Scoping Study on Gender-Based Violence in Individualised Support & Care Services in Victoria

This scoping study, conducted for WorkSafe Victoria, reports on available evidence on the nature and extent of gender-based violence in individualised disability support and aged care services in Victoria. The study also explores what is known about thecircumstancesin which working conditions may provide a context for gender-based violence.WorkSafe Victoria has identified work-related gendered violence as ‘any behaviour, directed at any person, or that affects a person, because of their sex, gender or sexual orientation, or because they do not adhere to socially prescribed gender roles, that creates a risk to health and safety’.1In disability support and aged care services,a gender-based violence perspective is particularly useful as the majority of the frontline workforce are women and much of the work undertaken in this sector is profoundly undervalued as it is assumed to be women’s work and thus ‘unskilled’. Where work is undertaken in private domestic settings, workers’ vulnerability is likely to be heightened.