All people, families and communities are worthy of dignity, respect and safety.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which our work and services operate and pay our respects to Elders past and present. We acknowledge that the sovereignty of this land was never ceded. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. We extend this respect to all First Nations peoples across the country and the world.
We acknowledge and stand against the widespread racist and sexist attitudes that embolden perpetrators of violence and abuse to target Aboriginal women, children and communities. We acknowledge and remember all first nations people in Australia and across the world, who are disproportionality subjected to state oppression, racism, colonialism and interpersonal violence including extreme physical violence resulting in harm, injury, disability or death. We also acknowledge First Nations peoples ongoing responses and resistance to colonisation and racism. We acknowledge and remember missing and murdered First Nations women and children.
“All people have the right to live and grow in healthy and safe homes and communities, free from the threat of violence, abuse and discrimination.”
Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women’s Voices): Securing Our Rights, Securing Our Future Report, Australian Human Rights Commission 2020 p 131 Retrieved from: Australian Human Rights Commission: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/publications/.
Founding Collaborators
Launched in November 2017, Insight Exchange was designed by Domestic Violence Service Management (DVSM), in collaboration with Dr Linda Coates and Dr Allan Wade from Centre for Response-Based Practice Canada.
Employees (see bios below)
- Sal Dennis - Director
- Dr Leticia Funston - Participation and Ethics
- Danielle Allen - Ecosystem Leadership
Insight Exchange Associates (see bios below)
- Louise Whelan - Australia
- Dr Linda Coates - Canada
- Carrie Lumby - Australia
- Kimberly Chiswell - Australia
- Kaylene Edson - Australia
- Arely Carrion - Australia
- Dr Skye Charry - Australia
- Luke Addinsall - Australia
- Dr Tania Solorio - Mexico
- Andrea Salamanca - Mexico
Insight Exchange Mexico
Open the set of resources developed with Dr Tania Solorio & Andrea Salamanca hosted on the dedicated Español landing page.
The International Advisory Group exists to support the Mexico portfolio. The team includes:
- Dr Shelly Dean - Member of Centre for Response Based Practice (Canada) and Manager of Response-Based Practice Interior (Canada)
- Kel Forrest - Certificated in Response-Based Practice & Member of Response-Based Practice Aotearoa (RPBA) (New Zealand)
- Kimberly Chiswell - Certificated in Response-Based Practice, Supervisor and University Educator (Australia)
Associates (sessions)
Includes the people listed above and the following guest Associates.
- Rebecca Glenn | Founder of Centre for Women's Economic Safety (former Assistant Director of Insight Exchange)
- Corina Backhouse | NSW Health prevention and response to violence, abuse and neglect policy and programs
- Marisa Moliterno | Program Manager, Miranda Project and Pathways Home, Community Restorative Centre
- Kelly-Anne Stewart | Principal Advisor Women Offenders, Corrections Strategy & Executive Services (DCJ CSNSW)
Thanks
Insight Exchange would not be what it is today without the input of former Assistant Director Rebecca Glenn (founder of Centre for Women's Economic Safety) and the engagement, support and expertise of others who have contributed since it's inception. The work is enriched by all who generously participate to share their lived experience insights, as well as Associate colleagues, collaborators, in-kind supporters, individual contributors, and donors. The industry specialists and suppliers we work with also make meaningful contributions through their skilled expertise and in various forms of in-kind donation to take the work forward. Please see our thankyou list at the bottom of this page.
Meet the Insight Exchange Team
Sal Dennis
Director - Insight Exchange
Sal has worked in strategy and development roles in human services in London and Sydney. She has been advancing the depth and breadth of DVSM’s work including the design and establishment of Insight Exchange to inform social, service and systemic responses to domestic and family violence.
Insight Exchange has growing engagement within Australia and abroad supporting a range of sectors across the response continuum including corporates, community, health, government, specialist and statutory services. In 2020, the NSW State Coroners Domestic Violence Death Review Team Report 2017 – 2019 spoke to the value and importance of DVSM’s Insight Exchange work ‘in reframing safety planning as victim-centred and considers that this approach to safety planning should form part of all domestic violence training’. Sal is a member of the NSW Attorney Generals Domestic and Family Violence and Sexual Assault Council.
