A launch event and training session is scheduled for Thursday September 14th 2023, 10.00-12.00 on Zoom. Registration is open via Eventbrite.
Background
As recommended by the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence, building a lived experience workforce is a crucial step to provide more responsive support and genuine employment opportunities to victim-survivors. Yet it is necessary to place lived experience in the context of intersectionality to ensure that services meet the needs of communities that face intersecting forms of marginalisation (including LGBTIQA+, First Nations, CALD, socio-economically disadvantaged people and people with disabilities). For services, this involves an examination of who holds power within organisations alongside the employment and support of victim-survivors with diverse forms of cultural, lived experience, and identity knowledge.
An intersectional lived experience workforce is therefore an opportunity to build on the existing expertise in the workforce, while uplifting the specific forms of knowledge held by marginalised victim-survivors from marginalised communities.
The CLIK Guide
The CLIK (Cultural, Lived experience and Identity Knowledge) Guide is a practical resource for services in the family violence and sexual assault sectors. It draws on knowledge from consultation with services, findings from the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence, contemporary research, and first-hand experiences implementing the iHeal Recovery Support Worker model at Drummond Street Services. The guide has four sections:
- Background: Why a lived experience workforce is important for the sector and how it is situated within intersectional practice.
- Readiness: How to engage in organisational readiness, while centering marginalised voices
- Implementation: How to implement and support an intersectional lived experience workforce through:
- drawing on existing diverse lived experience voices in the service
- supported hiring processes for new intersectional lived experience staff
- ongoing training and support for all staff
- evaluation and review of the process and outcomes.
- Resource guide: A collection of templates and examples that can be adapted and utilised in your service context.
The guide will be available on this page in August 2023. If you would like to be sent a copy directly, please contact training@ds.org.au
Training – launch and information session
A launch event and training session is scheduled for Thursday September 14th 2023, 10.00-12.00 on Zoom. The link to register and get your ticket is available via Eventbrite.
This event is for service leaders, but is open to all staff in the family violence and sexual assault sectors who want to be involved in building an intersectional lived experience workforce at their service.
In the training we will explore: why an intersectional lived experience workforce is important, unpack the resources in the guide, and discuss how to apply it to your context. This is also an opportunity to ask questions and share knowledge with other services engaged in this process.