Background

Only since the 1960s has the high incidence of domestic violence been seen as a problem. Since then domestic violence has been made public and addressed through provision of services for women wishing to leave domestic violence situations and more recently through services for men who choose to change their violent behaviour. Over the past twenty years in Australia, community attitudes which tolerate domestic violence have been challenged through various national, state and local campaigns. Community awareness of the issue has been raised so that now most members of the public are aware of the term “domestic violence” and can identify extreme physical abuse as the same. However, there is still a lack of understanding that social, emotional, financial and sexual forms of violence are part of the issue and many myths about causes, effects, incidence and demographics still abound.

In Australia there has been work to develop peer education with young people to combat the effects of violence. However, peer education regarding domestic violence in Australia has tended to target “at risk” groups and has taken a problem solving, intergenerational focus. Simultaneously in the USA programs have been created to empower all young people by taking a social change approach considering domestic violence as a violation of human rights.

In 1997 Fiona Buchanan (Noarlunga Health Services Social Worker) as a member of the Children and Domestic Violence Action Group South Australia, was invited to participate in an International Working Session in Boston, Massachusetts organised by the Women’s Rights Network. As part of the week long working session participants visited several Massachusetts anti-domestic violence initiatives. “Peace at Home” was one of the organisations visited and they had developed a peer education social change program to address domestic violence issues with young people.

With the help of a Noarlunga Health Services Dean Southgate Award, Fiona returned to Boston in 1998 and spent an extended time with “Peace at Home” meeting with workers, young people and participating in peer education training. The “Peace at Home” peer education project had been running for five years at that time and already had an extensive training program and well established system of peer educator led workshops in schools.

On return to Australia Fiona, convinced of the need for a similar approach to domestic violence prevention, began with the organisational support of Noarlunga Health Services to establish Keep Safe Stay Cool.

Beginnings

In 1998-99 a multi-agency advisory group worked on a pilot project for Keep Safe Stay Cool. The pilot program was a year long local initiative between Sexual Health Information Networking and Education South Australia (Shine SA) and Noarlunga Health Services. Following research which established the training needs for the program a training package for Peer Educators was designed and trialled with eight Peer Educators. Evaluation strategies were designed before Keep Safe Stay Cool began and allowed us to adapt and extend as we considered feedback from students, teachers and the Peer Educators. These evaluation strategies are ongoing as Keep Safe Stay Cool evolves and incorporates new ideas and suggestions.

Development

In 1999 we offered high schools in our catchment area single sessions of 100 minutes each. These sessions looked at gender roles, domestic violence and human rights. Feedback indicated that students wanted more information and more balance so we began to offer series of sessions and, after further peer educator training, we included sessions about healthy relationships based on reciprocal human rights. Now Keep Safe Stay Cool sessions balance healthy relationships with domestic violence information in class time and 2-5 sessions are held with each class. This enables the Peer Educators to build a relationship with the students and allows students to explore the issues more thoroughly.

Branching Out

As well as working within schools Keep Safe Stay Cool has developed work with youth groups, campaigns in the community and conference presentations. In schools we now provide teacher sessions prior to Keep Safe Stay Cool class education with a view to encouraging a whole of school approach.

Keep Safe Stay Cool has extended to become a regional program involving Noarlunga Health Service workers from across the region with established working relationships with schools and youth groups throughout the region. Interest in the work of Keep Safe Stay Cool from other areas of South Australia, other states and overseas has led to the development of this website so that others can pick up and run with Keep Safe Stay Cool in their areas.