Module 3: Domestic and Family Violence

So before we begin, we would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we are meeting.

I am meeting on the lands of the Quandamooka people. And I am coming to you from Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. We would like to pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge their connection to land, sea, and community. So before we get started today, we’d just like to share that some of the content within the training today may be distressing, so please look after yourself.

Take a break if you need to. 1800 RESPECT is a nationwide counseling service that is open 24/7, so please reach out to them if you need to. The number is 1800 737 732. I will share as well that we will be using a case study within the module today that does go into detail around an experience of violence.

This will also be used in the workbook today, so please consider whether, that feels safe for you. and of course, look after yourself and may do what’s best for yourself today. So as always, we have our training workbook that you can use today. We will prompt you and let you know when it is time to turn to your workbook.

we encourage you to pause the video and respond within your workbook. So what will we talk about today in module three? So we’ll be defining domestic and family violence. So what is it? what are the relationships that are within the legislation? How is domestic and family violence experienced? But importantly, how is it experienced by people who have a disability?

We’ll be looking at the rates of domestic and family violence for people who have a disability in Australia, and we’ll put it all together at the end in our takeaway slide. And just a quick note on language. you will hear us using person-first language and identity-first language today. at this point in time, there is no single right answer, and you may have been taught that one way or the other is right or wrong.

but even within the disability community, people have individual preferences in terms of how they like to, describe themselves, whether someone says, “I have autism,” or, “I am autistic,” that kind of thing. “I have a disability,” versus, “I am disabled.” We unpack this more in module one, so hopefully you’ve heard this already.

but do pop back there if you want a bit more information about it. and of course, when you are working with your various clients, it is great to respect the language that they prefer to talk about themselves. As we’ve said, we’re looking at domestic and family violence to, in this module. and we’ve got a quote here, from, oh, who’s it from?

Yeah, so this one was actually from… This was, one, I joined, I put a few different ones in this one. So this was from people who have lived experience of disability, but also from workers from the DFV sector. Cool. so we’ve got our quote here, “Seek support, listen to your gut, speak with a supervisor if something feels wrong, and if you’re unsure how to approach it, speak to a specialist domestic family and sexual violence service.”

So yeah, I guess the message here is to trust what the person is saying, trust what you’re feeling, but know that this is not your responsibility to deal with and manage all on your own. There are resources within your organization and outside of your organization there to support you in this process.

what is domestic and family violence? this definition comes out of the ACT, as well as the Department of Education in Queensland and basically we can define domestic and family violence as occurring when one person in an intimate family or family-like relationship uses violence or abuse to maintain power and control over another person.

domestic and family violence is a pattern that continues over a period of time and it can escalate in severity, in frequency, and all of these kinds of things, and we’ll unpack that, a bit more as well. and as you had heard in the previous module, we know that domestic and family violence can affect anyone regardless of their age or their background or, their disability status or, ethnicity, sexuality, all of these different things.

it can happen to anyone. but as we also know from the previous module, it is much more likely to occur that women are the targets of domestic and family violence and even more likely again for women who have a disability. so in that definition that we had on the last slide there, we talked about family, domestic and family relationships and family-like relationships.

to unpack that a little bit more, the kind of relationships we are talking about could be things like a partner, a spouse, a boyfriend or girlfriend, as well as ex-partners. it could be parents, children, aunties or uncles, cousins, grandparents, and it can also mean a family-like relationship. So where, this is where the relationship between a person with a disability and their carer is like the kind of relationship between literal family members.

and this is not to say that you are necessarily in a family-like relationship with your client simply because you are their carer, one of their, support workers, carers. and in fact, that’s, not the kind of relationship because there are those clear boundaries there. but yes, it can involve someone who’s not technically part of the family structure.

So we would be thinking more about carers in the sense of informal carers, so unpaid carers, And it’s unlikely that a paid carer would be covered under the legislation, but, as we say, it is possible for, individual situations to have different circumstances. yes, if you are concerned about the relationship that you have with a client, then yes, talking to your supervisor or whatever to clarify your role and your responsibilities and what’s not your responsibility.

and this family-like relationship is also there to, make space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kinship systems, which do, operate much more broadly than just, my family is my mom and my dad and me and my brother in this house. It is much more, interconnected throughout the community, and people have, family-type obligations to each other within those, kinship systems.

so yes, so this definition acknowledges that for First Nations people, family is much more than just the nuclear family of two parents and two kids or whatever it’s meant to be. So we’d like to do a little bit of a quiz with you before we start looking at some of the rates of violence and the statistics.

