Continuing to Hear Her Voice: Tackling DFV and coercive control in Queensland

Queensland’s Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce issued its landmark Hear Her Voice reports between 2021-22. In response to two recommendations in those reports, the state’s then Strategic Policy Unit within Women’s Safety and Violence Prevention engaged Nous to develop a whole-of-state Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) training and change management framework, and subsequently two foundational online learning modules on DFV and coercive control. 

“The Hear Her Voice reports and other inquiries stressed the importance of improved understanding of DFV and coercive control across the population,” says project director Ashleigh Waldby, “as well as increased capability to prevent abuse and improve responses.”

“These projects were a tangible step in on the path to creating that change,” she says. “But designing online learning for such a broad audience can be a fraught endeavour. We had the opportunity and responsibility to design and develop something compelling and accessible that would have a real impact.”

We knew from the outset that it would be crucial to receive whole-of-system input in the development of the framework. We facilitated extensive consultation across the system, engaging with 250 stakeholders across Queensland Government agencies, specialist DFV services, DFV Community Service Agencies, Victim Advocacy Services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service providers, legal services, and intersecting community service agencies (professional bodies, sporting clubs, mental health and AOD services, and so on). We took care to always centre the voices of those with lived experience through direct engagement and feedback with victim-survivors.

To make effective use of stakeholders’ time, Nous used consultations to test a framework prototype covering learner audience segmentation defined by workforce roles and the corresponding learning requirements for each segment or role. This enabled us to get real-time feedback from stakeholders on the proposed learner audience segments that exist across the Queensland Government and the service system (e.g. all roles, mainstream and non DFV-specialist roles, specialist DFV roles, etc.) and the corresponding level of requisite knowledge, skills, and capabilities.

We tailored our lived experience consultations to focus more on stakeholder accounts of their engagement with the service system, allowing us to identify which areas of the service system work well and where there were still gaps or areas for improvement. This was done to truly understand what is required to provide people who have experienced DFV with a more consistent, quality response, no matter where or with whom in the service system they engage. All people with lived experience were remunerated for their time.

The key takeaways from this extensive consultation were:

1. Stakeholders really valued the use of a framework prototype to react to in consultation, as this meant we got to the meaningful conversations quickly and made good use of their time.
2. As the DFV sector is a highly consulted sector, we kept our consultation approach flexible for those who had capacity to engage, and the Department ensured there were final sector feedback sessions before finalising the framework.
3. Contextualising the development of the framework with lived-experience perspectives is invaluable and must be done sensitively and appropriately.

With these findings on hand to inform our approach, we proceeded to develop a comprehensive DFV training and change management framework. It included a monitoring and evaluation plan for the framework and training strategy, a training needs analysis, cost modelling for implementation, and a plan for the development and delivery of DFV training across government and non-government agencies alike. The work we developed ultimately supported the Department in gaining Queensland Cabinet approval for the necessary budget required for roll-out.

We next partnered with the Women’s Safety and Violence Prevention team to develop the first two online modules of its proposed training activity: a foundational module to develop learner’s understanding of the nature and dynamics of coercive control and abuse, and to build their confidence to act against it, and a second explaining the landmark coercive control legislation that was passed in Queensland in 2024 and is due to come into effect on 26 May 2025.

These modules needed to be designed in a trauma-informed way that mitigated any unintended consequences for victim-survivors, centre the voice of lived experience, and explain intersectional experiences in a way that highlighted the strengths of minority groups while also building understanding of why they may face additional barriers to help-seeking. The modules also needed to be interactive, suitable for a broad audience, suitable for people with a range of accessibility needs, and impactful.

“It was critical that this be done quickly,” says Waldby, “but we also wanted it to be done to a high quality. Not just a compliance checkbox. The date for introduction of Queensland’s landmark coercive control legislation had been set and the training needed to be available with sufficient time for people to complete it prior to that date.”

With our DFV and coercive control knowledge, instructional design expertise, and visual design and e-learning development skills, the design process progressed rapidly, while retaining the content’s depth and breadth without sacrificing learner engagement. We worked closely with legislative subject matter experts to interpret complex information, using storytelling and empathic connection to help learners connect to the content. We ultimately used the rapid development software Articulate 360 to produce a launch-ready product that could be hosted through a Learning Management System (LMS) or directly on the Department’s website.

“Through our work on the DFV Training and Change Management Framework, we had met with victim-survivors and heard their experience with the justice system,” says Waldby, “as well as reading the public submissions to various reviews from those with lived experience. Keeping these perspectives in mind while designing the training, we could make sure that the messages and information were accessible to non-experts, in a way that might lead to behavioural change. That was our guiding light.”

The DFV Training Framework we developed brings together a synthesis of evidence, best practice training, and behavioural change, while reflecting the voices of those across the sector. It will support a consistent, trauma-informed, victim-centred and culturally appropriate approach to DFV training in Queensland, which we believe could be reproduced in other jurisdictions.

The key for the project’s ultimate success was our ability to build a collaboratively designed, high quality, accessible and engaging deliverables within a tight timeframe. Our project management approach and responsive partnership meant that the online modules were delivered to deadline and were live on public-facing websites within four months of the project’s initiation.

“Within the first two weeks of going live, the modules had been accessed more than 700 times,” says Waldby. “This is a fantastic achievement.”

“But it’s important to remember that these modules are just one step in a much larger agenda of training and capability uplift,” she says. “Building the capacity of individuals and organisations to prevent, recognise, and respond to DFV and coercive control is an important and ongoing process.”