AROUND 30 members of the community gathered on Wednesday morning to attend Rotary Hamilton’s Domestic Violence community conversation breakfast in hope to continue these important discussions and prevent DV within the community.

Attendants were treated to a complimentary breakfast at the Speckled Frog Café, and engaged in meaningful conversation, with a presentation by Rotary Hamilton, and Emma House client services manager, Danielle Lavithis who provided meaningful insight on the action to be taken within the community to tackle DV.

Guest speaker, Ms Lavithis spoke about her role within the Emma House, which aims to reduce the impact of domestic and family violence on individuals, women and children, and the community.

The Sexual Assault and Family Violence centre merged with the Emma House in October last year, and have provided free and confidential services over the South West to impacted families.

Ms Lavithis said some of these initiatives include helping women fleeing domestic violence to install personal safety devices such as CCTV footage for their homes, door locks or a security door.

“We’ve had a massive increase of the support that we’ve needed to provide, and we know that having a safe place is just so important for people to reestablish their whole life and their identity,” she said.

“It really takes courage for somebody to disclose that they are experiencing family violence, some people feel some shame attached to it (and) they’re scared.

“If you have a friend or a family that is disclosing this to you, some of the tips are to say things like, ‘I’m so sorry this has happened to you, its not your fault, you’re not alone.’

“Sometimes we just need to listen to people and their story.

“However, if you do have the resources, point them in the right direction for some professional assistance.”

Every nine days, a woman in Australia is killed by a current or former partner, and 95 per cent of all victims experience violence from a male perpetrator.

There can be a large social and economic burden from leaving domestic violence relationships, with the average cost to leave a family violence situation and reestablish a new life being around $18,000, and there is a financial cost of $22 billion for violence against women in Australia each year.

Family Violence has been the single greatest contributor to death, disability and illness for women aged 18-44 years in Victoria.

Ms Lavithis said children and men are also impacted by DV or violence in general, and their voice should also be acknowledged and heard in these situations.

“Acknowledging family violence, we know it’s out there in the media much more than it ever has been, so this is the opportunity for us to really get out to all aspects of the community,” she said.

“It doesn’t need to be just victims and survivor services knowing about family violence all the time, we believe the community plays a really large part in preventing it.

“The Hamilton Rotary Club have just been amazing, with all the advocacy they are doing in regard to family violence to really try to have an impact.

“I just think it’s really important so that we understand this is happening in your community.”

Rotary Hamilton held their first domestic violence community conversation for the year back in March with guest speaker and DV survivor, Simone O’Brien who led the conversation of the red flags that can be recognised in DV relationships before physical violence occurs.

 Rotary Hamilton hopes to continue these conversations with a community walk for domestic violence that will occur later on this year, and they hope to combine with Hamilton Kangaroos Football Netball Club on July 20 for a DV awareness round in Dunkeld.

Family and domestic violence support services

If you need help immediately, call emergency services on Triple-Zero (000)

1800 Respect National Helpline: 1800 737 732

Women’s Crisis Line: 1800 811 811

Men’s Referral Service: 1300 766 491

Lifeline: 131 114