So women with a disability are what percentage more likely to experience domestic and family violence than women without a disability? So is it 15%, 30%, 40%, or 25%? Just give you a moment to consider what you think the correct answer is.

40%. so I think when I think about these types of statistics that I see around how many, or what percentage of, I’m always really aware that the statistics that we’re looking at don’t actually reflect the vast numbers of people that are experiencing violence that don’t report that violence and don’t disclose violence to anyone.

so I would say that actually the statistic is a lot higher than that. as discussed in one of the earlier modules, I was looking at a, some research earlier today that was suggesting that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, 90% of their experiences of violence go unreported. We know that there are a lot of barriers for people who have a disability about being believed, about understanding their rights, about having someone that they can speak to about an experience of violence.

So I think that the statistics are a lot higher than what we’ll be sharing in the training today. However, 40% is still a very high number- Yeah … and something for us to be concerned about. If 40% is, a conservative estimate, then yeah. Yes. The, it’s pretty scary stuff. So we know that women with a disability are twice as likely to experience domestic and family violence than those without a disability, and women with an intellectual disability experience are three times more likely to experience domestic and family violence than women with a physical disability.

We know that women with intellectual disability who have more complex needs or require more support also experience higher levels of violence. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women who have a disability are 1.5 times more likely to experience family violence than those who don’t have a disability.

If we’re looking at the LGBTQIA+ community, 1.7 times more likely to experience violence than those without a disability. And if you joined us for module one, Tess shared some really concerning statistics. I think one of them was that 85% of non-binary people have had an experience of domestic and family violence in their life.

We know that trans women, trans men also, experience particularly high experiences of violence, and we also know that people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are 1.4 times more likely to experience domestic and family violence than those without a disability. So again, if we’re looking at considering what we’ve already learnt in module one when we talked about intersectionality, we know that people who have a disability who belong to another marginalized community, so have intersecting identities, experience compounding forms of discrimination, are more likely to experience violence.

So if you’re interested to learn more around why these rates are so high, please go back and have a listen to, module two where we unpack that a little bit more. So we’re going to share a video with you. So this video was put together by WorkUP Queensland a few years ago. and we’ve chosen to use this in our video is this was also developed for support workers.

and with their permission, we have chosen to use it to help you consider and have a reflect on the different types of violence women with disabilities experience. So three women with different forms of disability share their experiences with you. So as you’re listening, consider, what we know about domestic and family violence and how the violence might be different for women who have a disability

Domestic and family violence is any behavior that seeks to control or manipulate another person. But I guess when we talk about this in the disability context, it has different forms that are really important to, to, note and, to recognize. Look, the physical things are usually obvious, even though we might try to hide them.

Maybe a support worker comes in doing the personal care, and they’re noticing bruises that are unexplained. But it goes way beyond that. The physical violence is so easy to identify. People are on that pretty quick. It’s the psychological abuse. It’s the financial abuse, the emotional abuse, the coercion, the controlling.

And that might be different things, depending on the disability that might be present. So for example, for a woman with a physical disability, like me, for example, it might involve someone, a partner, an intimate partner, not putting their wheelchair on the charger. Or it might involve that partner disconnecting their wheelchair batteries.

There are so many things that can happen that people just don’t identify very easily. Say, for, a blind or vision-impaired person, someone mistreating their, guide dog. for someone who’s deaf, it might involve taking away their hearing aids. I think if you get teased at school or teased out in the world, or teased just in general all the time, they think it’s normal.

And they, just think, “Oh, I’m experiencing it again, but what am I gonna do?” And for a person with an intellectual disability, it might be more that emotional- Emotional forms of violence, calling them stupid, telling them that they’ll never, be able to survive without them, those sort of things.

So it’s particularly playing on particular vulnerabilities around the disability and highlighting them to assert power and control. Things like financial control. When the person can’t tell you how much money they have on hand in their bank account, or they don’t even have access to their own bank account.

they have all of their money budgeted for them, so there’s no spending money, or they’ve got a… You find they’re asking permission or are afraid to spend even the littlest amount of money, even to buy a cup of coffee. Or it might even involve the partner cutting off their phone so they don’t, can’t talk to anyone in the outside world, and they’re very vulnerable.

