Services

Start by going through our free Guidelines for a DVFREE Workplace Programme, which may help you identify gaps in your programme and understand how to fill those gaps. The Guidelines’ recommendations will help you meet, and go beyond, employers’ legal obligations under the Domestic Violence Victims’ Protection Act and other relevant laws.

Use our free online workplace learning module to raise awareness amongst your staff by providing the link on your intranet, and including it in your induction for new staff. This module was created by Shine in partnership with Westpac, and updated in 2019.

Promote our free national Helpline to your staff – as a source of support and information for people who experience domestic violence, as well as their support people. Order free Helpline posters, cards, and pamphlets here, as well as Safer Homes booklets for a small fee to cover printing. Read the Guidelines for information about some additional national specialist domestic violence related Helplines.

First Responders are the people in your workplace who can support employees experiencing domestic violence, and they can also support managers. This is a 6.5 hour long training, with required pre-learning, that helps First Responders to:

• understand domestic violence as entrapment
• recognise signs and respond safely and appropriately
• provide workplace support, safety planning, and refer to specialist community support and
• understand broadly how an employer can respond to employees who perpetrate domestic violence, and provide support to change

We recommend having this training delivered in person at your venue as it is more effective and engaging, but we can deliver it online if it is prohibitive to bring your First Responders together for training. Contact us now for fees and information or to book your training.

This is the same as our in-house First Responder training, which we regularly deliver in main city centres and online so that individuals can register to attend. If your organisation plans to train more than a few people, we strongly recommend in-house training so that the training can focus on the context of your particular organisation, and can help build a stronger team of First Responders who can provide good support for each other in a role that can be very emotionally challenging. Find out more or register now for one of these training sessions.

Managers play a key role in supporting a team member who experiences domestic violence and are most likely to see the signs and be able to ask some initial questions. DVFREE Tick partners may access the DVFREE Manager Online Learning Programme, as part of their Tick and Tick renewal fee, to provide training and/or refresher training for managers.

However, our best practice recommendation is to provide live training at least for initial manager training. Live training is 3 hours long (scheduled for 3.5 hours if delivered online),

DVFREE Training – both via the online learning programme or live training – helps Managers to:

• understand domestic violence as entrapment
• recognise signs and respond safely and with empathy
• provide workplace support, workplace safety & wellbeing planning, and support to connect with specialist community support, and
• understand broadly how an employer can provide accountability and support for employees who use harmful behaviour within a family/domestic relationship

While this training is most effective as an in-person learning experience, delivering it live via an online platform such as Zoom is a good next-best option.

However, because we understand how difficult it may be to bring managers together for a block of time, we make our manager online learning programme available to DVFREE Tick partners. While we acknowledge that training delivered this way is less effective, we know the other aspects of a Tick partner’s workplace programme help to ensure a safe and holistic approach. The online learning programme also references some features that are required for DVFREE Tick accredited organisations. 

Contact us for a more in-depth overview of DVFREE Manager training.

We generally only deliver Manager training for an organisation that has already trained First Responders. Read our Guidelines to understand why this is important.

This training is aimed at people who either:

• Deal with customers impacted by domestic violence in their day to day work, e.g. a providing a service for customers experiencing vulnerability, or
• Support and advise frontline staff on how to respond to customers experiencing domestic violence, such as a group of team leaders or internal ‘champions’.

This training is highly interactive, for a maximum of 20 people. We can deliver this as an online training in some circumstances, including when there are COVID restrictions in place. Talk to us about your situation and we will try to find a training solution to meet your needs.

Larger customer-facing organisations may find it helpful to provide this training for a relatively small group of champions from throughout the business, in parallel with providing less intensive training for all frontline staff alongside guidance in procedures.

You can obtain bespoke training to meet your organisation’s specific needs in caring for your at-risk customers.  This training is tailored to fit within your time constraints. The fee for this depends on the level of tailoring required to meet your requirements.

This module called ‘Change the Ending,’ was created by Shine in partnership with Westpac, and last updated in 2019. It usually takes less than 1 hour to complete and provides a good introduction to understanding domestic/family violence within a workplace context.

There are many ways to engage, inspire and educate staff about domestic violence.

• Read about stories and videos you can use to raise awareness.
• Participate in Shine’s Light it Orange campaign or a campaign run by another local or national specialist domestic violence organisation to raise funds and/or awareness.
• If your organisation is based in one location, find out who your local domestic violence service provider is, and ask about what you can do to support their work.