03/11/2025
“The voices of people who have experienced violence have revealed the scale of harm, shown how systems can entrench disadvantage, and pushed governments to act where silence once prevailed.”
The Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission’s Yearly Report calls for stronger systems leadership and action to embed lived and living experience in all aspects of Australia’s response to violence.
The Commission has outlined three key recommendations to build national frameworks and tools that make engagement with lived experience safe, respectful and effective:
🌱 The Commission’s Lived Experience Advisory Council will lead the development a Lived Experience Engagement Framework and Toolkit
🌱 The Commission, in collaboration with the Lived Experience Advisory Council, will develop a Lived Experience Evaluation Framework
🌱 The Commission will undertake a national audit of lived experience engagement
The report draws on ANROWS research by Dr Lisa Wheildon, “Towards meaningful engagement: Key findings for survivor co-production of public policy on gender-based violence” (2023), which sets out practical steps for safe, inclusive and trauma-aware engagement.
✨Together, this work strengthens the foundations for genuine co-production in policy and practice.
🎓 Learn more:
📘 Read the Commission’s 2025 Yearly Report https://www.dfsvc.gov.au/yearly-report-2025
📗 Read Wheildon & ANROWS (2023): https://www.anrows.org.au/publication/towards-meaningful-engagement-key-findings-for-survivor-co-production-of-public-policy-on-gender-based-violence/
🎥 Watch our webinar ‘Working with the knowledge of experts by experience’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q97D0sBwQvU
