the-shadow-of-andrew-tate/ [Accessed: 19 February 2026]

[12] Victorian Government 2026. ‘Crime Statistics Agency releases 2024-25 Victorian Family Violence Database’, Media Release, December, Crime Statistics Agency: Melbourne. Available from: https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/media-release-crime-statistics-agency-releases-2024-25-victorian-family [Accessed 3 February 2026]

[13] Victorian Government 2026. ‘Crime Statistics Agency releases 2024-25 Victorian Family Violence Database’, Media Release, December, Crime Statistics Agency: Melbourne. Available from: https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/media-release-crime-statistics-agency-releases-2024-25-victorian-family [Accessed 3 February 2026]

The Personal Safety Initiative (PSI) is a non-crisis program that uses safety and security measures to help victim survivors to remain safely at home, deter breaches of intervention orders and support evidence collection to hold perpetrators accountable. Rather than expecting victim survivors to relocate, the PSI focuses on strengthening safety and security where victim survivors live. “Women shouldn’t have to leave their homes or their communities,” Gen says. “They should be able to stay, especially when they’re caring for children.”

Gen coordinates a highly specialised response. This can include installing CCTV and sensor lighting, coordinating bug sweeps of homes and vehicles, checking for tracking devices or dash cams, and arranging forensic sweeps of mobile phones for spyware. Importantly, the technology used must meet a high evidentiary standard. “The goal is accountability,” Gen explains. “The main focus is to capture evidence that can be used in court if an intervention order is breached.”

But the PSI is not about installing cameras by default. Assessing eligibility and suitability is a critical part of Gen’s role. She works closely with family violence practice workers to identify the specific risks each victim survivor is facing and whether PSI would meaningfully reduce those risks. “If a person using violence doesn’t know where the victim survivor is living, cameras might not make sense,” she says. “But if there’s a pattern of him tracking her down, then we think more broadly about what could help.”

Strict criteria apply. Generally, the victim survivor and person using violence cannot be living together, and a full exclusion intervention order must be in place. There are limited exceptions, where an intervention order could escalate risk. “The victim survivor also has to be prepared to report breaches,” Gen notes. “That’s not easy, and it’s something we talk through carefully.”

Gen is clear that cameras alone do not keep women safe. PSI always includes a security assessment of the home, along with safety and support planning. However, the presence of high-quality security measures can deter breaches, particularly when the person using violence would have their employment or freedom seriously affected through criminal convictions.

Since PSI began in 2017, Gen has seen the program evolve alongside broader system changes. The current housing crisis has made it much harder for women and children to relocate, increasing demand for support to remain safely at home. New funding is currently being trialled, allowing faster access to smaller interventions, such as phone or vehicle sweeps, without the full PSI process.

“It’s incredibly empowering for women to take control of their homes,” Gen says. “Many never thought they’d be able to do that.” Still, the injustice lingers. “It makes me angry when women and children experience such upheaval, but it’s happening far less often. It’s more common for the person using violence to be excluded from the home. This used to be the exception rather than the norm and it’s great to see this progress.”

What began as silence, became the catalyst for regional transformation; the power of a quiet moment led us to reshape how we grow, learn and lead alongside the disability community.

The idea was first born when no questions were asked in the Q&A section of a presentation on the intersection of family violence and disability. We knew the practitioners had questions, but why weren’t they asking? Confidence. The Diversity Dialogues webinar series was an opportunity to confront the silence and increase practitioner confidence in supporting people with a disability.

Violence against women and girls is driven by gender inequality, and ableism is the social context which gives rise to and supports violence against people with disabilities. The compounding nature of these factors creates the intersection between gender inequality and ableism and drives violence against women and girls with disabilities.[1]

One in four women have experienced intimate partner violence in Australia; and women with disability are two to three times more likely to experience intimate partner violence since the age of 15, compared to women without a disability. Due to limitations in data collection methods, the rates of violence experienced by women and girls with a disability are likely to be much higher than the available data indicates.[2]

Building workforce capability is key to improving responses and preventing violence against women and children with disabilities, including addressing unconscious bias and ableism. Increasing staff capability also requires amplifying practitioner confidence, to create long-term, attitudinal and cultural change. Therefore, our priority is to increase practitioner confidence whilst simultaneously addressing practice and system-related issues and barriers.

The Diversity Dialogues series supported practitioners across a range of fields and backgrounds. A Family Services practitioner reflected that, “What made this webinar, and the broader Diversity Dialogues series especially memorable was the variety of guest speakers, including those with lived experience, disabilities, and professional expertise. Their diverse perspectives brought depth and authenticity to the discussions, making the content not only informative but deeply engaging. This blend of voices created a rich learning environment that encouraged reflection and challenged conventional thinking in a way that felt both relevant and inspiring. ”

At a systems level, Dr Kylie Cocking, Project Officer Quality, Systems & Development told us “The series highlighted the role we can all play in closing the gaps for people with disability who experience family violence.”

CNV compiled resources from the 12-part webinar series and commissioned artwork for the cover, designed by Tanya Higgins, a local artist who is a victim survivor living with trauma-induced schizophrenia. We are now the proud owners of this artwork that hangs in CNV’s Pall Mall office for all to see.

When speaking with Tanya, the journey she went on while creating the artwork as helping her let go and supporting her to tell her story. Tanya is passionate about her artwork helping to show other victim survivors that there is good in the world, despite what they are experiencing currently and empowering them to imagine what a life of safety could look like.

Throughout this process, Tanya has been supported by local art therapist, Melissa Harrington from Scribbles Allied Therapy and reflects on how transformative art therapy has been for her healing journey. Tanya shares that she was not able to find the rights words to tell her story through the mainstream clinical approach, and reinforces that for her and many others alike, physical safety did not equate to feeling safe. Tanya talks about how different her life and healing journey would have looked if she found art therapy 20 years ago. Tanya credits the process of art therapy to the reclaiming of her life.

CNV recognised the opportunity and importance of commissioning an artist with a disability, specifically as a non-disability organisation and our responsibility as a specialist family violence service, to acknowledge the high prevalence of violence against women and girls with disabilities. We are proud to showcase Tanya’s artwork and express our gratitude for the privilege of her trusting us with her story and artwork.

The theme for International Day of People with Disability 2025 is ‘Fostering disability-inclusive societies for advancing social progress’. [3]

Fostering disability-inclusive societies means creating communities, systems, and services where people with disabilities are valued, respected and fully able to participate in all aspects of life. This involves recognising that people with disabilities experience amplified forms of violence that target their disabilities, barriers to safety, and exclusion from mainstream responses.

Manager of the Community Inclusion and Women’s Empowerment program at Women with Disabilities Victoria, and Chair of the Loddon Family Violence Disability Practice Leader Steering Committee, Liz Wright, reminds us why inclusion is so important.

“Because of the over representation and diversity of women with disabilities, there is a need for active inclusion and to challenge the status quo, through storytelling, listening to the disability community and responding in a more nuanced way to prevent violence and create better long-term outcomes for women and gender diverse people,” says Liz.

By raising this profile, CNV helps build a society where inclusion and safety are mutually reinforcing, where preventing and responding to family violence become part of a larger movement toward justice, equality, collective wellbeing, and participation are realised for everyone.

[1] Our Watch, & Women with Disabilities Victoria. (2022). Changing the landscape: A national resource to prevent violence against women and girls with disabilities. Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch.

[2] Ibid.

[3] International Day of Persons with Disabilities – 3 December | Division for Inclusive Social Development (DISD). (2024, December 3). https://social.desa.un.org/issues/disability/international-day-of-persons-with-disabilities-3-december