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December 2013 Program Evaluation

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December 2013 Program Evaluation Youth Advocates Against Family Violence Responding to & preventing family violence in the secondary school setting PROJECT EVALUATION & FINAL REPORT CONTENTS 1. Executive Summary……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..1 2. Background information……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..2 a. About the project partners………………………………………………………………………………………………2 b. Rationale for the project …………………………………………………………………………………………………3 c. About the participating schools………………………………………………………………………………………..8 3. Program outcomes……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..10 4. Purpose and objective of evaluation…………………………………………………………………………………………..11 5. Description of the evaluation plan and design……………………………………………………………………………12 6. Results/findings…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..14 7. Discussion of program and its results………………………………………………………………………………………….23 8. Conclusions and recommendations…………………………………………………………………………………………….25 9. Sources………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..27 10. Annexures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………27 © Inner Melbourne Community Legal Inc. December 2013 ABN 89 992 917 962 Registration No. A0014248J Acknowledgments The project partners would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following individuals and organisations in the development and realisation of the Youth Advocates Against Family Violence Project: The Victoria Law Foundation Staff and students at St Aloysius College Staff and students at Kensington Community High School Staff and students from the Galileo Program, University High School Staff and students at Simonds Catholic College Amy Webster & Sharon Simon – Partners in Prevention Network Kate Koomen and the Youth Leadership Group, Doutta Galla Youth Services Rex Punshon, Alana Lazdins & Blaine Hattie Leading Senior Constable Nick Parissis The City of Melbourne 1. Executive Summary Inner Melbourne Community Legal Incorporated and Doutta Galla Community Health Service, with funding from the Victoria Law Foundation, partnered to develop and deliver a pilot project designed to provide community legal education to young people in the secondary school system. The project aimed to address both response and prevention of family violence and the promotion of respectful relationships. Through the project, twelve sessions were delivered to secondary school students at four schools in the City of Melbourne, and one session was delivered to young people in a community-based setting. Two co-educational state schools and two single-sex Catholic schools (one boys and one girls school) participated in the project. In total, over 200 young people participated in the program. The project partners worked in close consultation with the participating schools in planning and developing the sessions to ensure that they would have high level ‘buy-in’ from schools and sessions would be adapted to the needs of the student population. The project was delivered by a lawyer and a youth worker, and focused on: The social and gender context of family violence; The nature and extent of family violence; An overview of Victorian law on family violence and legal options for responding to family violence; Respectful relationships and positive communication skills; and Safe responding and help-seeking in relation to family violence. As a result of the project, participants are better equipped to identify, respond and advocate about the issue of family violence. Based on data obtained through the project evaluation, a range of indicators of success have been established. At the conclusion of the program: o Respondents were readily able to identify the various forms of family violence including physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse; o 66.1% of respondents indicated that they would know where to go to get help if they or someone they knew were experiencing family violence; o 52.2% of respondents indicated that they felt more confident in responding to a family violence situation since attending the program; and o Respondents were able to identify the attributes that determined healthy and unhealthy relationships, and placed value on pursuing and promoting respectful relationships. Teaching staff at individual schools were overwhelmingly positive about the value and impact of the project on their students, and expressed an interest in pursuing similar programs in future. Youth Advocates Against Family Violence – Project Evaluation & Final Report 1 2. Background information “Youth advocates against family violence” (the Project) is a pilot project by Inner Melbourne Community Legal Incorporated (formerly known as North Melbourne Legal Service) and Doutta Galla Community Health Service (DGCHS) to address and prevent family violence in the inner North-West region of Melbourne by educating young people about family violence through the local secondary school system so that young people have the capacity and willingness to act as gatekeepers of information about family violence, develop respectful relationships, and are aware of support services for family violence. The project sought to develop, pilot and share a model of community legal education for young people in Victoria through the secondary school system that addresses both response and prevention aspects of family violence. a. About the project partners Inner Melbourne Community Legal Inc. (IMCL) IMCL is a not-for-profit community organisation that provides legal assistance to disadvantaged and marginalised people in the City of Melbourne area (North Melbourne, West Melbourne, The Central Business District, Carlton, Parkville and Docklands). IMCL is a free, independent service and focuses on helping the most disadvantaged, including the homeless, those with chronic physical or mental illness, victims of sexual assault, individuals from low or no-income households and individuals from refugee and migrant backgrounds. IMCL provides legal assistance in the form of information, advice, representation and court advocacy and also carries out preventative legal education for the community. Our education program is designed to help the community avoid or deal with commonly occurring problems before they escalate to the point where traditional forms of legal assistance like advice and representation is needed. IMCL operates two drop-in clinics each week where members of the community can obtain legal assistance. On alternate Tuesday evenings, specialist legal assistance in family law & intervention orders, and criminal law is provided, and on Friday afternoons a generalist drop in service and fortnightly infringements & debts clinic. IMCL also operates numerous outreach services targeting specific groups who face barriers in accessing help: Ozanam Community Centre (for individuals experiencing homelessness); Royal Women’s Hospital (for patients of the hospital); Centre Against Sexual Assault (CASA House) (for victims/survivors of sexual assault); Central City Community Health Service (for individuals experiencing homelessness); Women’s Information and Referral Exchange (WIRE) (for women experiencing disadvantage). In the last financial year, IMCL assisted 541 clients, provided 713 instances of advice, appeared in court in 22 cases for clients and ran 21 education sessions. In addition IMCL Youth Advocates Against Family Violence – Project Evaluation & Final Report 2 opened 210 casework files where we provided a more intensive level of assistance to clients. Doutta Galla Community Health Service (DGCHS) DGCHS is a well-established community health organisation with extensive experience in providing high quality primary community and specialist health services. DGCHS runs programs in treatment, early intervention, health promotion and social support initiatives and aims to address health disparities. DGCHS prioritises access to its services for those in greatest need including the homeless, those with mental illness, public housing residents and new and emerging communities. DGCHS has provided youth services in the City of Melbourne area since 1997 involving the design and delivery of a range of prevention, support, recreation, sport and primary health services to young people in North Melbourne and Kensington. The partnership IMCL and DGCHS have collaborated on various initiatives over the past two years: providing legal information to young men who use the North Melbourne Community Centre sports and recreation facilities, exploration of a school holidays art competition to promote human rights among young people in the North Melbourne public housing area, sharing community consultation opportunities, and exploration of multi-disciplinary health-legal programs to prevent family violence. b. Rationale for the Project Family violence in the community Family violence continues to be a major health, legal, social and economic problem for the community. Studies show that more than one-third of Australian women over the age of 15 had experienced physical and/or sexual violence1 . Recent Victoria Police crime statistics for the police division of Melbourne and Yarra show that family incidents almost doubled from 2007/2008 to 2011/20122 . The effects of family violence are multifaceted and may include social exclusion, economic hardship, and homelessness. A report by VicHealth has found that intimate partner violence is the leading preventable contributor to death, disability and illness in Victorian women aged 15-44 and is responsible for more of the disease burden for Victorian women aged between 15-44 than
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