Local agencies aim to research family violence

December 22nd, 2011
[by Linda Glew, of Strengthening Families]

A proaction cafe held on Tuesday December 6th at Te Awhina Marae was part of a broader Family Violence Prevention initiative being progressed by the Motueka Collaboration of Agencies.

Using some money from the Ministry of Social Development's Family Centred Services fund, Motueka Family Service Centre, Get Safe, Womens Support and Te Awhina Marae have put in an application to MSD for further resources to enable some local research into service gaps and trends and the development of a more substantial funding proposal for 2012.

Over the last few months consultation between the Collaboration of Agencies and local agencies, groups and families has taken place and the information collated to produce a series of questions.

The Proaction Cafe process is a new experience for Motueka, but is being used in many other communities around New Zealand and the world. (Here is a detailed explanation). It uses a cafe-type environment, where lots of people do business nowadays.

Basically it refers to community-led conversations that can lead to community-led actions for the benefit of the community in whatever form they define. Our issue here in Motueka for wellbeing is reducing family violence in all its forms.

The proaction cafe is intended as a safe space for creative conversations - a way for testing and developing ideas and drawing on the collective wisdom in the room.

The December 6th proaction cafe was an opportunity for those interested to come together to think more about the potential next steps that can be taken to enhance local family violence support services and to reduce family violence in Motueka.

This proaction cafe engaged 15 participants. Key conversations focused on:

How we can increase community connectedness and cohesion in Motueka by building on our strengths and what is working well now with regards to reducing family violence and supporting families?
How we can better support individuals and families - perpetrator, victims, those with mental health issues and young people?
How we can support agencies who feel unable to report family violence as it is not their core business?

The proaction cafe exercise raised a number of possibilities and threads of conversation that can be progressed to create a proposal for funding in the Motueka area.

The challenge for the Collaboration of Agencies group working on this project is to translate the conversations at the proaction cafe into a realistic, workable and collaborative resource that is going to show that family violence in Motueka can be reduced, and to ensure that families involved in family violence are well supported by the collective services in the district.

A summary of the outcome of the group's work will be made available once the proposal for funding is complete.

The Motueka Collaboration of Agencies has been working together over the past 10 years. It includes government and non-government agencies that have a focus on family violence in the Motueka District. It meets monthly to share information, keep up with what is current in the area, and act on particular strategies that may be raised within each specific agencies - a bit of a "think/action tank".

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