2025–27
Our clear commitment to creating a community free from family violence, where everyone is safe, is reflected in our 2025-27 Strategic Plan. This commitment starts with those most at risk including women, children and young people, older people, First Nations people, LGBTIQA+ communities, people with disability, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and migrant and refugee communities. We strive to create culturally safe, inclusive and accessible programs and services.
Family violence remains a real and pressing issue across Victoria and all of Australia. It has wide ranging impacts on a person’s education, employment, financial security, social and emotional well-being; significant social, economic and financial impacts on families and communities; 1 and tragically, women continue to die at the hands of violent men at alarming rates.
This new plan builds on our transformational journey and achievements over the past 3 years to progress our 10-year organisational Theory of Change, working with others in the family violence and community services systems, governments, business and our local community to drive the change that’s needed to end family violence and achieve our vision.
1 Per the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
To be a leader in specialist intersectional family violence prevention, early intervention, response and recovery.
In the next strategy period, we will strengthen our efforts to create positive change across the continuum of family violence; focus on diverse cohorts, including children and young people; and work with others to strengthen the Victorian community’s capacity to prevent, recognise and respond to family violence.
We hold lived experience of family violence and marginalisation as central in continually enhancing our work to meet the needs of the people and the communities we work with.
We value the unique wisdom of every individual and embrace the collaborative and collective change that comes through seeking the views, experiences and opinions of others.
We see all our experiences as an opportunity for learning and continuous improvement, and we challenge ourselves to seek out new and different ways of doing things.
We cultivate a spirit of understanding and empathy, recognising and acknowledging other’s perspectives and achievements.
Founded on feminist ideals, we have an unwavering commitment to intersectional feminism. We support victim survivors of diverse abilities, ages, genders, bodies, sexualities, relationships, faiths, and cultures.
We will strengthen the quality, reach and impact of our work through leveraging our specialist knowledge, lived experience expertise, other insights and by collaborating with local and diverse communities, the family violence and related community services sectors such as housing, education and mental health, and all levels of government.
We will be flexible and adaptive, partnering with diverse stakeholders to develop and trial innovative approaches across the continuum to shape a more comprehensive approach to addressing family violence.
As a thriving learning organisation with a passion for evidence 2, we will improve our use of information and data from a wide range of internal and external sources including victim survivors, the sector and government to drive systemic change, improve experiences, and increase the outcomes and the impact of our work.
2 this includes, data, academic research, evaluations, practice wisdom and lived experience expertise.
We understand the challenges to achieving our vision in a constrained fiscal environment. As an evolving contemporary organisation, we are steadfastly focused on sustainable and effective business and service models. We will leverage external opportunities and improve organisational systems and processes that strengthen our position and effectiveness as a leading specialist family violence organisation in Victoria.
We deeply believe that all work is people work. We will actively partner and collaborate with our people, victim survivors, diverse communities, allies and those with different views and perspectives to end family violence.
Our organisational values are the foundational beliefs and principles that underpin our work and direct how we work with others.
We understand that family violence and the abuse of power is multi-dimensional and that the impact of family violence is compounded by intersecting forms of oppression and inequality including gender, ethnicity, age and sexual orientation. These intersections result in overlapping forms of discrimination, more severe forms of violence and barriers to accessing support.
We recognise the gender drivers of violence against women 3 and that women and children are disproportionately affected by family partner violence, which is why we prioritise them in the work that we do.
We are courageous in our pursuit of preventing family violence, leading and influencing change within the family violence and community services sectors and the broader community that is focused on delivering positive outcomes for victim survivors. We do not shy away from challenging the status quo and doing things differently.
We do the right things in the right way. We act with integrity, are transparent in our conduct and hold ourselves to account for delivering high quality services and programs that have a positive and lasting impact on individuals, the community and service systems.
We maximise the collective impact of our work through respectful, genuine and meaningful collaboration, strong partnerships and effective integration both internally and externally.
3 Change the Story Framework, Our Watch