Since 2020, PRF has granted approximately $23 million directly into work to address domestic and family violence (DFV) in Australia and published six stand-alone reports. PRF’s engagement with the DFV sector has been deliberate, prioritising depth of understanding over speed. This has enabled us to build connections in the sector, build evidence about the realities confronting frontline services, as well as build internal understanding and knowledge about the DFV landscape in Australia.
“As newcomers to funding this sector, we were mindful not to rush, nor ignore the work and advocacy done by many players over many years to keep Australian families free from harm,” says PRF Head of Families Jackie Ruddock, who has led PRF’s DFV work for the past five years. “There has been a groundswell of recognition of DFV in Australia but the existing, collective response has not lessened its prevalence and impact, and services do not have the resources to meet increased demand.”
PRF began its work in DFV against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing relief to 70 women’s shelters with almost $3 million in funding. We took an action learning approach to understand the specialist needs of the sector and heard that short term, program-based government funding does not match the complex nature of the work, nor enable organisations to undertake early intervention and prevention.
Building on these lessons, PRF held an open grant round for specialist DFV services in 2023, awarding $13.6 million to 58 organisations (including $6.3 million to First Nations community-controlled organisations), again bringing the grant recipients together for collective learning.
“Early research showed that knowledge and practice in the sector remains trapped in a locality as mechanisms for sharing aren’t obvious or available,” continues Jackie, “so we were keen to create a network of our partners to share insights and learnings, build relationships, and inform PRF’s future work to help tackle DFV in Australia.”
Evidence gathered by ResearchCrowd from the network of community-controlled organisations, highlights the need to understand what family violence looks like for First Nations people from a First Nations perspective, and to foreground self-determination in the unique response required to address DFV in First Nations communities. Acknowledging the importance of backing First Nations-led approaches will continue to be a priority in PRF’s future investment in the DFV space.
“It has also become clear from other specialist services that early intervention with children, young people and the whole family represents huge promise in terms of supporting healing and breaking intergenerational cycles of violence,” says Jackie.
She says the pattern of funding, followed by considered learning has been critical to planning PRF’s future investment.
“We’ve used what we’ve learned from research and conversations with people in the DFV field to find critical intervention points that, for whatever reason, have traditionally received less focus and funding. It’s about using our investment in a way that we can start to shift the conditions that trap people in cycles of violence, so that all families are stable.”
This story was orginally published as a case study in PRF's 2024 Annual Review.
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