There are then often more subtle things that happen. you might identify that a person suddenly seems overmedicated or, sedated, excessively, that doesn’t fit within what their normal medication routine should be. Or if they’re having, repetitive visits to the ER for things that doctors just cannot explain, like hypoglycemic attacks when they don’t have a diabetic problem.

And it could even come from, the perpetrator telling stories about, “Oh, she’s not eating.” And the actual story might be that person’s not providing food, But they, build a story around it. If you’re someone who’s important in the life of a person with a disability, then if you’re noticing something is wrong, you need to do something.

You need to act. Yeah, if there’s something going wrong and you can see it and you know it’s happening, you should stand up and say, “Hey, this is not right.” And whether that be talking to the person directly or talking to an agency that may be able to provide support, you need to do something. ‘Cause the longer it’s left, the more dangerous it becomes.

And the longer that they’re left under the control of that person, the harder it is for them to get out.

So I’ll just pause that video here. So as we can see and how it was described by the three women within the video, domestic and family violence, as experienced by people with a, disability can look very different because of that person’s disability. It may mean that their disability is weaponized, so used against them, so the perpetrator can assert power and control over that person.

So Tessa’s gonna share a little bit more information around the different types of, domestic and family violence as experienced by women who have a disability

Thanks, Jane. Okay, so there are lots of different ways that domestic and family violence can look, for disabled people. starting off with physical abuse. obviously when we speak generally, people might think of, physical violence done against another person. but as we’ve talked about with intersectionality, we’ve got these extra layers, as that video was saying.

these extra- the sort of compounding disadvantage, these extra points that, bad people can exploit basically. and so if we’re looking at disability-specific things, it can also be things like neglect, not supporting the person with personal care, for example, leaving the person, unchanged or unshowered or whatever it is for, long periods of time.

it can be things like withholding specific equipment that the person needs, because of their disability. things like not, providing food or water to adequate levels. withholding medication, that can be, a big one and a tricky one. It can also be, as they mentioned in the video, this sort of giving the person medicine that they don’t require that is going to change their alertness or whatever, those kinds of things.

misusing restraints, and again, restraints is not just, physically tying someone down somewhere. It’s also things like locking someone in a room, seclusion, those kinds of things. all the different types of restraint that you are probably aware of in terms of restrictive practice.

heating a bath too hot, causing burns and that kind of thing, and then the, literal physical violence of hitting and so Financial abuse was mentioned in the video and, again, anyone can be subjected to financial abuse, but some of the additional ways that it can show up for disabled people is using the person’s disability as a reason.

“Oh, she just, she doesn’t understand. I look after the money because she just, she doesn’t, get it.” But remember, we’re always assuming competence, and we’re always assuming capacity. And we are always favoring supported decision-making over substitute decision-making. in fact, for the majority of people, there are few scenarios in which they shouldn’t have any say or input over their own finances.

so it can be someone controlling the disabled person’s finances, but it can also be, getting them to pay for things, to use their money, on things that the other person wants. And, the person might frame it as, “We help each other,” and, “I help you by, I don’t know, doing personal care and whatever, making your breakfast, lunch, dinner.

You help me by buying me this thing I need.” I am disabled, but I also work with, disabled people, and, I’ve had, worked with clients with intellectual disability who, just didn’t pick up on it at all. They didn’t realize that anything was wrong. “Oh, we just, she said that I needed to, she needed me to order this thing online, so I ordered it, and I, she told me to put money in this account, so I did it.”

And not really understanding what that means, and just thinking that- Yeah … I’m, just being a helpful person. Yeah. yeah. I th- I think at WWILD as well, we see, so WWILD, we only work with people who have an intellectual disability who’ve experienced violence, and some of the violence that women are sharing is, somebody saying that, “This is what, a relationship looks like.”

“This is what you do in a relationship. This is how,” as Tess suggested, “This is how we help each other. your boyfriend, you should give me the money.” And for people who are often very isolated and would like to, for relationships to continue, that means that often they are giving away their money and other things to have that relationship continue.

So again, it’s that, the perpetrator taking advantage or exploiting, something about that person to assert that control. And I think that also picks up on something important, is that, ultimately, the person is taking advantage of the fact that the disabled person probably needs them in some way.

needs help to manage daily life. with phrases like, “If you love me, you’ll do this,” or- Yes … “Clearly you don’t love me, so I’m gonna leave.” And they go, “Oh, no, no, I’ll do it. Don’t go.” And then the perpetrator gets what they want that way. So it’s manipulating the fact that we can need additional support compared to non-disabled people.

