Our Focus
The core of SPEAQ’s work is supporting the work of services and practitioners who provide Domestic and Family Violence Intervention Programs (also known as Men’s Behaviour Change Programs). We also welcome the involvement of services and practitioners engaged in other forms of direct work with men who have used Domestic Violence or Family Violence.
SPEAQ operates at both a practitioner level and a management level
Historically, and today, supporting practitioners is our main focus.
Our interests and activities also go beyond practitioner roles, supporting program managers and coordinators in their work with relevant programs.
Domestic and Family Violence prevention sector support
We work on supporting and developing the domestic and family violence prevention sector in many ways, including activities such as:
- a statewide online Community of Practice for practitioners, including victim-survivor/family advocates
- three general meetings per year focusing on current sector issues in Qld, and facilitating member consultations to inform practice-based policy advice by the Steering Committee
- an annual professional development conference called the SPEAQ Forum
- collaboration with WorkUP Qld, the state’s DFV workforce development agency, to provide specialist professional development and training events and workforce development activities
- the SPEAQ website as a platform for networking, discussion, collaboration and information dissemination.
Liaison with Government
SPEAQ has been liaising closely with the Qld Government for many years and is a key stakeholder in the Domestic and Family Violence prevention sector.
- SPEAQ Steering Committee representatives regularly attend consultations and workshops with the Department of Justice and Attorney-Genearl in relation to DFV sector reforms.
- SPEAQ played a key role in the development of the Department of Communities’ Professional Practice Standards for Working with Men who Perpetrate Domestic and Family Violence, and the accompanying Professional Practice Principles, both published in 2007, and the more recent Perpetrator Intervention Services Requirements in 2022.
We have made a number of formal submissions to the Qld government on domestic violence matters, including in the last decade in response to the following:
- Consultation on Strategy for Persons Using Domestic and Family Violence (2023-2024)
- Consultation on the Persons Using Violence facing risk assessment tools and resources (adults and young people) (2024)
- Consultations on the Perpetrator Intervention Services Requirements (2022)
- Consultation draft on the National Principles to Address Coercive Control (2022)
- Consultation on the Draft DFV Protection (Combating Coercive Control) and Other Legislative Amendment Bill 2022 – Identifying the person most in need of protection (2022)
- Joint Letter to Women’s Safety Ministers nationally (2021)
- Proposed Queensland legislation governing public access to, and reporting of, sexual offence and domestic and family violence matters (2021)
- Queensland Law Reform Commission review of proposed domestic violence disclosure scheme (2017)
- Review of the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act 2012 (2016)
- Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence (2014)
- Inquiry on strategies to prevent and reduce criminal activity in Queensland (2014)
Media and Public Voice
We also work to inform and educate other professionals and the public as the voice of specialist professionals in the field of men’s DFV behaviour change work in Queensland.