So my name is Shaan Ross-Smith and I'm the director of the MATE Bystander
program at Griffith University. COVID-19 took everyone by surprise and what we
have found is that some organisations have some great policy that really
supports this and others don't so the first thing I'd suggest is making sure
that your policy is is really robust as an organisation. A lot of times people
say how what do we look out for, and then what do we discuss, and I say talk to
your entire team about domestic violence. So focusing in on a webinar
forum or a little bit like this within your team. So from working with victims
and survivors for such a long time they will say that knowing
that your employer genuinely cares they're not doing it to tick a box,
they're not doing it because it's good governance, they're doing it because they
genuinely care is really important. Share this with your friends and family, share
this with the people in your sphere because that's getting the word out
there to victims, to potential victims and/or perpetrators that you know you're
taking this seriously, you know what supports are available and
the message is clear but it's not so one-on-one. I know a lot of people have
said that what happens if you do think someone's experiencing it and it's
during COVID and again I would say it's very difficult to ask one-on-one
question because the perpetrator could be in that same room. If the team
leader or the supervisor of a manager or someone sends out an email with all of
that domestic violence information they can also say quite discreetly in that
email because don't forget emails can also be monitored, but they can also say
if at any point in time you're experiencing this and you want my help
you know, put your hand like that, put your hand like this, put your hands like
that, during a webinar and that tells me what support you need from me. Also in my
team I check in with everyone about stuff other things in their lives so
oftentimes domestic violence question isn't are you experiencing domestic
violence oftentimes it's what are you finding really challenging about being
at home, how are you finding renegotiating tasks in your home
and who are the support people in your life that you get to see at the
moment, who are the people that you can't see that you would really love to see
right now. Those are really invaluable DV questions because they're going tell you
things like whether that person feels isolated and whether they've got support
and help around them or whether they don't. Whether they have access to money
or they don't. Those are really good questions to ask. Where you can tell
someone or reassure someone that their employment is safe, please do that.
We need to make sure that the people where their workplace is their safest place
that they can still work from there or from elsewhere and you don't need to
know the reasons why if someone comes to you and says look I really need to go to
work I really need to work from the workplace, we shouldn't be asking them
why we should recognise that those people may not want to tell you why but
that may be the only safe place for them. It's never your role as a bystander to
do everything for everyone, it's your it's your role to recognise what's going
on, to respond accordingly by doing everything we've just described and then
referring those people to expert services. So even as much as I work in
this space I'll still never consider myself an expert and I would never do a
risk assessment on anyone, I will always leave that to experts. I'll always
talk to people about referring to an expert agency. Domestic violence is a
hundred percent preventable. 100 percent preventable. It takes all of us speaking up
and like I always say, our messages should be of help and support to a
victim or survivor and that message of
accountability to perpetrators. So if you have anyone in your team that you also
feel is perpetrating violence or maybe perpetrating violence referring them
again having the same conversations with them is everything okay for you, how are
you getting through your day, what's most challenging for you, are incredibly
important conversations that we all need to be having.