Putting gender back on the agenda in domestic and family violence policy and service responses: Using critical reflection to create cultural change

Social work has a key role not only in responding to domestic and family violence through the provision of direct services, but also in promoting cultural change through education and policy development to redress the social conditions that create violence. Such practices can result in shifting the consciousness of individuals and communities, ultimately affecting societal and structural changes. These changes begin with the practice of critical reflection, which aims to unearth and challenge dominant assumptions about gender, power and violence. ‘Best practice’ responses to domestic and family violence are widely contested and therefore highly political. Within neoliberal contexts, conservative governments have sought to de-gender and depoliticise domestic and family violence by attacking and de-funding feminist services and reducing domestic and family violence to a relationship problem, rather than acknowledging it as a gendered human rights issue. However critical and progressive forms of social work have always advocated a research-informed and critically reflective approach to practice that champions women’s and children’s rights, whilst simultaneously holding perpetrators accountable and seeking to change the societal structures implicated in producing violence. This paper will highlight the importance of structural analytical approaches that explicitly link gender and power, to making informed, effective and relevant responses to domestic and family violence. It will also highlight the need for critical reflection as the first step in redressing violence against women