COLLINGWOOD LIVING IN HARMONYPilot Project Report

2011–2014

“The Collingwood Living in Harmony Project is the first project in Australia to apply a place-based community strengthening approach to prevention of family violence with culturally and linguistically diverse communities.”

ProjeCT CoordinATor’s rePorT

Collingwood Living in Harmony is a place-based, community strengthening initiative to prevent family violence against women on the Collingwood Public Housing Estate delivered by cohealth

cohealth.org.au

Project goalempower culturally diverse communities on the Colling-wood Public Housing estate to promote non-violent norms and to value equal and respectful relationships between men and women, boys and girls.

objectivesWith community facilitators, the project will:• build awareness and

strengthen understandings of family violence and its causes (i.e. gender norms and roles, gender inequalities, violence supportive attitudes, beliefs in masculine entitlement and use of power);

• increase community capacity to promote equal and respectful relationships between men and women, boys and girls, thereby fostering harmony and safety throughout the Collingwood housing estate; and

• empower diverse communities to promote non-violent norms and to value equal and respectful relationships between men and women, boys and girls, through a range of place-based community strengthening and social marketing activities.

BackgroundCollingwood Public Housing Estate, in inner Melbourne, is home to approximately 2,000 public housing residents from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, predominantly Vietnamese, Somali, Chinese, Ethiopian, Sudanese, Oromo, and Eritrean. The Collingwood Estate is also home to Australian-born people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

Family violence was reported by community members to be a significant issue within CALD communities. Language barriers limit access to mainstream family violence services, and there is often limited understanding of what family violence is, the rights and services available to victims of family violence, and the consequences for perpetrators.

The Collingwood Living in Harmony project was developed following community discussions in 2010 that raised the importance of fostering healthy, respectful and equal relationships among individuals, families and communities in the culturally diverse setting of the estate.

The project was specifically designed to reach the estate’s CALD communities, through a range of community-strengthening activities led by community facilitators recruited from the main cultural groups.

The project was planned and implemented as a pilot project and received approximately $280,000 funding between 2010 and 2014 from a range of state government, local government and other sources.

Living in Harmony says ‘No’ to violence.

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evaluation framework Based on the project objectives, an evaluation framework with a logic model was developed to set out process and impact indicators and key evaluation questions under each of the three project objectives, and was used to plan project work and evaluation activities that could be undertaken by the project team. All process and impact indicators in the evaluation framework were met throughout the life of the Collingwood Living in Harmony project.

Evaluation of the Collingwood Living in Harmony project was conducted largely through qualitative methods. These included interviews with facilitators, surveys of the steering committee, ongoing evaluations of training sessions and seminars, pre and post-training surveys with facilitators, reflective journals documented by the coordinators and facilitators, and feedback sheets from community activities. A focus group of participants who had been involved in a number of activities also occurred in November 2014. Quantitative evaluation methods were used to capture the numbers of training sessions, activities and participants.

Training at Collingwood Neighbourhood House.

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‘Collingwood Living in Harmony’ A LOGIC MODEL  

VISION: Reduce the prevalence of family violence amongst diverse communities of the Collingwood Housing Estate

GOAL: Empower diverse communities on the Collingwood Housing Estate to promote non-violent norms and to value equal and respectful relationships between men and women, boys and girls.  

OBJECTIVE 1: Build awareness and strengthen understandings of family violence and its causes (e.g. gender norms/roles, gender inequalities,

violence supportive attitudes, masculine entitlement) OBJECTIVE 2: Increase capacity to promote equal and respectful

relationships between men and women, boys and girls, thereby fostering harmony and safety throughout the Estate

OBJECTIVE 3: Empower diverse communities to (a) promote non-violent norms and (b) value

equal and respectful relationships between men and women, boys and girls

Phase 1: Working with Community Representatives to Build Capacity

IMMEDIATE IMPACTS: Community Leaders Increased knowledge of community development principles, theories,

best practices Enhanced understandings of the causes of family violence and how

to prevent it before it occurs Increased support between community leaders to take a stand

against family violence Improved knowledge of pathways into the Northern Integrated Family

