2.2.2 Rose Durey
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2.2.2 AWHN Conference 6 2010 Chancellor 1: Engaging and working with the corporate sector to prevent violence against women
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2.2.2 Rose Durey
- 1. Engaging and working with the corporate sector to prevent violence against women Rose Durey Senior Policy Officer WOMEN’S HEALTH VICTORIA
- 2. Overview • Using workplaces as a setting for violence prevention work • NGO and corporate sector collaborations • Stand Up: Domestic Violence is Everyone’s Business • Challenges • What has helped • Where we’re at now
- 3. Using workplaces as a setting • Site for addressing the determinants of violence • Can access a wide range of people • Part of a growing trend towards using workplaces as a health promotion setting • Included in A Right to Respect: Victoria’s Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women 2010-2020 and Time for Action
- 4. Partnerships – NGOs & corporates • New way of working • Corporate social responsibility • Negotiating perceptions, expectations and knowledge
- 6. About primary prevention - the prevention of violence before it occurs Key determinants of violence against women: • Unequal power relations between women and men • Adherence to rigid gender stereotypes • Broader cultures of violence
- 7. Elements of Stand Up • LEAD Organisational policy and leadership commitment • TRAIN Giving staff the skills to stand up against domestic violence • PROMOTE Awareness raising activities and resources
- 8. Challenges • Ensuring high level buy-in from senior staff • Regional variation in support for the project • Learning about how corporates work and what they expect • Embedding a whole of company approach • New, innovative project so learning as we go
- 9. What helps – doing your research • Theory and good practice • Understand corporate priorities • Connections – who you know on the inside • Align the project with organisational values • Align the project with core business
- 11. What helps – building relationships • Allaying fears • Listening to concerns, responding to them and building trust • Having a positive message and building a simple, easy to understand package • Understanding what corporates expect
- 12. What helps – practical aspects • Endorsement at executive level • Flexibility of NGO around business peak times • Champions within the organisation • Whole of company approach
- 13. Where we’re at • Pilot project – comes to an end mid 2011 • Evaluation • Transferable tool • VicHealth resource It is a good idea that Linfox is doing this. There are people that know people that do it and they might learn something from this and as a friend can say something. I’ve said to a friend, “why are you talking to your wife like that?”
Editor's Notes
- What I am going to talk about today is the Working Together Against Violence project. This is a 3 year VicHealth funded project in which Women’s Health Victoria has partnered with Linfox to deliver a program aimed at the primary prevention of violence against women. We are currently about half way through the project and we are our funding roughly equates to one full time employee. Funded under VicHealth’s Respect, Responsibility and Equality Program
- I am going to give you an overview of the use of workplaces as a setting for the prevention of violence …. see slide I then want to talk to you about what we have learnt from working with a male-dominated business about how to engage and work effectively with the corporate sector.
- Why are we using workplaces as a setting for violence prevention? It is a site where we can: Promote equal and respectful relations between men and women Promote non-violent social norms Promote access to resources and support All of this can be achieved in the workplace. Workplaces also target people who would not otherwise come into contact with health promotion initiatives. We are also seeing a growing trend towards using workplaces as a health promotion setting, including a setting for violence prevention work. Programs addressing family violence through workplaces have been run in the United States, the United Kingdom (using unions), Australia (CEO Challenge) and New Zealand. Workplaces have also been identified as a key setting for the strategies and actions set out in A Right to Respect: Victoria’s Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women 2010-2020 and Time for Action – the National Council’s Plan to Prevent Violence and forthcoming federal government response.
- So what does this lead to? It leads to partnerships and collaborations between NGOs and companies. Linfox is the largest privately owned supply chain solutions company in the Asia Pacific region, with over 15,000 employees. It’s core business is the warehousing, transport and freight of a range of goods across Australia and the Asia Pacific. In contrast, Women’s Health Victoria is a statewide women’s health promotion, information and advocacy service that employs about 20 women. We are coming from two very different places. Partnerships between NGOs and the corporate sector are a new way of working, particularly in relation to the prevention of violence against women. They come under corporate social responsibility – that is, the increasing awareness that business has a role to play in ensuring not only the health and wellbeing of their employees, but also the wider community. It is about trying to strike a balance between this, and a company’s core business and demand for profitability. Because of this, expectations and understandings may differ. With our project, our knowledge of violence against women might conflict with Linfox’s knowledge of how business works. Our assumptions about the corporate world run up against Linfox’s assumptions about ‘women’s charities’ and violence against women. The success of the program often comes down to negotiating these different perceptions and insights effectively. And this takes time – building these relationships and establishing a working relationship and common ground is vital to the project and needs time to develop. That leads us to the program that we have developed with Linfox.
