THRIVE Workshops

Bridges offering free interactive workshops in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay on Healthy Relationships, Domestic Violence and Coercive Control awareness.

THRIVE – Transformative Health in Relationships, Inspiring Values and Empowerment

With the assistance of the Social Shift funding, Bridges was able to create and deliver a series of workshops across Bundaberg and Hervey Bay within the Hinkler electorate, with the aim of giving participants a base understanding of the foundations of a healthy relationship, how to recognise red flags of domestic violence and coercive control and, provide resources and contacts to local regional organisations for further information and where to seek help.

The short 1-hour workshops were broken into 2 sessions and delivered by experienced Mental Health and/or Drug and Alcohol clinicians which helped connect young women aged 13 to 25 and provide support after the workshop if needed. The delivery of the workshops was originally proposed to be held regularly at the same venue in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay. However, it was revealed that through consultations with potential participants, this delivery approach did not work as participants cited anonymity as an issue for them. Due to the feedback received from potential participants, the program was redeveloped to a program that could be delivered into schools and organisations. With the redesign of the program, we received a much higher level of interest and take up. To continue to deliver the program to schools and organisations, we requested an extension to ensure that we could offer the program with the revised strategy to ensure it reached more of the target audiences, particularly young women, First Nations and CALD communities.

We would like to thank YMCA Vocational School, Bundaberg Neighbourhood Centre, Step Up Step Down/ Mind Australia, TAFE Bundaberg, Carinity Glendyne, Door 42 Regional Housing, Urangan State High School, CQUniversity, Impact Community Services and North Bundaberg State Highschool for taking up the offer to host these workshops. The workshops were tailored to each school/organisation depending on the ages and ethnicities involved in each workshop. A total of 99 young women participated in 13 workshop sessions delivered including First Nations and CALD women.

Online surveys were conducted with participating young women and their attending teachers or host contact. 101 surveys were collected including from workshops or individual deliveries with the below summary of key findings:

• 90% of participants were satisfied with content (rating 6/10 or above)

• 88% increased knowledge

• 77% intended to share gained knowledge

• 68% said they would use the shared resources

We thank the schools, organisations, our projects, Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol Treatment teams at Bridges for enabling this project to have an impact and create community connection in the Hinkler electorate.