From the Margins to the Mainstream by Jacqui Theobald Suellen Murray Judith Smart

Author:Jacqui Theobald, Suellen Murray, Judith Smart [Jacqui Theobald, Suellen Murray, Judith Smart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Education & Teaching, Educational Theory, Aims & Objectives, Teaching, Teaching Methods
ISBN: 9781475808940
Publisher: R&L Education
Published: 2014-02-27T05:00:00+00:00

Partnering with the state

In 2002 DHS allocated funding for a VWRADVS policy coordinator, but it came with strings attached. Although couched in terms of the government’s ‘commitment to working collaboratively’,77 funding came with conditions intended to alter VWRADVS methods of operating and negotiating.78 DHS funded VWRADVS in order to foster broader critical ‘debate about practice’ and ‘a diversity of approaches’.79 By extension, DHS saw reform of VWRADVS as a means to increase services’ accountability, a goal most domestic violence service providers now supported. They still, however, demanded that the government recognise its own lack of responsibility and accountability in failing to fund the services adequately.80 Over time, funding to DVVic has continued, but, as policy and program manager Alison Macdonald notes, since this first period of funding, the peak had endured ‘periods of great vulnerability and great insecurity’.81

The adoption of hierarchical decision-making processes was mirrored in an endeavour to bridge the ‘historical differences between refuge, outreach and statewide services’.82 With this aim, VWRADVS voted to adopt the title of Domestic Violence Victoria (DVVic) at its annual general meeting in 2003. This change was also driven by the government’s desire for just one formal body.83 It was in part therefore an attempt to generate efficiency and establish formal relationships.84 DVVic’s founding coordinator, Janine Bush, identifies merit in ‘having a feminist organisational structure that’s got some hierarchy but that’s ethical, transparent and with clear processes and acknowledging the power and where it lies and making that power accountable’.85 Current CEO of DVVic Fiona McCormack also perceived the change as positive: ‘I would much rather have a formal relationship with bureaucrats because it’s acknowledging that we have very different roles … and that your responsibility is to keep government accountable and that it’s not personal.’86

These transitions were contentious, member services being largely suspicious of DVVic’s engagement with the state and less than willing to compromise on their tactics and principles. DVVic also incurred criticism by some members for being unwilling to adopt militant protest tactics during their negotiations with government. Some perceived that their achievements and ‘power’ as a group had been ‘weakened’ as a result.87 This criticism from their membership led to concerns by some within DVVic that a ‘legitimacy crisis’ had developed.88 However, it was not DVVic’s changing methods and tactics that reduced domestic violence services’ position of power in their negotiations with their funding bodies but rather the growing capacity and desire of modern government to exert control over the planning and operation of human service organisations. Ironically, this paralleled the government’s determination to relocate responsibility away from the state to ‘reduce their exposure to risk’.89 These changes were combined with a preference for funding prevention-based policy initiatives and reluctance to invest in bricks and mortar, including women’s refuges and other forms of medium- and long-term social housing. The emergence of this new administrative regime from the 1990s also worked to constrain domestic violence services’ capacity to undertake political work.

A degree of suspicion continued to plague DVVic following the appointment

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