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• 16 Days Of Activism To Stop Violence Against Women
• NSW Vaw Prevention Awards
• Aboriginal Family Violence Projects
• Negotiating Consent
• Sexual Assault Consultation
• Domestic Violence Interagency Guidelines (DVIG)
• Staying Home Leaving Violence
• Domestic Violence Intervention Court Model (DVICM)

Aboriginal women and children’s experiences of violence remains one of the four priority areas for the VAW Strategy.

The VAW Strategy is implementing two new programs to address family violence in Aboriginal communities from 2006 to 2008. These programs build on the work of the Strategy in this area, focusing particularly on building capacity of Aboriginal women and young people to address issues of violence in their communities.

Implementation has commenced for the 'Youth Leadership Through Healthy Relationships’ project. The project will work with Aboriginal young people to develop their capacity, confidence and leadership skills to address family violence. Young people in Aboriginal communities represent the best opportunity for breaking the cycle of violence and addressing intergenerational violence within Aboriginal communities. This project will work with young people to develop and strengthen their perceptions of identity, respect for self and others, and engage young people in discussions about and development of resources to promote healthy relationships. Young people will work closely with elders and mentors.

The project will be operating in Brewarrina, Cobar, Narrandera, Nowra and Armidale.

The Aboriginal Community Working Groups have been central to these developments and the VAW Strategy workers would like to acknowledge and thank everyone for their time, energy and on going commitment.
Further analysis was undertaken on the ‘Strong Aboriginal Women and Improving Legal Acess' workshops to determine their capacity and sustainability. As a consequence the projects have been revised and condensed into one project which will be implemented across 18 locations over three years. Careful consideration has been given to how the project can best support Aboriginal women in these locations.

The changes will lead to:

• improving community understanding of the impact of family violence
• it will help build capacity at an individual and community level
• improve women's understanding of the legal process and improve service provision in this sector
• strengthen women's knowledge and skill base to become strong advocates in their communities

• reinforce messages to young men and women about some common/legitimate responses which are refusals to sex.
• provide information to young people seeking help or information about date rape and sexual assault.
• provide the opportunity to challenge some common myths and misconceptions regarding sex and sexual assault.
• supplement existing Personal Development, Health and Physical Education and other resources that address the issue of sexual assault and healthy relationships.

• Victim/survivors identified a need for complete and accurate information about services available, reporting and court processes, and possible outcomes of different courses of action.
• Services and agencies identified a significant number of victim/survivors have additional needs including mental health issues, accommodation, drug and alcohol use.
• Services and agencies identified a lack of support and assistance for particular groups of people eg. women with disabilities
• Integrated service response
• Training for service
• There is limited uptake of medical care or forensic medical examinations by victim/survivors, with the majority not seeking any health care following a sexual assault
• Victim/survivors indicated high levels of dissatisfaction with police response, particularly where there was no action taken following the report
• Services and agencies identified opportunities to enhance evidence gathering
• Victim/survivors identified opportunities to make the court process easier
• Victim/survivors indicated high levels of dissatisfaction with the court outcome, even when a guilty verdict was an outcome
• The majority of victim/survivors withdrew their case after having made a report to police with around a third of these saying that time (ie. delays) was a factor in their decision to withdraw.

• The removal of the violent partner from the home
• Keeping the violent partner out of the home, over time
• Immediate and longer-term safety issues for the woman and her children
• Longer-term support for the woman and her children, and the prevention of future violence

• Bega - commenced in October 2004, auspiced by Bega Women’s Refuge and funded through the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP)
• Eastern Sydney, commenced in May 2005, auspiced by the Homelessness Unit of the Department of Housing, and funded through SAAP
• Western Sydney, has just received funding from the National Crime Prevention Program (NCPP) and will be operational by the end of the year, auspiced by the WASH House in Mt Druitt.