Whittlesea council is lobbying the state government for more than $1 million a year to tackle soaring rates of family violence in Melbourne’s north.
The council and the Whittleasea Family Violence Taskforce is seeking $1.1 million a year to run more preventive education programs tailored for men of migrant backgrounds.
The move was sparked by figures revealing the municipality has the highest rate of repeat family violence in its Victoria Police division.
Whittlesea mayor Mary Lalios said that in the past the city had been excluded from men’s behaviour-change programs due to language restrictions. In Whittlesea, more than 40 per cent of residents speak a language other than English at home, compared with the Melbourne average of 29 per cent.
Plenty Valley Community Health is running a men’s behaviour-change group for residents of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
Cr Lalios said investment in programs for migrant men was critical to ensure equitable access for all men and families living in Melbourne’s north.
There has been a 249 per cent increase in reported incidences of family violence in the municipality since 1999. According to Berry Street Victoria’s Northern Family and Domestic Violence Service, which supports women in Hume and Whittlesea, family violence referrals soared from 2089 in the 2009-10 financial year to 5010 in 2012-13.
Chief executive of InTouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence, Dr Manjula O’Connor, has been outspoken about family violence in Victoria’s Indian community and the need for culturally specific programs.
“We have created an approach that was Indian-culture specific, but that isn’t necessarily going to work for the Turkish community, for example,” she said.
