Q. You were a workshop presenter at the Faith, Hope, Love Conference in Melbourne, and you do a lot of other work to raise awareness of Domestic and Family Abuse (DFA). Can you highlight some of the work you are doing and how the church community is coming together to address this?
A. I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in a number of areas addressing Domestic and Family Abuse.
It was a privilege to be a part of the small organising group for the Faith, Hope, Love Conference and to contribute to seeing the vision come to life.
In July, I was invited to visit Hobart, alongside three others from around Australia, to write a Bystander course.
One of the assignments I studied was a proposal to reduce the trauma of Domestic and Family Abuse in our context, which, for me, was faith.
Bystander training was the proposal and strategy I put forward in the assignment to reduce retraumatisation of victim survivors and equip congregations to respond and prevent domestic, family and sexual violence.
The working title for the Bystander program is ‘The Good Neighbouring Program’, and the paper is called ‘A new evidence-driven bystander program developed for our church context’.
Other great papers can be found on the Ten Commitments website.
I also attend the Lake Macquarie Domestic Violence Committee meetings, which consist of the local DFA sector agencies.
These meetings are valuable for insight into the struggles and awareness of the level of DFA in our community, as well as resourcing the church and DFA sector with the latest guest speakers, education, and on the ground training.
I’ve contributed to the Lake Mac Says ‘No’ campaign for the 16 Days of Activism and help promote the events in our local Deanery and the Toronto Parish.
In the parish, we started a Men’s Group to promote men’s wellbeing and for discipling men in the way of Jesus to be role models for healthy relationships as they prepare to engage in events and projects to grow the church.
Q. Why is your work and advocacy so important to you?
A. No person should experience oppression. We are created to flourish.
Jesus released people from oppression throughout his earthly ministry. I am passionate about reducing DFA and sexual violence as it is a gospel imperative.
Not many of us remain untouched by Domestic and Family Abuse.
These issues resonate deeply with me. I supported a friend through coercive control where she lived with us whilst escaping DFA. I advocated for her and attended appointments, local court, and Family Law Court. My friend only left my side a couple of times over three months. I learnt all about coercive control whilst she was stalked and all the abuse tactics, especially during the post separation escalation.
Q. What are some of the improvements within Newcastle Anglican in this space over the past 12 months and how can our diocese do better as a whole?
A. Over the past year, we have trained our clergy through the Lifeline DV Aware program, where we saw clergy confidence in responding increase, and we provided resources for responding and referral.
We also introduced the clergy to primary prevention, how it works, the drivers of violence against women, attitudes, beliefs, and rigid gender roles.
There is still so much more work to do in this space. As the church, we need to engage and listen to First Nations peoples experience of family abuse.
We need to understand other factors in the social ecological model of violence, such as the impact of intergenerational trauma and, therefore, the need for early interventions with children and interventions and treatment for trauma for adults.
We need to examine how power is used throughout the church, and how our hierarchical structure can contribute to the problem. We can do better as a whole by listening, believing, and advocating for victim survivors, but, above all, valuing their expertise of lived experience.
We need men to be advocates for change, and to embrace healthy ways of being, to be role models, and we need all to intervene when there is sexism, racism, and spiritual abuse.
