Clearinghouse for information on family violence
The Family Violence Clearinghouse, the national centre for collating and disseminating information relating to family violence in New Zealand, is now up and running.
The clearinghouse, established with funding from the Ministry of Social Development in March this year, is based at Te Awatea Violence Research Centre in Canterbury University’s Department of Social Work. It is the outcome of a $1 million contract won by Te Awatea and the university’s Information Technology Services (ITS) team, in consortium with Child Abuse Prevention Services (NZ), the National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges and Te Kupenga Whakaoti Mahi Patunga/The National Network Stopping Violence Services.
The consortium of organisations developing the clearinghouse combines academic interests and tertiary training with the knowledge and experience of government and non-government organisations.
The clearinghouse resources and the research component of the project are being developed by a team led by the Director of Te Awatea, Dr Kate van Heugten. Other members are Project Manager and Chief Researcher, Nick Fahey; Database Development Officer, Kylie Douglass; and Communications Officer, Rachel Halvaksz, all based at Te Awatea; and Outreach Coordinator and Researcher, Sheryl Hann, based at Women’s Refuge National Office in Wellington.
Nick said the initiative emerged from the Government’s Te Rito New Zealand Family Violence Prevention Strategy, which highlights the need for a centralised means of collating and disseminating family violence prevention and intervention research and evaluation. “Access to quality information is critical in ensuring that family violence prevention strategies and initiatives are effective and achieve the greatest success,” he said.
A website is being developed to provide electronic resources on family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand. A searchable database will provide access to family violence research and other resources from a variety of sources, including research and studies undertaken by government and non-governmental organisations and academic institutions. A best practice intervention and prevention database will provide resources for people working to eliminate violence within families, as well as highlighting training and research funding opportunities.
The clearinghouse will also produce a series of fact sheets designed to raise public awareness and understanding of the dynamics of all areas of family violence in New Zealand and how it can be prevented. There will also be a regular newsletter and occasional issues papers. All publications will be available online and in hard copy.
“One of our key aims is assessing the breadth and depth of New Zealand family violence research and identifying key research gaps that need to be addressed. This will be a major research component of our activity over the next year and it will involve a research mapping exercise and a gap analysis exercise,” Nick said.
The website infrastructure is being developed by the university’s ITS team. “Over the next few months the content of the website will grow rapidly so that by the end of the year it is expected to abound with resources.”
For more information, contact administrator@nzfvc.org.nz
