25 November - 10 December

Welcome to Barnardos Australia Podcast

Matt: Welcome to Barnardos Australia podcast. My name is Matt Hooey, and I’m the Head of Practice and Impact. We are talking about children, the hidden victims of domestic and family violence. We have a guest, Delia Donovan, and our CEO, Deirdre Cheers. Delia, would you like to introduce yourself to the listeners?

Delia: Absolutely, Matt. Hi everybody, I’m Delia Donovan, the CEO of Domestic Violence New South Wales. We are the peak body that represents over 150 life-saving organizations across the state.

Matt: Thank you, and it’s absolutely incredible having you as part of the conversation here today. We’ve also got Deirdre Cheers, our CEO at Barnardos. Do you want to give a quick hello?

Deirdre: Hello, hello. I’m Deirdre Cheers. I’ve been CEO of Barnardos since 2015. I’m a social worker by training, and over my career, I’ve seen a significant change in the way we recognize domestic and family violence. I’m particularly interested in this conversation because it’s such an important area of focus.

Matt: Absolutely, and focus it is because we are in the 16 Days of Activism, a global campaign that builds awareness against gender-based violence. Before we get into any content, I think it’s really important to have a trigger warning as we will be talking about domestic and family violence throughout this podcast today, including stories, impact research, and various conversations. Please look after yourself, and if you need support, 1800RESPECT is always there for you.

Matt: I’d like to start this podcast by acknowledging the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognizing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s continuing connection to land, waters, and community. I pay my respects to Elders past, present, and to our children and young people emerging. I am committed to approaching culture with humility, respect, and curiosity, and we are on Gadigal land today.

Matt: Deirdre, Barnardos is quite a large organization impacting children and families across New South Wales and the ACT. With all the programs and services, why should we be paying such a focus on domestic and family violence?

Deirdre: If we reflect back on the last six weeks or so, we have seen an extraordinary number of women killed, including a woman in my own suburb, only several streets away. I live in an ordinary suburban area with three schools within a radius of probably a kilometer and a half and five primary schools within 3 km. There are a lot of children where I live, and the reality is that this happens everywhere. In all our Barnardos centers, we have a range of programs, but the common denominator increasingly is domestic and family violence. No matter what brings people to our door, we often discover underlying many family-related problems is domestic and family violence.

Matt: Is that what you’re seeing with Domestic Violence NSW, Delia?

Delia: Yes, we’re certainly seeing that community attitudes are a concern for us at this point. Domestic and family violence is everywhere and it certainly doesn’t discriminate. We know from the National Community Attitudes Survey that over half of Australians believe that domestic violence doesn’t happen in their suburb. We’ve recently lost 58 women to domestic and family violence across Australia, so this isn’t about discriminating by postcode. This happens everywhere. Particularly, children and young people are often the silent and forgotten victims of domestic and family violence. They tend not to have a voice, the right services, or support, and it’s an underfunded space. We’re really keen to advocate that children and young people are seen and heard, and that there are recovery services to support them.

Matt: You made a really good point about children often being the hidden victims. There’s a lot of media coverage, but why do you think, Deirdre, that children might still be suffering in the public agenda of not having their voices heard or considered?

Deirdre: It’s one of those issues where people not only don’t think it’s going to happen in their sphere of living, but it’s also something uncomfortable to talk about. For people who have experienced it directly, let alone children, it’s not exactly a social conversation topic. For children, we at Barnardos did a national survey last year, and the finding that really jumped out at me was that adults who told us how very much living with violence had impacted them also told us they had informed someone at school, like a teacher, but they weren’t heard. In an environment like a school, where teachers are trained to work with children and know a lot about child development, if that message is not picked up on and heard, children are left very powerless. Children don’t take much to feel that something’s not okay to talk about.

Matt: Delia, you have an extensive history working with domestic and family violence here in Australia and also in the UK. When did you realize that children’s voices weren’t being heard in these conversations?