Sal is known for her strategic and purposeful approach to working with others, creating common ground amongst stakeholders with differing goals and motivations. Sal’s legacy is in developing the leadership of others and distilling clear ways to understand and make progress through complexity.
Sal is passionate about connecting people to people, people to ideas, and ideas to ideas.
Dr Leticia Funston
Participation and Ethics
Dr Leticia Funston (she/her) currently lives and works on the stolen and unceded lands of the Bidjigal peoples of Eora Nation.
Leticia is a qualified social worker and researcher who is committed to solidarity work with First Nations peoples, anti-racism, LGBTIQA+ rights, disability justice and centring the lived expertise of victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexualised violence and other intersecting forms of injustice.
Leticia is a qualified social worker (Bachelor of Social Work, Honours 1, Sydney University) and as a social researcher (Bachelor of Arts in Communications, Social Inquiry, University of Technology Sydney). Leticia completed her PhD degree under the supervision of Dr Lesley Laing and Dr Margot Rawsthorne with the Education and Social Work Faculty at Sydney University. Leticia’s thesis, In the Business of Trauma: An intersectional-materialist feminist analysis of ‘trauma informed’ women’s refuges and crisis accommodation services in Sydney and Vancouver (2019), considers the capacity for human services to provide care and to respond to gendered violence and housing injustice under the constraints imposed by settler-colonialism and neoliberalism.
Leticia’s work is informed by Response-Based Practice and leads the Insight Exchange interviewing experience, and published narratives of victim-survivors. Explore more about Be a Participant.
Danielle Allen
Ecosystem Leadership
Danielle lives on unceded Wiradjuri lands and has worked in a diverse range of health and education settings in metropolitan, regional and rural areas in NSW. She has extensive experience in counselling, group work, advocacy, training, project and community development roles in the domestic, family and sexual violence in the women’s and children’s’ health sector.
Danielle holds a Bachelor of Social Work (University of Sydney Hons 2), Graduate Diploma in Education (University of Sydney) and a Bachelor of Arts (Majors in Fine Arts and Psychology), (University of Sydney).
Danielle has previously been involved with service improvement projects with the Western NSW Local Health District Prevention and Response to Violence Abuse and Neglect Service. She has conducted research investigating best practice responses in the area of non-fatal strangulation. Danielle was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship - read the report here Churchill Fellowship project and report
From August 2022, as an Insight Exchange Associate, Danielle led the Insight Exchange work In Focus Strangulation.
From July 2023 Danielle's work will continue to build on responses to strangulation as well as support ecosystem responses across sectors and industries.
Louise Whelan
Collaborating Artist
In September 2020 we commenced collaboration with award winning artist Louise Whelan.
Louise is a visual artist with photo-media base. Her multidisciplinary approach spans photo-media, projection, video art, public, installation and curation. Much of her practice draws inspiration from environmental and humanitarian issues, and her interest in the aesthetics of memory.
Louise is widely published and exhibited. She photographs for the state libraries of NSW, WA and the National Library of Australia. Louise has more than 30 national and international awards to her name.
Louise complements her photographic works with the State Library of NSW in the oral history discipline. The UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Committee has collected some of her oral histories as a documentary heritage to the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register.
Explore Louise Whelan's original works in the Insight Exchange Arts Lab Collection
Explore Louise Whelan's Portfolio at https://australiansall.photoshelter.com/about
Louise is a collaborating artist with the Insight Exchange and an Associate working in the team - listening and responding to victim-survivors who are silent or silenced by violence and abuse.
Explore on Insight Exchange the Arts Lab and The Creative Book Exchange.
Dr Linda Coates
Language Lab & Language and evidence
Dr. Linda Coates is works in the department of Psychology at Okanagan College. She is a developer of Response-Based Practice and a co-founder of the Centre for Response-Based Practice. Her work emphasises critical analysis and application. She has published and presented on topics related to violence, social interaction, and language.
Linda is particularly interested in social responses to violence and applying Response-Based ideas in a wide variety of settings including therapy, medicine, policing, criminal law, family law, education, and the media.
