RespectED - improving Aboriginal family and community safety Australian Red Cross is rolling out an innovative violence prevention, education and capacity-building program in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. What is RespectED? RespectED is a suite of education and capacity-building programs developed by Canadian Red Cross to address violence and abuse.

RespectED has been rolled out across Canada to a diverse range of groups (adults, youth, children, sporting bodies and First Nations communities in urban, regional and remote areas) for more than 20 years. More recently, it has been running in more than 12 countries in Asia and Africa.

As part of our renewed commitment to supporting the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, Australian Red Cross is putting more effort into working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples experience violence at much higher rates than non-Indigenous Australians, and there is an urgent need for greater investment in primary prevention and education. While important, responses have tended to focus on the aftermath of violence with increased policing, forensic investigation, mandatory reporting, provision of “safe houses” and shelters, and providing crisis support to victims.

It is increasingly recognised that effective prevention programs must address root causes, contributing factors and all the various forms of violence and abuse. Violence not only causes vulnerability, but increases it exponentially when it is added to other vulnerabilities.

Our research into the Canadian Red Cross RespectED program suggests that this program, with the necessary adaptation, could be developed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities (urban, regional and remote) to effectively reduce violence, abuse and neglect.

Australian Red Cross has worked in partnership with Canadian Red Cross for more than a year to adapt RespectED to Australian Indigenous communities and has begun a start-up phase.

This phase includes two program trials with Aboriginal communities in Port Augusta and Ceduna in South Australia.

The introduction of RespectED into Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities requires long-term commitment, a commitment that the Australian Red Cross Board has made.

• Walking the Prevention Circle is aimed at adults and addresses the history, challenges and potential of Aboriginal individuals and communities as it examines issues relating to abuse, neglect and interpersonal violence, builds awareness and provides the necessary tools to create safer communities.

• Be Safe! is aimed at four-to-nine-year-olds and is a personal safety program with a focus on child sexual abuse prevention. Designed to be delivered by teachers and Community Prevention Educators to children in Kindergarten to Grade 3, it combines story telling, puppetry and hands-on activities to provide a learning environment focused on improving personal safety.

Red Cross will work in collaboration with community members and organisations already doing important and invaluable work with the complex issue of community violence.

More information on RespectED is available on the Canadian Red Cross web site.