Delia: That’s a great question. There have been many parts of my career where it’s become prominent. When I was doing my social work course, I chose domestic violence as a module. It wasn’t actually in the social work curriculum, which is important to note. I was managing therapeutic communities for kids and went as a social work student to an organization called DASH (Domestic Abuse Stops Here). I noticed that while the focus was rightly on the mother, there was no one really addressing the needs of the kids. I was invited back to set up the Children’s Services team at DASH, the first of its kind in the UK back in 2009. We looked at tailored services for kids in refuges and the community, and cultural change in schools. That was a big learning phase.

Delia: Another moment was when I came to Australia and worked at White Ribbon, looking at prevention work. It was clear that we were in an echo chamber in our sector, and community conversations weren’t happening. Those are two key moments that highlighted the need for doing more for children and changing community attitudes.

Matt: Deirdre, reflecting on the past decade, what has really stood out for you in terms of putting children’s voices at the forefront with domestic and family violence?

Deirdre: It’s been nearly ten years since Luke Batty was killed by his father. That crime shocked Australia, particularly because Rosie Batty, his mother, was an ordinary middle Australian. People still treat domestic and family violence as something that happens to others, not to them. Even in social work, there’s a tendency to distance oneself from the difficulty of the work. But domestic and family violence is everywhere; it’s classless. Luke Batty’s death was a watershed moment because he was an ordinary little boy at cricket, and his mother was doing her best to protect him. That was shocking.

Matt: You both mentioned it happens anywhere at any time. We need more community awareness on how to respond. People often don’t know what to do. What are your thoughts, Delia?

Delia: In 2014, we had children’s specialist workers in refuges across New South Wales. But reforms meant we lost those workers. In 2021, we advocated for their return, and got 20 workers back. However, it’s still a small pilot. We are now calling for statewide children’s specialist workers in all refuges, not just in refuges, but also in community settings. We need these resources and supports for children and young people.

Deirdre: Absolutely, we need skilled people embedded in local services where families can come without the stigma of needing a DV specialist. They want to feel normal and safe, but we need the skilled people there, particularly for children. It’s about making sure people feel safe to say something’s not okay.

Matt: We’ve mentioned education a few times. How can we best train our future practitioners to respond to families and children in these situations?

Delia: We need to utilize existing training like DV-alert and 1800RESPECT’s resources. Advocacy for minimum standards and professionalizing the sector is crucial, but we must also ensure accessibility to education and training for all levels of workers. Schools should have a whole-of-school culture around respect, and teachers need to be trained to understand domestic and family violence.

Deirdre: We need to reframe this issue as a shared responsibility for personal safety, not just a problem to be fixed. Children depend on us for their safety, and we need to ensure they feel safe to call out when something’s not right.

Matt: Considering the broad approach needed, do you think the New South Wales child protection system is effectively responding to children in domestic and family violence situations?

Deirdre: That’s a loaded question. Child protection reporting laws are sophisticated, but they can let people off the hook because they feel they’ve done their part by reporting. In reality, it doesn’t mean the family will get the necessary assistance. We need a broader community responsibility, and while reporting laws are necessary, they don’t ensure additional services for the family.

Delia: Absolutely. We can tend to victim-blame the surviving parent, often the mother. We need to focus on the perpetrator and ensure better integration and sharing of information between services like housing, mental health, child protection, and police. Creative models where specialist workers are embedded in places like police stations and hospitals are essential. The system needs to be more supportive and less punitive.

Matt: Prevention work is crucial. How can we enforce the recognition of children as victims and ensure their voices are heard in these conversations?

Delia: We need to listen to the experiences of children and young people. Initiatives like embedding children’s specialist workers in all domestic and family violence services and supporting primary prevention programs in schools are key. Training for all frontline workers, including teachers and health professionals, is essential.

Deirdre: We need to create environments where children feel safe to talk. Schools and community settings need to be places where children know they can speak up and be heard. The responsibility is on all of us to ensure they are seen and heard.