Bendigo Health ED nurse Rebecca Fawcett (left) discussing family violence training in public hospitals with Minister for Prevention of Family Violence Gabrielle Williams and Member for Bendigo West Maree Edwards.
Bendigo Health will be able to expand its training of staff on how to engage with and support patients suffering family violence thanks to funding from the state government.
Minister for Prevention of Family Violence Gabrielle Williams announced around $8 million in funding at the Strengthening Hospital Responses to Family Violence (SHRFV) forum in Bendigo on Monday.
The SHRFV program was developed in response to one of the 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.
More than 28,000 healthcare workers in Victoria, and around 800 at Bendigo Health, have been trained under the program thus far.
Minister Williams said health professionals had a lot of responsibility to support patients
“We know most people in their lifetime will intersect with our health services and we know that for many women and children a hospital will be the first and in some instances the only point of contact for our service system,” she said.
“It’s a rare and valuable opportunity to make sure we’re recognising and identifying when someone is experiencing or at risk of experiencing family violence to provide them the support they need.”
Bendigo Health Emergency Department nurse and clinical champion for SHRFV training Rebecca Fawcett said the training had been of great benefit to staff at the hospital.
“We know from the statistics that it is often even up to the seventh and eight presentation before they disclose to us that family violence is a health issue for them,” she said.
“Until we did the training and learnt how to recognise the risk factors and how to respond to them we would have missed a lot of cases which highlights the importance of the training.”
Around 85 per cent of Bendigo Health ED and women’s health services staff have gone through the training, as have 90 per cent of employees on the children’s ward.
The forum's guest speakers included University of Western Ontario Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children research scholar, Professor Nadine Wathen; Royal Women's Hospital and University of Melbourne joint family violence chair and Melbourne Research Alliance to End Violence against Women co-chair, Professor Kelsey Hegarty; and Australian Counselling Association Panel for Trauma Standards and Practice chair, Dr. Traill Dowie.