A small town in Western Australia is making breakthroughs for those struggling with domestic violence. A program at the Emama Nguda Aboriginal Corporation in derby in the Kimberley aims to address violent behaviour.
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00:00I've been in the role for two years, two years since 2022, so February 2022, to be more precise.
00:10I think it's the way the, it's the way the, this organization is able to make a difference
00:17to people's lives.
00:20I've seen that since joining, since joining the organization, it's an Aboriginal community
00:26control organization.
00:28They do, they do quite really good work with engaging local, particularly local Indigenous
00:36people, but generally through the general public too, as well.
00:40Since doing the role, I've seen nothing else, nothing else but young people, young Indigenous
00:45people coming through, handing their resumes through, handing their resumes in, wanting
00:52to inquire about jobs that might be available, you know, leaving their contact details, and
00:57that was quite refreshing to see.
00:59So when I, when I joined the role, they, I was stationed at the front, front office,
01:06and where I was situated, I could actually see the general public coming in, people coming
01:13in to inquire about jobs and stuff.
01:16That proved to me that, you know, the organization that I'm currently working for is, they do
01:24quite magic work in terms of getting people, making a difference in people's lives.
01:31I've seen that already over the last two years in this job, however, the actual service has
01:37been running for quite a few years before I came in, and the Imamangure itself is just
01:46that, does a wonderful, fantastic job with engaging people to get into, back into the
01:52workforce.
01:53And tell us, and Floyd, tell us, so tell us how it works when someone comes in and
01:59they want, they are probably domestic violence perpetrators themselves, what do you do with
02:05them to work through their issues and make a difference?
02:09Yeah, sure, thanks, Geoff.
02:12My role is, I'm called a men's worker, and my role is to work with men who use violence
02:19against their loved ones, their families.
02:22This program that we operate, it's in partnership with one of our great organizations, CNWA,
02:30Anglicare Western Australia, so it's a partnership between our organization and Anglicare Western
02:37Australia.
02:38My role is to provide the men's service as part of this partnership to work with men
02:44who use violence, and what we do here is that we, you know, offer men to come to join us,
02:52to come on board to join us and to come to do these weekly workshops that we run, addressing
02:59family violence issues, and together we work on strategies and work on techniques on how
03:09to get men to lower their use of violence, so that it's not kind of, you know, going
03:16to you from generation to generation, but it's going, running really well.
03:21And can you tell us anything about the techniques that you talk through with these men to get
03:27on top of what they've been doing?
03:30Yeah, thanks for that.
03:32We have, the part of the workshops is that when we run them, we have one of our female
03:41colleagues from our partnering organization, Anglicare, from Anglicare, and that's a young
03:47lady by the name of Carissa O'Meara.
03:51She's a co-facilitator, so she co-facilitates these workshops with me, with the men, and
03:57it's a wonderful aspect because the guys in the workshops are able to ask our female co-facilitator
04:05questions relating to what they're experiencing at home with their partners.
04:09So in essence, the guys that are asking the questions about what happens in home and our
04:17female co-facilitator, she's able to provide that woman's perspective about why she might
04:24become angry or why she might become annoyed or such, so that they get a more understanding
04:31from the female aspect.
04:33But overall, it's pretty much group therapy.
04:38So as a group, co-facilitators with the men, we all talk about family domestic violence
04:45in the general sense, even though the sessions are run from week to week and different topics
04:49from week to week, but the sessions are run in a group therapy type way where we're all
04:56talking about family domestic violence because we've all experienced family domestic violence
05:01in some way, shape, form or another.
05:04And can you tell us about any individuals, obviously without identifying them, but any
05:09individual stories of men who've come through the program and you've seen a big change in
05:15how they approach things?
05:19We've had a few men now who have come to our workshops who are users of family violence
05:27and they are, you know, a couple maybe will touch on the use of violence when they come
05:36to the workshops, they may go home, they might have a bit of an incident, however,
05:44they're still continuing to come to these workshops to talk about what they've experienced
05:48at home.
05:49So the current events that are happening at home, they come to the workshops to kind of
05:55discuss in a very, very sensitive way, but in the most respectful way that they can with
06:02anyone, you know, giving any kind of, hinting towards any sort of negativity.
06:09But the workshops are run in such a way where these guys are feeling comfortable because
06:13I guess one of the advantages of it is because myself and the co-facilitator, our female
06:20co-facilitator, we're all local people.
06:23And generally the general sense is that with our workshop participants, the men, we all
06:29seem to know, sort of affiliated or sort of know who is related to who, how people
06:37are connected together.
06:39That's very, very important in this context when running these types of workshops for
06:44our Indigenous men locally.
06:47And so, yeah, it really feels like you're making a difference?
06:51Yes.
06:52You know, we've even had a, we've had a fellow who's been placed on a community-based order.
06:59So rather than sending him to jail, he was placed on a community-based order.
07:05He's come to the workshops and now he's completed the community-based order.
07:11However, he's now, you know, returned back home to his partner.
07:17And his partner has also approached us to say how much difference he's seen at home
07:22to as well.
07:23So it's, you know, and just to hear that, it's wonderful news.
07:28It's great news.
07:29It's fantastic news.
07:31We haven't heard any other incidents about this guy who was placed on a community-based
07:37order, who was ordered to come to the workshops.
07:40And now he's, we don't hear any further incidents as such by way of referrals.
07:45So it's fantastic news.
07:46And I think it's very important.
07:48And having feedback like that, it says to us that, you know, we must be making some
07:54kind of difference here, but just to, and an individual who's done that, who's gone
07:59through that, it's just fantastic news.
08:01So it's quite refreshing.