Linda has conducted studies in various settings (e.g., criminal law, the media, family law) which demonstrate how language can be used to conceal violence, mitigate perpetrators' responsibility, blame victims, and conceal victim resistance. She has also shown how language can be used to do the opposite: to reveal violence, clarify responsibility, uncover victim resistance, and undercut victim blaming. She pioneered the use of the term "unilateral" to describe violent interactions, and "mutualizing" to describe how those unilateral violent actions are misrepresented as mutual.
Linda offers advising, training, supervision, document and policy analysis, and expert opinions and reports.
Linda has a particular interest in working in rural and farming communities.
Carrie Lumby
Mental Health and Suicide Prevention
Carrie is a lived experience advocate passionate about changing ways of working, rather than just what’s worked on, in mental health and suicide prevention systems improvement efforts. The focus of her approach has been to centre the insights and expertise of people with lived experience in large-scale reform initiatives, through the delivery of community-led projects. She has also contributed to the development of compassionate alternatives to conventional, 'risk management' service responses to experiences of suicidal distress and extreme psychological states.
Carrie’s work is grounded in her own experiences of involuntary treatment within the mental health system and the recovery she found through solidarity with peers in the mental health consumer movement. This social justice movement understands structural oppression and harm as the primary driver of mental ill-health and suicide, enabling ‘treatment resistance’ to be seen as a form of social and political resistance.
Her work is informed by an academic background in Philosophy and Art Theory, with a focus on critical feminist theories of embodiment. She has been an independent writer for almost 30 years, contributing cultural commentary and critique to a range of national publications. She’s also a qualified Social Worker and Peer Worker who has worked in hospital and community-based settings.
Carrie was the inaugural Director, Lived Experience with the National Mental Health Commission – the first senior designated Lived Experience position in the Australian Public Service.
Kimberly Chiswell
Interviewing and responses
Kimberly Chiswell identifies as an uninvited settler migrant of Anglo Mexican heritage with white and cis gender privilege. She completed her Social Work degree at the University of Sydney in 2000 and has over 20 years' experience practicing as a therapist, supervisor, and manager.
As part of her recognition of the harm that Social Workers have done to vulnerabilised communities, Kimberly has designed and delivered courses that promote critical thinking, advocacy, and social justice-oriented counselling skills. She teaches at the University of Wollongong, the University of New England and other institutions in Australia and Mexico.
Kimberly completed her certificate in Response Based Practice and is an Associate of the centre for Response Based Practice.
In a world where professionals often position themselves as the expert, Kimberly applies her skills in response based practice and narrative therapy to facilitate enquiries that reconnect people and communities with their abilities, values and possibilities.
Currently Kimberly offers counselling, clinical supervision, and training as a private consultant and is proud to be part of the Insight Exchange International Advisory Group. Kimberly is committed to collaborating with others to enhance social responses to interpersonal and state sanctioned violence.
Kaylene Edson
Workplace responses & Hospitality Consortium
Kaylene is an experienced Diversity & Inclusion and Health & Safety professional passionate about workplace and business responses to domestic, family and sexualised violence (DFSV). Kaylene’s Associate work has evolved from being an industry stakeholder, to donating in-kind hours to support the work, and in 2022 she commenced dedicated work focused on the intersection of workplace and employee assistance programs as responders.
Previously, as Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging consultant for CSIRO , Kaylene was able to take the Insight Exchange Workplace Kit (Insights Paper, Follow My Lead and My Safety Kit) to develop the organisations workplace response to domestic family violence and abuse. She has led the application of Insight Exchange ideas into the workplace, directly shaping what gets valued and who gets heard.
Kaylene has first-hand experience in the urgent yet careful work of establishing listening mechanisms, shaping language, policy, response processes and communication priorities that centre on and from peoples lived-expertise. She continues to work with CSIRO, provides skilled support to community-based initiatives, and works as regular and valued Associate in the Insight Exchange team.
Explore the Insight Exchange landing page Workplace Responses.
Arely Carrion
Clubs Industry Responses
Arely is known for her authenticity and passion to support employees, members, and community.
