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The online training will focus on knowledge and understanding of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, which comes into force on 1 April. Participants will also complete a face-to-face domestic abuse course. Read the full article here  • a new stand-alone criminal offence of strangulation will come into force • This new offence also allows Police to properly arrest domestic violence offenders who can be appropriately punished for their actions. • tougher penalties for repeated breaches of intervention orders … will face hefty fines or prison time "...domestic violence is utterly unacceptable in any form" Click here for more information 👇  Witnessing abuse carries the same risk of harm to children's mental health and learning as if the children had been abused directly, new research shows. New research is giving scientists more insight into the far-reaching and long-lasting harms of domestic violence to the children who grow up around it – including a startling finding: Witnessing abuse carries the same risk of harm to children's mental health and learning as being abused directly.
Brain imaging in infants shows that exposure to domestic violence – even as they are sleeping, or in utero – can reduce parts of the brain, change its overall structure and affect the way its circuits work together. Studies show that when babies born to mothers who were subjected to violence during pregnancy become adults, they have three times as much inflammation in their bodies as those whose mothers weren't. Inflammation causes a much higher risk of poor health, and a far greater likelihood of depression. Read the full article here
What is the 'NO test'? The No Test is basically to watch out for the way your partner responds the first time you change your mind or say no. Read the full article here  Domestic violence does not discriminate and can affect anyone. If we as a society continue to look at domestic violence as a clear-cut situation, we will be doing ourselves and survivors a disservice. When people hear of domestic violence, the first thing to spill from their mouths is along the lines of, “If my boyfriend ever did that to me, I’d be gone.” This black-and-white way of thinking harms those experiencing domestic violence. The assumption that any person should know their plan of action if faced with domestic violence minimizes a very complicated issue. Nobody can predict domestic violence or know the “appropriate” response until it happens to them. Domestic violence is not always as simple as someone being hurt by their partner and then immediately leaving. There are a multitude of factors that make each domestic violence case unique, including children, financial dependence, mental illness and addiction. For example, a woman struggling with alcohol addiction who is financially dependent on her husband may not have the resources to leave and may even need her abuser to fund her addiction. Life can be complicated. The more a person is juggling, the more impossible leaving may seem. Absolutist reasoning is not effective. The person who experiences abuse, and those close to them, have to make difficult decisions about how to handle complex situations. Telling a person experiencing abuse they are stupid or wrong for forgiving their abuser, staying with their abuser or anything else in between makes their recovery harder. We must support those going through domestic violence even if we know their choices can continue to harm them. This is arguably the hardest part because we know what they face every day and want the best for them. Support can go beyond having in-depth conversations each day about the abuse. It can be a weekly taco Tuesday night, quick midday check-ins or going on a YouTube deep dive of fail videos. Just being there in a complicated time is important. Read the full article here. 
THIS IS NOT GOOD NEWS: The Trump Administration now defines Domestic Violence as purely physical27/1/2019
In April, without no announcement or explanation, the Justice Department drastically changed the official definition of "domestic violence" on the department's website. Whereas the definition used by the Obama administration encompassed not only physical violence but emotional, economic and psychological abuse as well, the Trump administration defines domestic violence as purely physical now, encompassing only violent crimes that rise to the level of felonies or misdemeanours. Read the full story here 
It’s hard to keep track of the women murdered in Australia. There are too many: in recent years, more than one a week. However, thanks to our careful monitoring of the media, police contacts and the amazing work of The Red Heart Campaign, we do our best. Each woman had her own story. Each had dreams, potential and aspirations. Most lived quiet lives. Some were mothers, some were not. Some were employed, some were not. Some had higher education, some did not. In their deaths, though, they had three things in common: for almost all, they died at the hands of someone who knew them very well, usually by someone who had once said, 'I love you', usually by a man [and, NO, this is not man-bashing or man-hating, it is simply a fact] and, for most, their death didn’t come from nowhere - many had sought help and expressed fear. I wish there was a magic wand we could use to reverse the tide but there isn't. This is not a woman's issue. It's not up to women to solve this. This is not a men's issue. It's not up to men to solve this. This is not a police issue. It's not up to the police to solve this. This is not a court issue. It's not up to our courts to solve this. This is EVERYONE's issue and it's up to us ALL to solve it. The first few days and weeks after a major violent event — with the victim [usually a woman] leaving, a court hearing the dispute, going through the divorce procedures — are the most dangerous and that's why the Safe Houses are so important. They have trained professionals skilled in helping individuals find safe shelter, make safety plans and provide them with those things a woman usually leaves without such as toiletries, clothes, hygiene products and baby/child necessities. Were it as simple as that. If only the Safe Houses received adequate government funding. But they don't and that's where charities such as impact come into play: we help provide those things most of us take for granted. Please help, the need is great and is only getting greater. Your tax deductible donation WILL make a difference. The infographic here gives you some idea of how your donation will help one or more women and her children AND, you need to know, because we don't have any paid staff or premises, more than 98 cents in every dollar donated will go to where you expected it to go - the rest goes to incorporated fees and insurance. We can't solve the problem but we can help at grassroots level to make a very real difference to real women and their children at a very real point of crisis. Please help. Kathy Kaplan OAM  A man has admitted to violently shaking his five-week-old son unconscious because the boy was "not manly enough". James Tipene told police he shook his son because the baby "was a male and that he had strong feelings that he couldn't control", according to documents released by Melbourne Magistrates Court. He also admitted he had shaken his son three weeks earlier.The baby was shaken so ferociously he suffered injuries that will likely lead to lifelong developmental problems.
