Residents of the Cessnock local government area should keep an eye out for a plain white envelope in their mail boxes next week.
Greta woman Leanne Schubert is conducting possibly the largest domestic violence survey ever held in Cessnock, or any Australian community, as part of her PhD studies at The University of Newcastle.
Titled “Safe at Home: Using art to build community awareness of domestic violence in the Cessnock Local Government Area,” the idea for survey came about while Leanne was working as a social worker at Cessnock Community Health about 18 months ago.
Leanne was already studying for her PhD in Social Work at the time, and the survey has become part of her research project.
The survey is designed to help understand the community’s views on domestic violence, with an aim to build ways of improving the safety of women, men and children in their homes, in particular hoping to tackle the high rate of Apprehended Violence Orders (AVOs) in the local area through awareness building.
It is being conducted in partnership with the Cessnock Anti-Violence Network, whose members meet monthly at Cessnock Family Support Service.
Leanne has also had a lot of help from her family, as well as the Cessnock Hospital Pink Ladies and Koe-Nara Centre volunteers.
“It’s been a big community effort,” she said.
Cessnock Family Support Service coordinator Kate Woods Crowe said the survey was important because it will indicate how the wider community views domestic violence.
“We see people here all the time who are living with domestic violence; it will be good to hear what everyone else thinks,” Kate said.
“Quite often people don’t even realise they are being affected,” she added.
The survey is also part of a larger project that seeks to strengthen community awareness of domestic violence through using art.
Leanne said art is a common way to address domestic violence, however there has never been any significant research to determine whether this idea leads to real change.
“Art is a non-threatening way of raising awareness. As a community strategy, the use of the images can prompt people to think in new ways,” she said.
The art project will address the issues of domestic violence with the question “Are you safe at home?”, and Leanne said this could be portrayed through various methods, such as a sculpture at the park, a poster and coaster campaign, or printed on T-shirts or tea towels.
Members of the Cessnock community will be invited to take part in the arts-based projects and community meetings that will start toward the end of May.
Leanne is hoping to have identified some early trends from the survey’s findings that she will be able to present at these meetings.
A summary of the results will be written in plain English and made available through the local libraries.
As well as the art projects, Leanne is looking at doing a follow up survey in the next two years.
Leanne said she wanted to conduct her research project in the Cessnock local government area in order to give something back to her own local community.
“If two families change their lifestyle, then the project will be worthwhile,” Leanne said.
The surveys will be delivered to more than 18,000 households in the Cessnock local government area from April 7 to 11.
People aged 18 and over are asked to fill in the survey, which is anonymous and should take about 20 minutes to complete, and return it in the included reply paid envelope.
“Statisticians tell us that surveys like this only have a three per cent return, so we would love to see the people of Cessnock prove them wrong,” Leanne said.
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