$250,000 available to strengthen Family Violence and Sexual Assault Services (Australia)

Deadline: 8-Apr-22

The Family Safety Victoria (FSV) is offering grants for projects that strengthen partnerships between multicultural community organizations and specialist family violence and sexual assault services.

This grant program is available to Victorian multicultural community organisations and specialist family violence services to work together on a project.

Your project must be:

• time-limited.
• culturally responsive and tailored to victim survivors and those who use violence.

All Victorians should have equal access to and be supported by the family violence and sexual assault service system. People from culturally, linguistically, and faith-diverse communities (multicultural communities) can face additional barriers to getting the help that they need which in turn, places them at greater risk of experiencing family violence.

They know that women and children and other victim-survivors from multicultural communities have unique experiences of family and sexual violence. Religious and cultural values may inform ideas about gender and family roles, financial responsibility and control, dowry arrangements, parenting, and visa access.

Priority Areas

• Priority will be given to projects that focus on:
  • Regional/rural multicultural communities
  • Newly arrived or newly settled communities
  • People on temporary visas
  • Older people from multicultural communities experience family and sexual violence in a range of relationships, including family-like members and intergenerational abuse (not just violence used by their children)
  • Children and young people from multicultural communities
  • People with disabilities within multicultural communities
  • LGBTIQA+ people from multicultural communities
  • Women and girls experiencing or at risk of experiencing dowry abuse, female genital cutting, and forced marriage
  • People from multicultural communities who have been trafficked and/or coerced to work in the sex industry
  • Women from multicultural communities involved in the criminal justice system, including those exiting prison/custodial sentences

Funding Information

• Individual projects and activities up to $250,000 (including GST) will be considered for funding.
• Grant funding is time-limited for one year from project implementation to project close.

What types of projects will they Fund?

• The main goal of the grant program is to improve and strengthen partnerships between multicultural community organizations and specialist family violence and sexual assault services through better collaboration, a clearer understanding of roles, and better-coordinated responses.
• Achieving this goal will bring us closer to the family violence and sexual assault system that responds to the risk and needs of Victorians from multicultural communities who are experiencing or using family and sexual violence.
• They will fund projects that explore one or more of the following:
  • Improve the way multicultural community organizations and specialist family violence and sexual assault services work together for client outcomes.
    • Identify and highlight how multicultural community organizations and specialist services can work together to:
      • build capability by learning from each other
      • provide culturally responsive services
      • for multicultural community organizations to have an awareness of family violence when engaging clients.
  • Explore referral pathways, risk assessment, information sharing, secondary consultations, care coordination, and other processes that support or respond to victim-survivors (guided by the MARAM Framework).
  • Improve engagement with victim-survivors so that they understand family violence support services, can identify the type of supports and services that assist people from multicultural communities who experience violence, and stay connected with these supports and services once contact has been made.
  • Work collaboratively with the broader family violence and sexual assault system to ensure visibility of the behaviors and risks of people using violence, coordinated approaches to perpetrator accountability, and proactive connection of people using family and sexual violence with appropriate services. This includes identifying the types of services that assist people specifically from multicultural communities who use violence.

• The grant program is aimed at:
  • Organizations working with multicultural, faith, and ethnic communities in Victoria, including but not limited to:
    • Ethno-specific organizations
    • Faith-based organizations and institutions that are part of a multicultural community
    • Settlement organizations
    • Specialist family violence and sexual assault services for victim-survivors
    • Organizations working within The Orange Door Networks
    • Family violence perpetrator intervention services
    • Women’s health services
    • Organizations with established experience in responses to family violence
    • Organizations with new or limited experience in responding to family violence
  • Your organization must:
    • Have a current Australian Business Number (ABN)
    • Have no outstanding accountability reports or final reports for any grant managed by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (please contact Family Safety Victoria if you are unsure if this applies to your organization)
  • Your organization must be one of the following entity types:
    • Incorporated associations (incorporated under state legislation, commonly have ‘Association’ or ‘Incorporated’ or ‘Inc.’ in their legal name)
    • Incorporated cooperatives (also incorporated under state legislation, commonly have ‘Cooperative’ in their legal name)
    • A not-for-profit entity registered under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) or the Associations Incorporation Reform Act 2012 (Vic)
    • A social enterprise incorporated under the Corporations Act 2001, or
    • A Local Government Authority, but only in support of another organization

For more information, visit https://www.vic.gov.au/working-together-strengthening-family-violence-support-multicultural-communities