Wodonga welfare workers trained to look for signs of abuse
Gateway Health is educating its own people on how they all need to take responsibility over family violence.
That in-house program began in January with Gateway's board, the organisation's executive and its senior team.
Chief executive Leigh Rhode said this was a year-round responsibility for all of its 350 staff, not just its family violence workers.
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While the Wodonga agency has its own programs for dealing with men's behavioural change, as well as work focused on women, it realised its staff had to be given the tools to recognise family violence, to know how to respond and to know where to refer clients.
"You can kind of have a hunch that something's not right," Ms Rhode said.
"You can be afraid to ask, and how to ask it. And what if the answer is 'no, I don't feel safe to go home?'.
"So what do you do then as a health professional to support that person to be safe?"
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Gateway works closely with the Hume Community Legal Service, as well as the Centre Against Violence.
"You might not necessarily need to provide the therapeutic support but you know who can. That's critical for all of us."
Ms Rhode said just how Gateway responded as an employer was "so important".
"I recall a while ago in my career a staff member where I felt something wasn't right," she said.
Ms Rhode asked the question and the woman replied that she did not feel safe at home.
"And so I talked to our human resources department about what supports we could provide her with, then got in the car and went with her to pick-up stuff from her home and linked her in with family violence services," she said.
Another process Gateway had embarked on was "rainbow tick" accreditation.
Its public campaign on this focused on the fact that intimate partner violence also happened in gay, lesbian and other relationships.
"And typically," Ms Rhode said, "the incidence of family violence in those communities is just as high as in any other.
"But the reporting rates are lower."
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