Indigenous family violence and sexual abuse: Considering pathways forward

Responding to Indigenous Australian Sexual Assault

“…Although there was considerable overlap, the literature documented four main types of response to Indigenous sexual assault: legal justice responses to perpetrators, media responses, communitybased responses, and mainstream service responses. The breadth of these response types and associated broad range of stakeholders involved in responding to Indigenous sexual assault suggested that the important task of coordinating service delivery responses to sexual assault was likely to require inter-sectoral partnerships and strategies (Cox, 2008;Cripps & McGlade, 2008;Thomas, 1993;Thorpe, Solomon, & Dimopoulos, 2004;Victorial Indigenous Family Violence Task Force, 2003). Promising responses for combined strategies were tailored to specific communities, and targeted victims/survivors and perpetrators of sexual assault.…”

“…Four studies provided descriptions of programs (Atkinson, Nelson, & Atkinson, 2010;Cripps & McGlade, 2008;Marchetti, 2010;McCallum & Castillon, 1999). One was a measurement study (Willis, 2010).…”

“…Only two of the program descriptions (both relating to offenders) utilized primary data-one from interviews with court practitioners and Elders and observations of intimate partner violence sentencing hearings in the courts, and the other from participatory research within a group-based program for sex offenders (Marchetti, 2010;McCallum & Castillon, 1999). The other two program description studies (both relating to survivors of sexual assault) used secondary data: A critique of literature and a description and author's experience of a program (Atkinson et al, 2010;Cripps & McGlade, 2008). The measurement study utilized primary data; it described the development of a questionnaire designed to capture perceptions of community safety in Indigenous communities, and the piloting of the questionnaire with service providers (Willis, 2010).…”

“…Furthermore, there was a paucity of program descriptions. We found only two studies that described responses for victims/survivors of sexual abuse (the Indigenous Australian developed We-Ali and Family Well-Being Programs (Atkinson et al, 2010), and an analysis of the feasibility and acceptability of adapting a Canadian Indigenous program (Cripps & McGlade, 2008). Hence, there is currently insufficient evidence from peer review or gray literature studies of sexual assault responses targeting Indigenous Australians to confidently direct practice or policies regarding what strategies are likely to be effective in responding to sexual assault.…”

“…Instead, methodologically rigorous mixed method studies such as multiple baseline designs can be applied to test the effectiveness of those promising interventions identified in the literature across geographically and culturally diverse Indigenous population groups. Such evaluation will , 2002;Keel, 2004;Thorpe, 2004;Wild and Anderson, 2007 Coordinated approach to service delivery with intersecting legal, media, community-based and mainstream services Cox, 2008;Cripps and Miller, 2009;Thomas, 1993;Thorpe, 2004; Victorian Family Violence Prevention and Legal Service, 2010 Community focused and community defined services and programs Atkinson et al, 2010;Cox, 2008;Cripps, 2008;Gordon, 2002 provide evidence to inform the implementation of future interventions with a greater likelihood of more effectively responding to Indigenous sexual assault.…”