Parishes urged to consider new ways of addressing domestic violence

Domestic violence remains a pervasive issue in Australia and is still the leading cause of homelessness for women and children. Refuges are so full that ‘only those most at risk of being killed will get in.’

That is the assessment from Jocelyn Bignold, CEO of McAuley Community Services for Women, which provides accommodation, counselling, and health and financial services for families fleeing domestic violence.

The scale of the crisis is disturbing. ‘Victoria police will attend an incident of family violence on average every six minutes. It takes around about 50 per cent of police work,’ Jocelyn says. ‘Our murder rate is going up, has been for the last three years after trending down for 30 years.

‘COVID, cost of living, gambling and sporting events create spikes in family violence ... We are still in a patriarchal society which holds some of this stuff in place.’

I believe it’s our responsibility to help the Catholic community understand what’s going on.

The 2015 Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence was Australia’s first investigation into preventing family violence, improving support for victim survivors and holding perpetrators to account. It created awareness that the problem was more prevalent than people realised, Jocelyn says. It also led to more women coming forward ‘because they think the system is there to catch them.’ But, as agencies like McAuley can attest, and the Royal Commission found, services are inadequate.

Following the Royal Commission, the umbrella group Catholic Social Services Victoria, of which McAuley is a member, began investigating ways that faith-based organisations could play a role in combatting domestic violence. ‘I think it was really foresightful of the Catholic social services to get in early and start to think about what that means for the parishes,’ Jocelyn says.

‘I believe it’s our responsibility to help the Catholic community understand what’s going on—we know the language, we know the context, we have access to the people.

‘As a Catholic organisation, we have detailed knowledge of what the issues are and how family violence, for instance, manifests in a relationship. For example, coercive control is a way of a perpetrator of violence controlling every aspect of a victim’s life. Now, in a Catholic context, that could include threats around pregnancy, use of contraception, divorce, or it can include threat of excommunication.

‘We need Catholic communities to understand what’s going on ... not to become experts but to recognise signs and refer victims to professionals.’

Church groups are increasingly stepping up to support victims. Several parishes have offered leases to crisis accommodation provider the Good Samaritan Inn to repurpose properties for women and children experiencing family violence.

Other parishes have taken part in initiatives like the United Nations–backed ’16 days of activism against gender-based violence’, and are including information about respectful relationships in their bulletins.

Judy Lamb, a member of St Mary of the Cross Parish in Mordialloc–Aspendale, says the impetus for her and fellow parishioners to get involved in combatting domestic violence came with the Social Justice Statement of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference in 2022–23, which said the roots of domestic and family violence ‘lie in the abuse of power to control and dominate others’ and that ‘this stands in contrast to the relationships to which God calls us.’

It’s a matter of spreading the word and learning how to do it in a respectful and constructive way.

‘We decided, well, we can’t just sit about and talk about it. We need to do something,’ Judy says. Her parish’s Justice Action Group held a Domestic and Family Violence Forum in March led by a panel of experts and local service providers, including McAuley CEO Jocelyn Bignold.

In the lead-up to and after the forum, the group took a multi-pronged approach, offering information on respectful relationships, partnerships with local agencies like WHISE Women’s Health and a men’s retreat.

‘We felt that it was important that men were included in this whole conversation, and that was very successful,’ Judy says. ‘It wasn’t a specific focus on violence. It was a focus more on how the Holy Family, particularly Jesus and Joseph, modelled family life.

‘The fact that we had 25 men attend the retreat is a sign, I think, of a willingness to address the issue. Obviously, there’s going to be lots of men who react very differently, but these ones are open to it. It’s a matter of spreading the word and learning how to do it in a respectful and constructive way.’

We see ourselves really as a bridge between the people who are suffering domestic and family violence and the agencies and service providers that can support them.

The parish also does a lot of work with refugees, which often overlaps with its work on domestic violence awareness. ‘There are women who are refugees or asylum seekers who are fleeing domestic violence, and their situation is much more dire than many other women,’ says Judy. ‘A woman in our group has a daughter who works with these women, and she said one of the really basic needs is for nappies for toddlers and older babies.

‘So, we’re having a parish call-out for disposable nappies. That’s the sort of practical thing that we can do—we can’t do everything. We see ourselves really as a bridge between the people who are suffering domestic and family violence and the agencies and service providers that can support them.’

Service providers in the area of domestic violence prevention are continuing their efforts to change the narrative. Jocelyn Bignold says the default assumption is that women will leave because staying makes them a target, but they are then at risk of instability and homelessness.

McAuley is trying to address the bind many women find themselves in with its Safe at Home trial, which is currently underway with around 35 families in the Geelong area. ‘We’re trying to get to her before she feels the need to walk out the door, before the danger is so high that she has to walk out, before she’s lost her house, to offer her a real choice,’ Jocelyn says. McAuley works with the whole household, including the perpetrator and the children. The man is directed to appropriate services, while the aim for women and children is to ensure there is as little disruption to schooling, work and support networks as possible.

Prevention is by far the better strategy.

McAuley, like other service providers tackling family violence, is constantly seeking funding, and there is never enough, which is why Jocelyn is particularly interested in supporting Catholic parishes, schools and communities. She wants them ‘to understand what’s going on is because there is no way we can fix this alone. The homelessness issue is decades in the making, and it’s just getting worse. Prevention is by far the better strategy.’