Yes … but yes. okay, so spiritual, religious, or cultural abuse. So this is things like stopping the person from accessing the community or from participating in their, religion, expressing, themselves in, that way. Okay, we also have coercive control, and this is something that you are probably hearing a lot more about in the last few years.

and it has taken a really long time for, the law to catch up with all of this. but coercive control is a really significant part of, a lot of domestic and family violence situation. And again, it’s about that manipulation, that power and control stuff. So again, taking away supports, isolating the person from, friends and family, controlling what they’re allowed to do, what they’re allowed to say, where they’re allowed to go, how they’re allowed to dress, all of these different kinds of things.

Making threats, stalking is a big one, and gaslighting, which is convincing someone that reality is different to what it is. I was thinking about an example around what gaslighting can look like, again, for women who have an intellectual disability. So some women with an, intellectual disability, not all, but some have, difficulty with memory and sequencing.

so somebody using this, again, exploiting this, saying, “Oh no, that never happened. That’s just you. That’s just you you remember? Your memory. You can’t remember things correctly. That’s your fault. This is the way it actually happened.” Yeah. And for somebody who knows that they may have difficulty with memory, and perhaps sees this person as someone who has more power than them, is more likely to believe that, and that can be incredibly distressing, particularly if that gaslighting is around an experience of violence.

“Oh, no, that, I never did that. That’s your memory.” so that’s just one example of how gaslighting can be used. There’s lots of different ways. It can be very subtle, and for people who are living in these types of relationships, particularly for a really long time, this can be really hard to make sense of, and it will be, it becomes, a part of their life that, that this person makes the decision, this person tells me when I’ve got it wrong, because I just have the disability and they’re here and they will help me.

So again, if we’re thinking about the video one of the survivors shared, that for relationships to go on for a really long time can be really difficult for the person to pull away from that person and find safety. It becomes such an ingrained part of their day-to-day life. And it can also be like gaslighting in the sense of, “Oh, I never said that,” or, “No, I didn’t hit you.

Though just- Yeah … don’t you remember?” It can also be- Yes … gaslighting the person to believe that they, the person with disability, didn’t say or do something- Yes … as well. “Oh, no, you said you wanted me to blah blah blah. Remember we agreed- Yes … last week?” Yes. Yeah … convincing the person that they said or thought something that they didn’t actually.

Yes. and we’ve mentioned people with intellectual disability a few times, and yes, absolutely memory can be an issue, sequencing can be an issue. But do think about other types of disabilities as well that can also be impacted by memory issues in particular. Even people with ADHD can have a lot of issues with memory, with recall, with did that happen? Did I do that? What- Yeah … a lot of time. age is a factor. Yeah, chronic illness. Stress. Yeah, chronic illness, psychosocial disability. Yeah. Lots of people are impacted in terms of their memory. Yeah. and then we’ve got technology-based abuse, and of course this is, again, a newer development in our ever more connected society. and again, the law is working hard to catch up with the reality of the situation.

ever more connected society. and again, the law is, working hard to catch up with the reality of the situation. but technology-based abuse can be things like posting images online or sharing them with people that the individual doesn’t want shared. it can be using, social media and online communication to abuse or threaten someone that way.

It can also be, using technology to monitor the individual as well. And I’d add one more in there, which would be, and it, links into some of the other categories as well. But for people who use AAC, alternative and augmentative communication, so things like a Prolo that, like an iPad with buttons that they press to communicate or that kind of thing.

not, like taking that person’s, communication device away, that is also, really clear abuse because, if a person can’t communicate, then they are being controlled and manipulated in, a huge way. Unfortunately, we are not finished. There are still more types of domestic and family violence.

there is of course sexual abuse, so unwanted sexual touching, demands for sexual activity in return for assistance, and again, you can see how someone who has, high support needs, has an increased vulnerability to this kind of abuse because they need other people in their life to help them with the basic things of showering, of dressing, of toileting, all of those kinds of things.

They make themselves hugely vulnerable every day, doing that. And yes, unfortunately, it is a point where they can be exploited. Sexual abuse can also include, so we’ve got here demands for sexual activity in return for assistance. like you need to do this for me because I do this for you type thing.