Arely has extensive business expertise within the Clubs industry, managing venues in senior operational roles at Harbord Diggers & Manly Bowling Club for the Mounties Group and at Hurstville & Menai for the Club Central Group. She has also worked alongside multiple venues across NSW as a Business Partnership Manager for Max Performance Solutions (Tabcorp).
Arely has been a champion of Insight Exchange since 2018, and in Nov 2021 she stepped out of employment in the clubs industry to take up a 12m Associates role designed to support communities who may not be connected to information and supports outside of their club workplace or membership. In this time Arely has met with hundreds of people working in the industry, from executives to part-time casuals, suppliers, sharing the urgent and vital work of improving understanding and responses to domestic, family and sexualised violence.
From Nov 2022 Arely is continuing in Insight Exchange Associate work 1 day a week and returning to employment within the clubs industry. Her Insight Exchange work will involve leading a network from the clubs’ industry to embed the ideas and resources and supporting the broader work of Insight Exchange to support responders across the ecosystem.
Explore the Insight Exchange landing page In focus - Clubs industry.
Dr Skye Charry
Understanding and responding to sexual harassment
Associate Professor Charry has practiced, researched, advocated and consulted on issues of workplace sex discrimination for more than 15 years. Her pioneering work 'Whispers from the Bush- The Workplace Sexual Harassment of Australian Rural Women’' (2015) situated the complexities of sexual harassment in rural workplaces on the national agenda. The Victorian Women's Trust recently produced a short documentary film called 'Grace Under Fire' based on Skye's research. Skye has thrice been invited as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women with the YWCA Australia and was also recently awarded the Chancellor’s Distinguished Young Alumni Award (University of Canberra). Skye consults widely for government and industry on sex discrimination matters in industry including meat, forestry and agriculture. Skye is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University College of Law and is the Deputy Chair of the ACT Ministerial Advisory Council for Women. Former Chief of Army, Lt Gen David Morrison observed: ‘Through her work, Skye Saunders has opened a lens on an aspect of our Australian community that has received too little attention up until now. Indeed, this is an area that clearly needs further attention and funding.’
Together with Insight Exchange colleagues and stakeholders the role will serve to build on a shared understanding of and insight-informed responses to sexual harassment (SH). The role will be informed by, draw from, and evolve the existing good work in place in an effort to uplift responses to sexual harassment. Read more about the work Skye has undertaken in the following: Grace Under Fire | Whispers from the Bush - Workplace Sexual Harassment of Australian Rural Women | Academic Profile | skyesaunders.com.au
Explore the Insight Exchange landing page In Focus - Sexual Harassment.
Luke Addinsall
Understanding and responding to sexual harassment
Luke is a Qualified and accredited Mental Health Social Worker and Counsellor with extensive experience in working with men who use violence. He has worked for over 20 years in the social sector across Government departments, specialist services, private practice, and as a consultant and individual and group supervisor.
Luke’s practice has primarily involved working with men in counselling and in men's group programs. He's recently completed his term as co-chair of the NSW Men's Behaviour Change Network. He has also engaged as a Specialist Consultant, as a member of No to Violence' NSW Expert Panel for Men's Behaviour Change and member of the DVNSW Policy and Advisory Committee as a specialist in working with men who use violence. Luke has also contributed to training the sector, at TAFE's, with NSW Education Centre Against Violence (ECAV) and various other consultancy roles for registered training organisations (RTO's).
Luke's brings an eclectic approach and understanding to the work from the various therapeutic modalities he's been trained in, including: Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Psycho-somatic psychotherapy.
Prior to starting with Insight Exchange Luke was the manager of the Men & Family Centre. An organisation that specialises in collaborative, respectful whole-of-family responses to domestic and family violence.
Explore the Insight Exchange landing page In Focus - Sexual Harassment.
Dr Tania Aguirre Solorio
Understanding and responding to DFSV - (Mexico / Spanish readers)
Tania has 13 years of experience working with individuals and couples. At the core of Tania´s practice is the acknowledgment of people’s preexisting abilities for safety and dignity. She focuses on bringing forward people’s everyday responses to dilemmas and oppression which upholds dignity, responses, and safety. Her work is very influenced by antiracist and anticolonial theories and practices.
