NSW Health Aboriginal Family Wellbeing and Violence Prevention Strategy

AFWVP Strategy
A suite of publications to support implementation of NSW Health's Aboriginal Family Wellbeing and Violence Prevention Program and accompanying system-wide efforts to prevent and response to violence, abuse and neglect against Aboriginal people are currently being finalised for release in 2025. This includes:

• the NSW Health Aboriginal Family Wellbeing Strategy 2025-2035: Violence prevention through culture, safety, healing and collaboration a Summary of the Strategy
• the Aboriginal Family Wellbeing Guidelines that aim to support the statewide NSW Health Aboriginal Family Wellbeing and Violence Prevention workforce
• the accompanying Case for Change.

The strategy outlines 6 strategic directions and the associated, essential actions that will transform the provision of health services to Aboriginal people, families and communities affected by violence and abuse and will have relevance across the health system. These documents are currently being reviewed for final edit and will progress to publication and graphic design by late August 2025.

The Strategy is strongly aligned with the recently released NSW Aboriginal Health Plan 2024-2034 and the NSW Aboriginal Health Governance, Shared Decision Making and Accountability Framework. The Strategy and accompanying documents, particularly the workforce Guidelines, include statewide guidance on building cultural safety in VAN services, including through cultural supervision, and guidance on Aboriginal workforce recruitment and retention in VAN Services targeted at service managers and senior executives.

The Aboriginal Family Wellbeing Program itself is an ongoing Program funded by NSW Health. Continuous improvement activities have been undertaken to further support and upskill the workforce, develop stronger partnerships with the Aboriginal Community Controlled and Non-Government Sector and enable improved achievement of program objectives.