But there’s also just the sort of constant pressuring, for, to participate in sexual activity that the person may not want to. Yes. and of course, people with disability and chronic illness, there’s a whole heap of reasons that they may not be interested in, doing sexual things, even with their, their official partner. and so yes, someone constantly pressuring someone to do, to be part of sexual activity is also. Reproductive abuse is a particularly significant issue in the disability community. and one that at a, and, it has a systemic, basis. It’s not just on an individual level.

So traditionally, not traditionally, historically, unfortunately a lot of women, or people with, female reproductive systems were often, sterilized either against their will or with just no input into the matter at all, is absolutely abuse. And I think there’s a lot more happening to educate disabled people about their rights to, to have children if they want to have children, or whatever it might be.

So yes, so forced sterilization, limiting access to contraception or emergency contraception. Limiting the understanding of options. So what are my options if I don’t wanna get pregnant? What are my options if I got pregnant, but I wasn’t planning to get pregnant? just keeping people uninformed, uneducated, and ignorant of their own rights and, options that, that they have any other human being in, in, in the- And lastly, we’ve got psychological abuse, and this is, as they were saying in the video, can be a lot harder to identify as a support worker coming in.

it can, maybe that the person who’s doing it is at work during the day when you’re there, or, they’re on their best behavior when you’re there. but at the same time, sometimes it does happen in front of you and, that’s important to pick up on, too. But it’s things like verbally abusing someone or denying or trivializing the person’s disability.

“Oh, it’s not that bad.” “Shut up about it. it’s, you’re always whingeing about that.” threatening to hurt, pets or family members, Sharing the wrong information on purpose, providing inaccurate explanation of, something or omitting a particular aspect of what they’re sharing, in order to, protect themselves as the, perpetrator and that kind of thing.

So we know that there are particular types of violence that we call high-risk indicators. So what this means is that if somebody’s experiencing these different types of violence within a relationship, it means that they’re at a higher risk of death from, a domestic and family violence. So some of these things are separation.

So we know that if someone has left an abusive relationship or is planning to separate from the person using violence, this is incredibly, this can be incredibly, unsafe time and can mean that the violence can actually start to escalate because the person is losing control. Pregnancy, again, a loss of control can mean that violence escalates.

We know that breaching a family violence order, so in the ACT someone can access a family violence order if they’ve experienced family violence. So what this means for those who, who don’t know, it means that the magistrate makes an order that says the person that using violence is no longer able to use that violence, but also cannot come near that person and maybe other people within that person’s life that they can’t come near as well.

A breach of that order is when the person does anyway. and so we know that breaching of orders means that, again, this is a high-risk indicator. Harming or threatening to harm pets, threats to kill the person or harm their children. Strangulation, so placing their, hands around that person’s neck and squeezing.

I will say that if somebody does talk to you about strangulation, it’s incredibly important that person is seen by a GP or is seen by hospital at ED, as we know that there can be long-term and sometimes fatal, things that can happen after strangulation, so that’s something that we really need to be clear about.

The violence getting worse, listen to the person. if they are telling you that things are getting worse, they can feel it, the person is always the best indicator around assessments around violence. Tess, I feel like I may have cut you off there. Yeah, I just wanted to, jump back in on the strangulation- dot point there. so- Yeah, so victims of non-lethal strangulation, so basically if anyone has been strangled in the last 12 months, they are twice as likely to be killed than someone who has not been strangled. And that is once, if it’s happened once, they are twice as likely to end up being killed by that person than someone who hasn’t.

so, that’s really important to know and, I work in relationship and sexuality education, and the other important thing to know about strangulation is that there is no safe way to strangle someone. in, in a sexual context, this is something that people might engage in, but there is no safe way to do it.

every single time someone does it, that it is, there is a, big risk that it’s going to cause damage. So it might be important to, to share the risks with the person who might say things like, “Oh, but I’m okay now. It’s fine. It’s over.” Yeah. but talking to them about how there can be long-term impacts and just, going to get that checked just to be sure.

so coercive control, so monitoring someone’s whereabouts, isolating them from their friends and family, sexual violence. Again, the person’s thoughts about the risk- Access to weapons and threats to use weapons and a history of DFV. So if you’re working with someone and they have a new boyfriend or a new girlfriend or someone in their life who’s talking and they’re telling you that they, this person has had experience of hurting other people, experiences of, having family violence orders, that’s also another high-risk indicator.

