Translating the family violence reform: Y-Change partners with Family Violence Reform Implementation Monitor to create a child and youth summary

In 2020, Y-Change submitted ‘We are the ones you left behind’, our submission to the Family Violence Reform Implementation Monitor. Our key aims throughout this report were:

• to centre young people’s voices who experience systemic oppression and disadvantage, rather than speaking on behalf of them.
• position young people as primary victims of family violence, not secondary victims or ‘silent witnesses’.
• explicitly name the overarching ideologies that continue to influence our inability to meaningfully partner with children and young people.

The Family Violence Reform Implementation Monitor (FVRIM) was responsible for holding government and its agencies to account for implementing the family violence reform, following the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

From our submission, Y-Change was invited to present directly to the Monitor, Jan Shuard PSM, on barriers to care for children and young people experiencing family violence and our key recommendations for change. Following this, the Monitor referenced Y-Change’s submission five times throughout the final report and attended the formal briefing, which isn’t typically a space young people are invited into.

Throughout this process, Y-Change advocated for specific resources to be created for and with children and young people about the family violence reform. Building the ongoing relationship between young people, the Monitor and her team was key to this process. By building trust and slowing the process down, we were able to co-create FVRIM’s first accessible summary of the Monitor’s report for children and young people.

We are excited to share that the ‘Crisis Response to Recovery Model for Victim Survivors – Child and Youth friendly summary’ has been published.

It is critical to recognise children and young people as victim survivors in our own right, not as ‘secondary victims’ of family violence or ‘extensions’ of our mothers. Working in partnership with children and young people must be placed centrally to system reform. We hope that one day, our visions for change directly inform research, policy and practice reforms, and broader social change in a way that becomes everyday practice. That people understand that reform is not just something that happens ‘in the system’, it begins with each of us – our mindsets, approaches, and capacity to be challenged by young people with lived experience.

About Y-Change

Berry Street’s Y-Change initiative is a social and systemic change platform for young people aged 18 to 30 with lived experiences of socioeconomic and systemic disadvantage. As Lived Experience Consultants, the team works to challenge the thinking and practices of social systems through advocacy and leadership.

If you or someone you know needs help, there are a range of services you can contact 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.

• if you're in immediate danger, call Triple-0 (000)
• Safe Steps if you are experiencing or afraid of family violence: 1800 015 18
• Kids Helpline anytime, any reason: 1800 551 800
• you can also start an online chat with Kids Helpline if you don’t feel up to talking on the phone: https://kidshelpline.com.au/get-help/webchat-counselling.