Violence Service System

Community development training

Service provider workshops

Primary prevention training

Workshops to develop action plans

Phase 2: Strengthening Communities to Take Action

Peer support activities

Community strengthening and social marketing initiatives, e.g. community

education, WRD events, cultural events, ‘no to violence’ messages

IMMEDIATE IMPACTS: Communities Understanding of key messages and themes of ‘equality and

respect’ and ‘harmony and safety’ Openness to talk about family violence as a community

responsibility Willingness to take a stand against family violence

INPUTS: Timely policy context (Addressing Violence Against Women and Their Children Framework), evidence-based planning tools (VicHealth primary prevention framework), opportunities for skills development (DVRCV primary prevention training, VU community development training), evidence of health impacts of family violence (WHO and VicHealth publications), evidence of promising practice for CALD communities (CALD background paper), strong partnerships structures and good will at the local level, community leader readiness for action, identification of the problem by residents, readiness of residents to respond to family violence

PLATFORM OF SUPPORT AND RESOURCES: Project Steering Committee, continuous shaping of activities through evaluation activities in parallel with Project implementation (action research methodology), ‘empowerment evaluation’ and ‘evaluation capacity building’ approaches

IMMEDIATE IMPACTS: Community Representatives Improved capacity to plan, implement and evaluate community

strengthening and social marketing initiatives

Training with Victorian University teacher.

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What we did:• Up to 16 facilitators recruited from three main

cultural groups, Vietnamese, Chinese and Horn of Africa and trained by the Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria and Victoria University and Carlton Neighbourhood Learning Centre, to implement 23 activities delivered to a total of more than 800 people. Actual reach includes community members engaged by each participant.

These activities included:

• Information and education sessions.

• Art-based activities, film day on gender equity, and art therapy activities for families, and cooking activities such as ‘dumpling’ cooking classes for men and children.

• Special events to mark occasions such as White Ribbon Day, Harmony Day, 16 days of Activism, Men’s Health Day, ‘No’ to Violence, ‘Reclaim the Night’, Gender Equity, International Womens Day, Clotheslines project.

• Activities at community festivals and celebrations, Eid, Breaking Fast, Harvest Festival.

• Health programs including African women’s gym sessions, homework groups, women’s legal rights.

• Activities focused on life skills to empower women, such as women-only car maintenance.

• Social connections activities with a focus on respectful relationships such as BBQ day, computer art design, Third Way Theatre session.

Feedback from facilitators …

“i have gained experience in working with people from different cultures and building rapport with other facilitators.”

“You have to prevent it [violence] before it happens.”

“i learn good things, for wife and husband to be equal – i will teach my family, my children and my community.”

“Through this project, we were able to further strengthen social connections.”

“i have a better understanding of gender equality and the help that is available for family violence victims… i have learned more about planning, organising and running a community event [and] gained more confidence in public speaking. There are many ways to promote primary prevention of family violence against women.”

“The T-shirts are hanging in there like a crowd of people saying and showing ‘no violence, no violence, no violence!’ … a strong anti-family violence feeling!”

“… now i know and understand male and female are equal …”

Living in Harmony facilitators during Safety Day October 2013. Practising ‘Living in Harmony’ rap song for the end of year celebration.

Legal Rights workshop steering committee members with facilitators, two coordinators and community members.

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Findings• Each different cultural community requires

specific targeted initiatives.

• The project has clear benefits to facilitators in terms of personal development, understanding of family violence, social justice and gender equity. They have been able to impart information about family violence and primary prevention of violence against women.

• However, facilitators will sometimes be unable to continue with the project due to unavoidable reasons, such as full-time work opportunities.

• To meet the needs of a public housing estate’s population (largely CALD background and with many residents who are disadvantaged and marginalised) is a strength of the project. However, there are very real challenges involved in gaining the interest and participation of the whole population, when so many are occupied with the challenges of daily life. A carefully targeted community engagement strategy is essential.

• Community members engaged by the facilitators reported an increase in understanding about what respectful relationships and gender equity are, and are more open and willing to speak out and ‘spread the word’.

• The Collingwood Living in Harmony project has been particularly successful in engaging the Chinese community. Analysing this success will be important for identifying guiding principles that can help in reaching other CALD communities.

• Project evaluation needs to be in place from the start of any project.

• Messages of primary prevention of violence against women need to be consistent, persistent, repetitive, and undertaken in a multi-prong action to reach the long-term outcome.

What we learnt• The project’s effectiveness highlights the

powerful impact that a place-based, community strengthening initiative can have in regard to primary prevention of family violence.

• The project reinforced the fact that “while the reason for running primary prevention programs is to eliminate violence against women the focus of programs must be on the underlying causes. That is, the power imbalance, gender inequality between men and women and associated cultures of disrespect and abuse”.1

• A project such as this needs to be flexible enough to accommodate different levels of continuity of participation from individual facilitators. They will sometimes be unable to attend meetings regularly, or may be unable to continue with the project, due to unavoidable reasons such as family commitments or work opportunities.

