About Us

 

The Safer Families Centre sits within the Sexual Abuse and Family ViolencE (SAFE) team in the Department of General Practice at The University of Melbourne. We are an international collaboration of researchers, victim survivors, practitioners, and health and community services. Our Centre generates evidence to build and evaluate innovative, practical tools and training programs needed by health practitioners, victim survivors and those who use violence to promote safety, wellbeing and healing of families.

Our Centre’s work stems from our long history at The University of Melbourne in working with health practitioners and victim-survivors, including the formation in 2016 of our current lived experience survivor group (WEAVERs). Also foundational to our existence are our affiliations with the Melbourne Research Alliance to End Violence Against Women and their Children (MAEVe) and the Centre for Family Violence Prevention at the Royal Women’s Hospital. 

In 2017 The University of Melbourne partnered with Murdoch Childrens’ Research Institute, La Trobe University and South Australia Health and Medical Research Institute to establish an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence. In 2020, the Centre partnered with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Blue Knot Foundation and Phoenix Australia to develop, deliver and lead a national domestic and family violence training arm for primary care: The Readiness Program.

 Our broader research within the SAFE team uses mixed methods and spans multiple disciplines to understand the dynamics of all types of domestic, family and sexual violence; the links between violence and health; and to develop and test interventions for screening, early identification and responses for women, children, young people and men, including the use of technologies.

 
 

Our Team

 

Professor of Family Violence

Associate Professor

Project Manager

Project Officer

Centre Manager

 
 

Research Fellow

Research Fellow

Research Fellow

Research Fellow

Research Fellow

 
 

GP and lecturer

GP and Researcher

Early Career Researcher

Specialist Women’s Counsellor

GP, educator and PhD student

 
 

Project Officer

WEAVER and a Midwife

Mentor

Communications and Aboriginal Research Support Officer

 
 
 
 

Our Values and Principles

Safety: Our team works to embrace diversity, inclusiveness and cultural safety. Our core value is putting women and children’s safety first. As a team, we are mindful of creating and providing a safe space to speak.

Respect: By valuing everyone’s contribution and perspective, we communicate with and acknowledge each other with respect.

Inclusiveness: Underpinning our knowledge exchange and decision-making is listening, sharing and gathering a broad range of perspectives from a diversity of personal and experiential backgrounds. Through this exchange, we aim to foster a sense of belonging and connectedness.

Transparency: Speaking respectfully and truthfully, and being open to different perspectives, we ensure our communication and decision-making is transparent.

Reciprocity & Equity: Everyone has a right to be heard and a responsibility to listen. Valuing everyone’s contribution and respecting different disciplines and backgrounds equally are our underpinning principles.

Collaboration: Our Centre has taken on a collective responsibility to achieve our goals. We are sensitive to ensuring involvement and resolving disengagement, ensuring we work in a team where everyone’s voice is always deemed valuable.

Empathy: We aspire to hold everyone’s perspective with generosity, fostering a sensitivity to hearing and seeing the unspoken. We acknowledge individual stories and listen without judgement.

Excellence: We strive for scientific quality and integrity.