So I think what to do with these, really importantly, if you are hearing about these from people you are supporting or is this something that you’ve witnessed, this is something we, we really need to talk to that person about, that we are really concerned about this and be explaining why. you can reach out to the specialist domestic family violence and share what, you’re experiencing and ask for some support.

That can be done de-identified if the person themselves isn’t ready to reach out for that support. but we know that this type of behavior really needs to be monitored. there are information sharing guidelines in the ACT where different systems do talk to each other to, keep people safe. So I think from a support worker’s point of view, at the least having a discussion with that person around your concerns and having a discussion with the domestic family violence service as well.

And I just had one more thought, sorry. Yeah, of course. the third last one there, person’s thoughts about the risk. It’s so important to believe the individual. we know that women are often not believed or are dismissed or the person they’re telling minimizes it and say, “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” whatever.

If the person is saying to you, “I feel like this is getting worse, the violence or the abuse is getting worse,” that, that’s on this high-risk list. So really- if someone says, “I think it’s getting worse,” that is really important to listen to, to believe, to act on People with a disability experience violence by people who aren’t named in the Domestic and Family Violence Act, so aren’t covered by a family or an intimate relationship.

So that could be their neighbor, their co-tenant, their guardian, their worker, or people in the community. although it isn’t recognized as domestic and family violence within the legislation, the type of violence experience and the control within these different relationships can sometimes look very much like domestic and family violence, so still needs a response, that, a response that is, assess- assessing the risk, is taking things seriously, and is acting appropriately and not minimizing those experiences because it doesn’t fit within the legislation.

we know that in the ACT there is legislation that says that if somebody knows that somebody, a vulnerable person, it’s, they’re named in the legislation. If somebody knows that person is being harmed by somebody who is supposed to be supporting them or caring for them and does not report it, they can be prosecuted in the ACT.

so we need to be acting on information that we he- that we’re learning about to keep people safe. Okay. So we’re going to look at a case study now. this case study is in your workbook. but I will also read it for you if that works better for your brain. and then we’re going to, then you’re going to answer some questions in your workbook.

We don’t have one giant communal workbook. so let’s have a look at this case study. So we’re talking about Shahida. Now, Shahida is a 34-year-old Syrian refugee who escaped to Australia eight years ago. Shahida lives with her Australian husband, John. John’s 53 years old, and they have a four-year-old son, Mark.

Shahida was very active in her local community and had made friendships with other refugees from Syria and other countries, and she is fluent in three languages. However, she only has a basic understanding of English. Shahida was involved in a serious car accident eight months ago and is now paralyzed from the waist down.

Shahida uses a wheelchair for mobility and relies on her husband for personal care activities. John, her husband, refuses to take Shahida to her usual community events where she can be with people from her country. He doesn’t take her to her place of worship, and he’ll yell at her to be quiet if she prays too loudly.

He often refuses to take her to her medical appointments and when he does, he will often withhold information from her when she has trouble understanding her medical team. You, as the support worker, have noticed that she’s missing several appointments. She tells you in broken English that she has not been out anywhere since she was discharged from hospital.

that is our scenario there, and we’ve got three questions for you to answer in your workbook. and that, those are: what intersecting identities does Shahida have? The second one, what types of domestic and family violence is Shahida experiencing? And lastly, what are some of the things you would need to consider when supporting Shahida?

we will get you to pause the video here, answer your three questions, and then we will see you back here. welcome back, everybody. Thank you for completing those questions. the key takeaways today, if you are working with somebody who has a disability, it is likely you’re working with someone who has or is experiencing violence.

We read out the statistics earlier. People with a disability experience overwhelming rates of violence within our community, so it’s very likely that the person you are supporting has or is experiencing violence. We know from our intersectionality slide and module that people who have a disability who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, culturally and linguistically diverse, or from the LGBTQIA+ community experience particularly high rates of violence.

And so domestic and family violence occurs when one person tries to control another by using violence which causes fear and intimidation. People with a disability may experience domestic and family violence differently than those who do not have, without a disability, and all experiences of violence need to be taken seriously and responded to appropriately.

So we’d like to thank you for joining us on the module today, and we hope to see you in module four where we will looking, be looking closely at sexual violence

So we’d like to thank you for joining us on the module today, and we hope to see you in module four where we will be looking closely at sexual violence