Religious and community leaders are to receive domestic violence awareness and prevention training as part of a Department of Community and Justice initiative to boost victim support and reporting.
Attorney General and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, Mark Speakman said the training would empower leaders and give them tools and resources to help victims who came to them seeking guidance.
“Multicultural communities, and those who’ve recently emigrated to NSW in particular, will often look to local community or religious leaders as a first point of contact about a range of issues, including potential domestic abuse,” Mr Speakman said.
“That means the initial response from these leaders when a disclosure is made can heavily affect the outcome for victims,” he said.
“We hope that this training will make a significant difference to members of multicultural communities.”
Mr Speakman said women and children experienced many barriers in reporting violence in the home to police or other frontline services, and in some cases struggled to identify it in the first place.
“Educated with the right skills, information and ability to recognise abuse in different forms means this training will help reach many survivors for the first time,” he said.
He said the Government’s Diversity Services team would finalise selection of a Registered Training Organisation in the coming weeks, after which leaders would have the opportunity to sign up for training.
Mr Speakman said about 120 leaders were expected to receive training with all religions denominations and other community support organisations to be targeted.
