FUTURES FRAMEWORK
The Futures Framework is designed to support institutions, organisations, services, businesses and community groups in developing a strategic and holistic response to domestic, family and sexualised violence. The Futures Framework can be used to scope, guide and plan short and long term commitments to build on safety, uphold dignity and experiences of justice.
The Futures Framework (updated Sept 2024) is set out below in its parts - not as a single document. We invite you to explore the content starting at any part and exploring in any sequence.
OUR FUTURES
Who benefits? Who decides?
Violence and abuse costs us all. Lives are lost. Homicide. Femicide. Filicide. Suicide. Indignity, injury, suffering, grief, and loss extends within families, across communities and throughout our country. Poverty endures. Children's hopes and futures are sabotaged.
So, who benefits from the status quo? and who decides to keep things the same? We can all stand against violence and abuse from wherever we are in society.
View, share, embed ‘Who Benefits? Who Decides?’ (4mins)
Seeing Possibilities
What we understand about domestic, family and sexualised violence informs how we respond; it influences how we design products, services and systems. It influences how we communicate about those products, services and systems.
Seeing possibilities: Imagine the difference it would make for victims-survivors if all workplaces, businesses, family, friends and specialist and statutory services were informed and ready to respond?
View, share, embed ‘Seeing Possibilities’ (6mins)
Working with content
There is no neutral standpoint from which to theorise the ‘problem’ of violence or to educate others about it. Our decisions about what content is prioritised or removed, and how content is communicated and experienced, can shape how people respond to violence and abuse.
Working with distressing content is a reflection resource for people who decide what and how content about violence and abuse is shared. Working with distressing content invites you to reflect on and consider the way you work with content that may be viewed as ‘distressing’ because it relates to domestic, family and sexualised violence.
OUR RESPONSES
We all anticipate and rely on the responses of others.
No person is an island. Every person is part of community – dependent on others, friends to many and family to someone. If we only understand and value our responses to domestic, family and sexualised violence through our profession/work, what moments have we missed and misunderstood in our own communities?
Responders Lab
We invite you to build on your understanding and responses through the Responders Lab - a free (donated) interactive opportunity with peers. It is designed to support you in exploring and building on your understanding of domestic, family and sexualised violence, and how this influences what you might notice, think or do in your responses.
The Responders Lab is for anyone - friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, community peers, institutions, organisations, services, businesses and community groups.
We invite you to view and share the invitation to the Responders Lab (80sec) where we will share 'Our Interactions', 'Our Responses', 'My ecosystem' and 'Follow My Meaning'.
OUR INTERACTIONS
Our interactions always matter, and our dignity is always central.
OUR RESPONSES
We cannot guess or assume when responding to violence and abuse.
MY ECOSYSTEM
Respond with me in the centre of my ecosystem.
FOLLOW MY MEANING
Follow me in what my world means to me.
OUR ACTIONS
Our Actions - How we uplift responses matters.
Many victim-survivors are silent about or silenced by violence and abuse, yet they are right alongside us in our daily living. Their suffering may be unnoticed, yet they are noticing. Noticing us. In their strategic silence, they are attuned to what and who will build on or undermine their safety and dignity… and what this means next. People perpetrating violence also notice our actions and inactions.
In so many ways, victim-survivors have shared what needs to be different. When we listen to victim-survivor’s reasons to fear, to what they are having to do and not do, what they are having to give up and go without for safety and dignity, our actions can be more informed.
We invite you to explore how our actions can make a difference….
OUR ECOSYSTEM
Institutions, organisations, services, businesses and community groups do not respond in a vacuum. Individually and collectively our understanding of and responses to violence and abuse matter. We depend on the understanding, responses and actions of each other to be able to build on individual and community safety and wellbeing.
Workplace Responses
[Employees, Contractors, Volunteers]
The response of the workplace is important to victims of domestic, family and sexualised violence for many possible reasons including their sense of self, social connections and safety. Importantly, having an income supports economic safety, keepings more options on the table for victims considering their future. 'Between 55 and 70 per cent of people experiencing domestic and family violence are in the paid workforce'. [UN Women, 2017, ‘Taking the first step: Workplace responses to domestic and family violence'.]
We invite institutions, organisations, services, and businesses to understand the importance of workplace responses to build on safety, uphold dignity and experiences of justice.
Examples of insights and materials to explore:
Guide: Uplifting workplace responses (3rd Edition). Workplaces, are well placed to provide timely and significant support to victims-survivors of domestic, family and sexualised violence. We encourage organisations to develop their understanding and readiness to respond in ways that uphold dignity and build on safety. This guide invites you to build on being a workplace that has insight-informed design and responses to people experiencing domestic, family and sexualised violence. The Guide features My Support Options and the Workplace Intranet Content Guide . It is informed by the Insights Paper: Experiences and perceptions of workplace responses to domestic and family violence.
The Workplace Scenarios Kit is designed to provide practical support to organisations as they assess their existing and potential responses to experiences of domestic and family violence.
Customer and Client Responses
[Consumers, Guests, Patients, Collaborators]
The prevalence and urgency of domestic, family and sexualised violence is such that no institution, organisation, service, business or community groups can assume it is outside the picture and problem of violence and abuse. Many organisations offer products and services that can be manipulated or weaponised by perpetrators for their own benefit and/or to the detriment of their partner/former partner or family member. Organisations can decide to do things differently.
We invite institutions, organisations, services, businesses and community groups to understand the importance of customer and client responses to build on safety, uphold dignity and experiences of justice.
Examples of insights and materials to explore:
Explore the Industry Labs.
Support My Economic Safety A guide for organisations thinking about how to address economic abuse. Insight Exchange and Centre for Women’s Economic Safety collaborated to develop a resource for responding organisations focused on economic safety.
No Hidden Door - Every sector is a possible door to information and support for victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexualised violence. The initiative which highlights the importance of auditing the ‘doors’ to information that are currently available to victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexualised violence.
Ecosystem Responses
[Community, Suppliers, Shareholders, Systems]
Organisations have significant influence not just with their employees and customers but also their sector, their suppliers, shareholders, stakeholders and local communities where they operate.
Organisations can choose the standards they require of their suppliers, who they do business with, and how they support local communities. They can choose which stakeholders they engage with and what issues they make a priority.
We invite organisations and institutions to understand the importance of ecosystem responses to build on safety, uphold dignity and experiences of justice.
Examples of ideas and initiatives to explore:
Creating Conversations an Insight Exchange event series designed to bring people together with the understanding that domestic, family and sexualised violence is a ‘shared social issue’.
Arts Lab – explores ways to engage with lived experience insights about violence and abuse beyond relying on the written word - featuring original works (visual arts).
Language Lab - view the masterclass on language and violence. This explores the use of language in representing violence and abuse, and how language can be used to more accurately represent violence and other adversities.
Explore the listening led leadership in the work of the listening leaders.
Archive: The (outgoing) Futures Framework with accompanying Leadership Roadmap and Support Menu are now superseded by the latest edition of the Futures Framework presented above on this landing page.