LGBTIQA+ experiences of discrimination and marginalisation in the workforce are being taken seriously as important issues to study. However, the unique experiences of LGBTIQA+ facilitators of ‘mainstream’ men’s domestic violence behaviour change programs remains unexplored. Building on previous research on the experiences of trans scholars in criminology and criminal justice (Walker et al., 2021), this research will provide further insights into the various ways that being queer and/or trans impacts on facilitators working with men using violence, in what has been an historically heteronormative, binary field. Continuing the work of Evans and Hotten (2022), which evaluated supervision experiences of men’s behaviour change facilitators, this research will give voice to LGBTIQA+ practitioners in the DFV perpetrator intervention field, specifically highlighting key workforce challenges and solutions to create safer workplaces and further contribute to what Rainbow Health Australia articulate as a ‘gender transformative approach’ to the prevention of gendered violence. This research will also help to elucidate the ways that LGBTIQA+ facilitators’ navigation of the domestic and family violence service workforce mirrors the often heteronormative and cisnormative experiences of service provision in mainstream perpetrator interventions.
Such scholarship is necessary, in part, because facilitators of perpetrator intervention programs have been identified as vital stakeholders in the safety outcomes for adults and child victim-survivors (ANROWS, 2020), and it is a workforce that has long had difficulties in recruitment and retention. This research will highlight the strengths of LGBTIQA+ workers in interventions with men, as well as the barriers to develop recommendations to widen participation of LGBTIQA+ workers in the behaviour change program field.
Project team
