SOC103A - National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women & Children

This essay provides a comprehensive policy analysis of the Australian National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and Children (2010-2022). It begins by outlining the background and rationale for the policy, emphasizing its vision of a safe community where women and children live free from violence. The essay then delves into the plan's objectives, including linking government efforts with society, organizations, and individuals. It examines the four three-year action plans, highlighting their focus on establishing foundations, national prevention campaigns, evidence-based approaches, and reflections on past actions. The rationality of the policy is supported by data revealing the prevalence of violence against women and children, increased help-seeking behaviors, and community awareness. The essay evaluates the plan's success using the policy process theory, demonstrating effective problem identification, strategy development, and implementation. Ultimately, the essay concludes that the national plan has been successful in reducing violence against women and children through its various initiatives and campaigns, paving the way for future action plans.

Developing Social Policy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Policy analysis refers to the technique utilized by the public authority body which allows
the civil works along with activities and other people to effectively evaluate and understand the
available options that are required to focus upon the goals of set laws and selected officials. The
whole process is allow adopted by various large businesses for their complex policies. The
following essay will include the policy analysis of National Plan to Reduce Violence against
Women and Children 2010-2022 which is a nation plan set by the Australian government in
order to eliminate aggression against women and children. The nation plan has the vision to
allow women and children in Australia to live free from violence in a safe community. The
following essay will discuss and address the background and rationality of the policy. In addition
to this, it will focus on the main goals of the policy in other jurisdictions as well as a critical
assessment of the success and failure of the policy.
MAIN BODY
The primary objective of the nation plan is to link the crucial task being conducted by the
Australian government with the society, organisations as well as individuals to ensure that the
less women and children experience violence and experience a safe life. The national plan
recognises the concept is complex and difficult to address and requires a long term plan in order
to be effective in its implementation. This government in order to address the issue of long term
planning has introduced its national plan in a series of four three-year action plans that will build
on each others during their implementation (Webster et. al., 2017).
The national policy has the vision to free Australia from all forms of violence and abuse
against women and their children along with emphasising on responsibility of the community to
ensure this form of violence as it is the matter which consists of everyone such as the authorities,
politicians as well as the member of the community. Australian became the first country which
implemented a shared policy of framework across the nation and other government territory

which is dedicated in eliminating aggression against women and their children. The national plan
focuses on ending violence against women and their children by promoting gender equality and
respect for all (Weeks et. al., 2020). It focuses on strong and growing international information
confirming the vital information of aggression against women along with the key role of
addressing the issues related to gender inequality in order to prevent violence. The national plan
is delivered through a series of four three-year action plans that have worked in unison and build
upon each other. The first action plan initiated the establishment of a strong and structured
foundation to reduce violence against women and children by establishing national-level
infrastructure in order to inform future policy and service delivery and overall engagement to the
community in order to reduce and eliminate violence. The first action plan allowed the
government to successfully establish it motives relative to the issue of violence against women
and their children (Nancarrow., 2019). It pays emphasis on informing the community in an
effective manners in order to introduce the issues and how it can be dealt with through optimal
communication and development of structures that are capable to keeping the community
informed about the current and future motives of the national plan .
The second action plan kept the momentum of the first action plan and moved ahead
with the jurisdiction commitment to establish national prevention campaigns and overall
development of the main systematic structure to share the understanding of reducing violence
and expanding the research agenda along with the overall national standards for perpetrator
interventions. In addition to this the second action plan allowed the government to further
analyse the situation regarding the violence against women and their children and work upon
fixing possible gaps that can hinder the success of the national plan. It focused upon further
communicating the importance and criticality of the issues and its impact on the community as
well (Hawley et. al., 2018).
The third action plan provide promising results and help in furthers strengthening the
evidence based on the collected nation data. This provided the overall basis for the trials of new
and innovative approaches in early intervention of violence as well as crisis response. The third
action plan allowed the government and the community to effectively understand the impact of
violence against women and their children through collection of data and evidence. This helps to
shed light upon the severity of the issue and why it is important for the community as well as the
government to pay their contribution in resolving the issue. Furthermore, it the third plan

provide the data necessary to monitor and evaluate the alternations as a result of the
implementation of the action plan in order to determine its positive or negative impacts on the
community.
The fourth action plan in the series is focused on the reflection and learning from the
past action plans along with the prospective of developing new future pans top shop violence
again women and their children. The fourth action plan pays emphasis on applied program to
achieve the changes by improving exiting initiatives and addressing the gaps in the previous
action plans. In addition to this it focuses upon providing a platform for future policies to
reduced domestic, family and sexual violence. The fourth action plan allows the government
and the community to have a optimal reflection upon how the previous action plans have
performed and their overall impact on the issue of violence against women and their children. In
addition to this it the fourth action plan provide the ability to fix gaps in previous action plans
which is vital while developing and establishing future plans relative to the issue (Dowling et.
al., 2018).
The national policy is rational and credible due to the large collection of data which
works as a evidence relating to the violence against women and their children. The data collected
gave a grim reality into the violent nature of the topic as it was analysed that one in every three
women were subjected to and experience physical violence. Moreover one in five were a victim
of sexual violence along with one in every six women being a victim of both physical and sexual
violence by a current or previous cohabitation partner (Fourth Action Plan of the National Plan
to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, 2021). In addition to this over the last
ten years, the overall numbers of women seeking help through the established formal services
including the contracting police has drastically increased even when there has been no increase
in the overall rate of violence (Cordier et. al., 2021). This helps in identification that the quality
and availability of support to women has increased resulting in improvement in women's trust
regarding national plan. Moreover, the overall increase in community awareness has also been
observes in both women and children. In addition to this the overall stigma associated with
being a victim and seeking help has also seen as drastic decrease. The national plan is further
rationalized as the national sexual assault and domestic and family violence counselling service
reportedly answered over 90,000 first responses telephones and online contacts which was an
increased of over 53% from the year of 2016-2017. moreover, the trauma specialist counsellors

