Abstract
Drawing on findings from an Australian study, this article does two things. First, it discusses the neoliberal context and governance that affects the advocacy practice of grassroots human service organisations, supported by Fyall’s (2017) idea of “advocate-providers”, highlighting governmental barriers to advocacy influencing policy in the national Australian context of a conservative government. Second, the article focuses on frontline human services organisation workers’ voices for contributing to domestic and family violence policy development. Applying a feminist framework, the paper focuses on research that enabled expert views of frontline workers’ perspectives on a specific national social policy that surrounds their field of services. In presenting outcomes of a democratising feminist research process that sought to overcome the barriers for frontline domestic violence support practitioners to speak out and be heard by policymakers, the paper explores both how the participants felt excluded from the national policy process and their views of the policy they wanted decision-makers to hear. Data derived from frontline workers’ and managers’ perceptions of the relevance and effectiveness of Australia’s federal and state social policy approaches to reducing and addressing violence against women and their children are analysed.
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Phillips, R., Heward-Belle, S. Exploring the Role of Frontline Domestic and Family Violence “Advocate-Providers”: Can They Be Part of the National Policy Process in Australia?. J of Pol Practice & Research 4, 220–237 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42972-023-00084-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42972-023-00084-7