- This is the program – Stand Up: Domestic Violence is Everyone’s Business. It is part of the VicHealth-funded Working Together Against Violence project, and is based on our learnings to date with Linfox. It will also form the basis of a transferable tool for use in other companies at the end of the project. It is based on the notion that the health and safety of employees at home affects their health and safety at work. The project uses a bystander approach to violence prevention that encourages individuals to speak up when they hear or see violence supportive attitudes or behaviours – attitudes and behaviours that trivialise violence against women, blame the victim, deny that some things are violence – ignore, excuse or tolerate violence. This program gives employees the skills to stand up. It helps to create a safe, respectful and supportive work environment. The project is an example of the primary prevention of violence against women.
- The primary prevention of violence against women is the prevention of violence before it occurs. It is about intervening before violence has happened and addressing the causes of violence. Key causes or determinants of violence against women: unequal power relations between women and men adherence to rigid gender stereotypes broader cultures of violence (VicHealth’s Preventing Violence Before it Occurs, 2007) So, a primary prevention program in workplaces targeting violence against women addresses and is anchored by these determinants.
- These are the three elements of Stand Up – lead, train, promote. It takes a whole of company approach. We have run training in eight different worksites to over 450 staff – both women and men, but mainly men. A workplace policy that aims to prevent domestic violence and support staff who are experiencing domestic violence will be launched. Petra, my colleague, will be talking about this in the next session. Stand Up also reinforces the prevention message in a range of other ways throughout Linfox and it has received positive feedback from employees and managers alike. The project has also received an award as part of the Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Awards for 2009. But it has been a long process with challenges that we did not anticipate.
- We have learnt a lot about working with the corporate sector and these challenges and learnings have shaped the Stand Up program. Ensuring high level buy-in from senior staff Regional variation in support for the project – as Linfox is a large company with different worksites and hierarchies Learning about how corporates work and what they expect – it helped to think of ourselves as a corporate consultancy firm and invest in what comes with that – such as branding the program, glossy materials and resources etc. Embedding a whole of company approach – it needs to be about more than just the training, but training is often an easy thing to sign up to or to tick the box New, innovative project so learning as we go
- Theory and good practice - baseline Understand corporate priorities – things like profits; risk and reputation management; employee satisfaction; competitiveness Connections – who you know on the inside – WHV’s Executive Director had good contact with Bill Kelty, who sits on the Linfox Board – that was our ‘in’. Align the project with organisational values Linfox values – integrity, teamwork, individual accountability, mutual support and respect, trust and openness, courage, fairness, uncompromising standards Align to core business– where the project complements and enhances current organisational strategy. At Linfox – tying into safety and OHS systems already in place.
- Linfox’s safety strategy – ‘Vision Zero’ – is very firmly embedded in the company so using this as a common ground and a way of establishing a shared language has been vital.
- Acknowledgement and awareness of the different values and ways of working between NGOs and corporates, and the fact that building relationships takes time. Allaying fears eg, a fear of the project being interpreted as a response to internal violence issues or targeting men. Listening to concerns, responding to them and building trust, that included being careful about the information we shared about the project with others, including the media, in the first year because of those fears. The training program was also initially entitled ‘harm in the home’, because Linfox preferred more indirect language around violence. However with time, we have changed that as Linfox have become more comfortable and understanding of the project, and also following staff feedback around the language. Having a positive message and building a simple, easy to understand package – particularly with Stand Up Understanding what corporates expect
- Our learnings are not necessarily specific to the prevention of violence against women – they are about NGOs working with corporate organisations towards a prevention or health promotion goal.
- We are a little over halfway through the project, so we are still trialling and evaluating what we have learnt. We have run training sessions and awareness raising, have been building relationships within Linfox and are currently working on embedding the workplace policy, with a view to launching it in time for White Ribbon Day on 25 November 2010. The project will be comprehensively evaluated, and a transferable tool produced at the end, together with a VicHealth report on our learnings (our project is one of 5 primary prevention projects in different settings). We have received positive staff feedback to date (see slide). It has been an interesting and exciting journey for all of us – at Women’s Health Victoria, Linfox, and VicHealth and we look forward to sharing more about what we have learnt next year, and answering any questions you might have at the end of the session.