answered over 27,000 contacts which was a huge 102% increase from the year of 2016-2017.
The national plan also initiate the campaign of “Stop it at the Start” in order to reduce violence
against women and their children. The campaign encourages adults to reflect upon their attitude
and have a conversation relative to respectful relationship with young people which is aimed at
the age group of 10 to 17 years. It involves parents, family members, teachers, coaches,
community leaders and employers of young people as well.
The success of the nation plan to reduce violence against women and their children can
be evaluated through the policy process theory which allows for the effective analysis and
evaluation of the social policy and its impact on the community. The initial step of the policy
process theory is to identify the root cause of the problem and develop a detailed statement
outlining the issues and its effect on the health of the community. The government has been able
to effectively identify the root cause for violence against women and their children which is the
inequality of gender and has been able to outline its effect on the community in its first action
plan (Davies et. al., 2018). The next step of the policy process involves analysing the social
policy in order to identify the various options that can be addressed and then compared options to
choose the most effective and efficient policy. The government has been able to develop
effective plans and process in their second action plan. Moreover, they have been able to
establish a successful campaign which has worked as an effective tool in encountering the issue
of violence against women and their children. The next step of the policy process theory relative
to the social policy of the national plan to reduce violence against women and children focuses
on development of strategy and methods based on the collection of data and evidence. This is
important as the data collected is the primary source of information that will provide assistance
in future analysis relative to the impact of the social policy and its performance in reducing the
impact of the issue on the community (Firmin., 2017). The government with its third action plan
has been able to effective collect evidence relative to violence against women and their children.
This has allowed them to community the issue to the community and understand the necessary
steps to be taken in order to counter this respective issue. Moreover, the third national plan has
been able to collect valuable data which will provide assistance in measuring the impact of the
social policy in order to determine its success.
The next step of policy process theory is the policy enactment that focuses in getting
official permission in order to implement the social policy. The government relative to the first

nation plan till the last national plan has been implementing the social policy in an effective
manner (Briggs et. al., 2020). The government has been able to gain valuable information
relative to the issue of violence against women and their children which has assisted them to
develop suitable plan of actions. This has enabled the community and the authority to effectively
understand the issue and how it can be resolved. The action plans have received support form
both the authorities and the community which has improved its success which is indicated
through the vast number of positive collection of data. The next step of the policy process is the
implementation of the policy which has been effective in all the national action plans developed
by the government. This has allowed to draw the analysis through the evaluation of the nation
plan that it has been a huge success in reducing the rate of violence against woman and their
children (Laing., 2017). The social polices have been able to drastically help the community and
have a positive impact thorough various initiatives and campaigns. The national plan has proven
to be optimal in its operations and its objective resulting to the development of future plans
which can help in development of future action plans in order to eliminate the issues of violence
against women and their children form Australia and provide hem a safe community to live free
in.
CONCLUSION
From the above essay it is concluded that, the national plan to reduce violence against
women and their children has been successful through its series of national action plans. The
social policies have supported the government and the community to effectively understand the
issues and its impact on their community along with how it can be encountered. The policy
process theory provided optimal analysis on the success of the national plan and how it was able
to have a positive impact in dealing with the issue of violence against women and their children.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals:
Briggs et. al., (2020). Child protection: A guide for teachers and child care professionals.
Routledge.
Cordier et. al., (2021). The effectiveness of protection orders in reducing recidivism in domestic
violence: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 22(4).
804-828.
Davies et. al., (2018). The oxford handbook of women, peace, and security. Oxford University
Press.
Dowling et. al., (2018). Protection orders for domestic violence: A systematic review. Trends
and issues in crime and criminal justice, (551). 1-19.
Firmin., (2017). Abuse between young people: A contextual account. Routledge.
Hawley et. al., (2018). The “Rosie Batty effect” and the framing of family violence in Australian
news media. Journalism Studies, 19(15), 2304-2323.
Laing., (2017). Secondary victimization: Domestic violence survivors navigating the family law
system. Violence against women, 23(11). 1314-1335.
Nancarrow., (2019). Unintended consequences of domestic violence law: Gendered aspirations
and racialised realities. Springer Nature.
Webster et. al., (2017). Australians’ attitudes to violence against women and gender
equality (No. ANROWS Research report 03/2018). Australia's National Research
Organisation for Women's Safety.
Weeks et. al., (2020). How violence against women became an issue on the national policy
agenda. In Making social policy in Australia (pp. 141-153). Routledge.
Online
Fourth Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children
2010-2022, 2021. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/08_2019/fourth_action-plan.pdf>.