• Capacity building for the facilitators was a key foundation for the project’s achievements.

• Facilitators’ strong links with and knowledge of their own communities, together with their initiative and ideas for projects, assisted the project to be innovative and successful.

Community members increased their understanding and knowledge about family violence issues, respectful relationships and gender equality. They are now more open and willing to speak and ‘spread the word’, and no longer consider family violence as a stigma and are more aware of what to do when people need help, and refer. They now have:

• an understanding of key messages and themes of ‘equality and respect’ and ‘harmony and safety’;

• a greater openness to talk about family violence as a community responsibility; and

• an increased willingness to take a stand against family violence.

1 Australian Women’s Health Network, Health and the Primary Prevention of Violence against Women, Position Paper, 2014, p.24

‘Warmth with Love’ activity. Eid Ul Adha celebration.

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What worked well?• The project was extremely successful in building

the capacity of the facilitators’ skills and knowledge. The facilitators have increased understanding and knowledge about the gendered nature of family violence and appropriate referral processes, gender equity, respectful relationships, project development, management and evaluation.

• The facilitators have increased confidence in ‘selling’ the message of ‘living in harmony’ to their respective communities.

• The facilitators demonstrated a growing commitment to the primary prevention goals of gender equity and respectful relationships, to becoming change agents.

• The commitment of the individual facilitators along with their evolution of thought and capacity to translate their learning into practice was a successful element of the project.

• The coordinators’ commitment to support the facilitators and the project in capacity building, delivery and evaluation of community strengthening activities throughout the years was a strength of the project.

• Stakeholder involvement and support via the steering committee was a contributing factor of the success of the project.

DHHS and MFB White Ribbon Ambassador presentation at Men’s Health Day 16 November 2014.

Facilitators’ Living in Harmony White Ribbon.

Feedback from community participants …

“Through this project, we were able to further strengthen social connections.”

“The important thing is to establish an equal relationship ...”

“… if there are any problems, we can deal with the problems together, so that the incidence of family violence may be reduced.”

“i understand too that violence against women and children is a crime, so by talking and raising awareness on respectful relationships, i have contributed to the prevention of crimes.”

“Parents should discuss and negotiate with children instead of making all decisions for them.”

“never again will we call a man for help [to change a tyre]! never again will we cry on the side of the road! it’s the final frontier of female independence.”

“Prevention of violence thinking helped us build respectful relationships with our family and neighbours, our colleagues and bring happiness. We men don’t want violence.”

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our funders:City of Yarra

Department of Health & Human Services

Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria

Ian Potter Foundation

Inner North West Primary Care Partnership

Melbourne Family

Relationship Centre

Neighbourhood Justice Centre

Rotary Club of Collingwood

Victorian Multicultural

Commission

Women’s Health in the North

steering committee members:Berry Street

City of Yarra

cohealth

Community representatives

Collingwood Neighbourhood House

Drummond Street Services

Fitzroy Legal Service

InTouch Multicultural Centre against Family Violence

Neighbourhood Justice Centre

Department of Health & Human Services

The Wellington Community Centre

Victoria Police

Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth)

Additional organisational support:Carlton Neighbourhood Learning Centre (Training partner)

Carringbush Adult Education

Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria (Training partner)

Metropolitan Fire Brigade

Victoria University (Training partner)

Yarra Family Violence Network (Founding Committee)

ConclusionsWith the assistance of existing stakeholders, the Collingwood Living in Harmony project has great potential to influence practice and the community, locally and more broadly. It was the first project in Australia to apply a place-based, community strengthening approach to the primary prevention of family violence against women with CALD communities and will provide valuable learnings for communities across the country.

The project is looking at building sustainability for the Collingwood community through ongoing community participation strate-gies and promotion of non-violent norms, gender equity and respectful relationships. Facilita-tors’ reflections on the three years of activities and their capacity building will contribute to building up a unique resource to share project learnings, challenges and successes of the project.

Clothesline project during Week Without Violence.

End of project celebration with City of Yarra Mayor.

“A very brave and ambitious project that had the multiple aims of engaging with potential community leaders with limited english, that set out to build their skill level and understanding around the issue of primary PVAW (Prevention of violence against women), to provide pathways that could lead to future employment opportunities for them and to support them to develop a range of primary prevention initiatives for their particular communities.”

sTeering CommiTTee memBer