Read the full story here.  1. Domestic violence is unusual.
2. It's impossible to love someone who abuses you. 3. Domestic violence happens when someone flies out of control. 4. Domestic violence is always physical. 5. If someone abuses you, it's an obvious decision to leave the relationship. 6. There's no good reason for a victim not to call the police. 7. Both parties usually hold some responsibility in domestic violence situations. 8. Women abuse men just as often as men abuse women. 9. Men are never victims of abuse, and women never perpetrators. 10. Domestic violence only happens to women who are poor or dependent or uneducated 11. Drugs and alcohol cause domestic violence. 12. People who commit intimate partner violence are violent in most of their relationships. 13. You can rescue a friend from domestic violence. 14. Tough love is the best way to help a victim of violence. Read the full article here Congratulations and thank you NT Senior Australian of the Year, Gurindji man Charlie King OAM: “If that level of violence that women have to endure was levelled at men, we would have stopped that a long time ago.”.   According to Victoria Police, ipractitioners are sometimes unavailable to see victims for up to eight hours. This is despite the 2016 Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence identifying access to forensic medical examinations in family violence matters as a top priority.
Read the full story here "The judge said that he believed my ex would stop at nothing to destroy me and our children if he couldn’t ‘have’ them." Read the full story here.   Parents have had their payments docked for failing to attend “story time sessions”, and domestic violence survivors have been retraumatised by being made to retell their stories (sometimes in front of their children) in order to keep receiving payments...'
ParentsNext is to be the subject of a Senate inquiry: submissions close on February 1. Click here if you'd like information on how to prepare a submission. Read the full story here The Fair Work Commission has rejected a proposed Victorian fire services agreement, describing a clause requiring employees to notify the firefighters union that they were experiencing family violence as “abhorrent”.
Read the full story here Father who choked and pushed adult daughter into a wall, knocking her out, gets good behaviour bond17/1/2019
 On one occasion he held his hand tightly over the 22-year-olds throat because he believed she had lost his coffee cup lid, while on another he pushed her into a wall, knocking her out, because she had left ash on her deceased mother’s chair.
Read the full story here
Adapted from here  And that is why we have to take the time and make the effort to ensure we get the responses right. Police are frequently confronted by two fraught individuals both of whom are making contradictory claims about who did what: they must often wish they had the wisdom of Solomon at their disposal.
Read the full article here  Reproductive coercion is when someone controls whether, when or if, you fall pregnant. It is when someone forces you to continue a pregnancy you don't want, or forces you to terminate a pregnancy you did want. It can be contraceptive sabotage; it can be emotional blackmail; it can be rape.
Reproductive coercion is a form of abuse that establishes and maintains power and control by restricting a woman’s reproductive autonomy, by denying her control over decisions related to her own reproductive health and by limiting her access to reproductive health options. Like many other forms of abuse, Reproductive Coercion covers a range of behaviours, many of which are quite subtle and, as a result, many women may not even realise they’ve been subjected to it. Think about your boyfriend, for instance, who hates wearing condoms and sweet-talks you to let him have sex without it. Or what about if you've been victim to 'stealthing', yes, it's a real thing [see here] when your partner removed his condom without your consent or knowledge? Or what about that guy who lied to you about having had a vasectomy, or the one who promised that he’d withdraw during unprotected sex, or the one who said he'd break up with you if you didn’t have an abortion, and so you did, even though you really wanted that baby? And then there's the guy who wanted a(nother) child but because you didn't he pierced holes in the condoms and feigned surprise when you became pregnant. Put simply, Reproductive Coercision, being an exercise of power and control, is yet another form of Relationship Abuse. Kathy Kaplan OAM  When you think of relationship abuse, most likely the first thing that comes to mind is verbal and physical abuse. An American study by the Centers for Financial Security found that 99 percent of domestic violence cases also involved financial abuse. What's more, financial abuse is often the first sign of dating violence and domestic abuse.
Read the full story here. |
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