Her area of concentration includes working for individuals who have experienced violence in any form. She also works with couples and the diverse challenges they experience at different moments in their relationship; particularly, she is very interested to be part of conversations around sexuality that challenge normative and colonial ideas exploring instead the actual interactions that create the experience of sex in people´s lives. Her work contrasts academic notions that fail to explore and understand personal, relational, and contextual meanings and practices of sex and sexuality.
Tania wholeheartedly believes that every person, institution, group, community and so on, are social responders and that their responses are crucial for the ongoing creation of social and personal safety and dignity.
Her academic research centers on the exploration of resistance, sexuality, and bodily experiences as intentional ethical responses for safety and dignity. She is the founder of ECOS: Prácticas-Basadas-en-la-Respuesta which seeks to bring Response-Based-Practice ideas to the Mexican and Latin American contexts. She has a private practice in México where she was born and raised, and where she currently lives. Tania has a Master’s Degree in Family Therapy, is Certified in Response Based Practice, and has a Doctoral Degree in Women and Gender Studies.
Explore the Insight Exchange dedicated Español landing page.
Andrea Salamanca
Understanding and responding to DFSV - (Mexico / Spanish readers)
Andrea is a content producer and single mama to J, based in the Mexico City suburbs.
Andrea holds a BA in Film & TV from CENTRO (Mexico City) and has experience producing Films and Advertising: Film, Photo, and Radio, from Agency to Fieldwork. She has worked with major fashion brands like El Palacio de Hierro and major studios like Lemon Films, also documentaries with the Women’s Gender Studies Program at National University about women in prison and Article 19 about journalists’ lives being threatened during President Calderon’s “fight against drugs” in Mexico.
Waldorf mama to J, Andrea is radically committed to guaranteeing safety for her across every area she comes to contact with and centering care and dignity in their lives. Together they have been resisting sexualized violence for 8 years and continue to resist the ongoing legal and social violence from the aftermath of speaking up in an attempt to stop it.
This past year Andrea has been coursing ECOS’ Diploma Course on working with people from a feminist anti-colonial perspective that brings to Latin context RBP ideas, which has been crucial to giving meaning to what they have been through which will continue to be the world and circumstance J grows up in.
Explore the Insight Exchange dedicated Español landing page.
Associates - Reflections
Reflections from the bi-monthly Associate initiative are shared in ‘Who benefits from keeping us apart?’ A collection of reflections from Insight Exchange Associates FY20/21.
In 2022 we continue to meet bi-monthly to exchange insights across diverse disciplines of work. The group includes the Insight Exchange Team, Associates, Supporters and Collaborators:
Other forms of donation and/or in-kind support
Insight Exchange would not be what it is today without the engagement, support and expertise of others. The work is enriched by all who participate, as well as Associate colleagues, collaborators, in-kind supporters, individual contributors, and donors. The industry specialists and suppliers we work with also make meaningful contributions through their skilled expertise and in various forms of donation to the work. The Insight Exchange team would like to thank:
Probono:
- Supplier Barcodes Limited for donation of static QR Codes for Insight Exchange resources
- Probono support with Voice Over (Spanish) Juan and Johnathan
- The team at L,E.K. Consulting for the generous pro bono support (2021) 30+ consultants to review 150+ websites and the development of short guides featured in the No Hidden Door project resources & (2022) 30+ consultants supporting industry mapping for engagement strategies
- Support with copy Rachael Cann
- The team at Salt and Fuessel for their generous initiative to reach out to us and provide dedicated assistance (as a form of donation) in digital SEO support.
Discounted supplies/services:
- Illustrator and Animator Guy Downes (and team) for extending the rights in perpetuity (as a form of donation) for work developed in the Insight Exchange animations and illustrations.
- Producer Reilly Baker and Audio Engineer Mitchell Slade for donated rights in perpetuity for Insight Exchange productions
- The team at RMK for reducing their commercial rates (as a form of donation) to assist in producing the voice overs for the Insight Exchange animations.