Healthy minds healthy bodies healthy relationships

Project research team

Professor Daryl Higgins (Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic University), Social Research Centre, and Mununjali Health Service

Funder

ANROWS grant: Health response to preventing family and domestic violence.

Aim

To understand the health profile of people who use violence in order to develop a needs-based intervention delivered by Mununjali Health Service

Background

Mununjali Health Service is a new Indigenous health service that aims to develop and expand comprehensive health care through community-controlled health services in Beaudesert, Queensland. The service adopts the principles of Community Controlled primary health as set out by the National Aboriginal Health Strategy (1989).

Project details

Lead by the Social Research Centre, in partnership with Mununjali Health Service, the project will utilise a community-led, participatory approach to developing a health response that addresses domestic, family and sexual violence.

The research will include a focus on existing men’s groups at Beaudesert and Logan, as well as the broader Beaudesert community. It will examine mental, social and physical health and wellbeing, and look a critical intervention points for people who use family, domestic and sexual violence using a health lens.

Method

A participatory action research method will be used and designed with community members, Elders and stakeholders. Qualitative and quantitative data will be collected and supported by knowledge translation, sense-making and iterative dialogue in workshops, peer groups and yarning circles. The project will progress through the following stages:

• Establishment, knowledge sharing and development, guided by Mununjali Health Service
• Discovery and literature review
• Engagement, community briefings and questionnaire
• Quantitative data collection - health-based survey
• Co-design with community members, e.g. interviews and workshops and/or Indigenous methods, consultation with victim-survivors, people who use domestic, family and sexual violence, men's groups and community members

Projected community impact

This research will produce an evidence base for culturally appropriate local health services in Beaudesert, Queensland. It will help build the capacity of the Mununjali Health Service and also demonstrate the need for further funding for their service.

Links

ANROWS

Social Research Centre

Project timeline

July 2024 – Dec 2025

Contact

For more information contact: icps@acu.edu.au