Behind Closed Doors: A Shared Response to Prevent Family Violence

At the ANZPAA Police Conference 2025, the joint session ‘Behind Closed Doors: A Shared Response to Prevent Family Violence’ brought together Tasmania Police and Small Steps for Hannah to showcase how co-facilitated training can drive real change.

In partnership with the Department of Justice, this state-wide initiative has delivered specialised workshops on coercive control through a collaborative, co-facilitated model. Since launch, the training has reached more than 80 organisations (including Tasmania Police) across Tasmania. In 2024 alone, around 2,500 participants have taken part.

A central theme of the session was the transformative power of education - not just for police but for the broader community. The presenters emphasised that effective training must go beyond procedural knowledge. As Detective Sergeant Joshua Wood explained,

“One goal we had in doing this training was to not make police feel like we're asking them to do more. Police are already overloaded... The goal of this training was to try and shift the mindset of police when attending these types of things... We wanted them to focus on listening, like really listening and recording the things that the victim was saying, the key words... so we can build a pattern. And we're looking at patterns, not singular incidents.”

This approach empowers officers to see their role not as isolated responders but as critical links in a chain of support, able to identify and document patterns that may otherwise go unnoticed. The session highlighted the unique partnership between Tasmania Police and the Small Steps for Hannah Foundation. Michael Jeh described his initial scepticism about co-facilitation but quickly realised its value. This model of collaboration - where police and community advocates work side by side - ensures that training is grounded in both operational reality and lived experience, making it more relatable and impactful.

Success, as the presenters made clear, comes from a human-centered and societal approach. Officers are encouraged to see themselves as “the 1% of our whole community who can walk out the door tonight and save a life,” as Detective Inspector Rebecca Davis put it. The training’s focus on recording victim language, identifying red flags and understanding the perpetrator’s mindset equips officers to intervene more effectively and build trust with victim-survivors.

The workshops help police and community stakeholders recognise coercive control as a pattern of behaviour, not isolated incidents - supporting a perpetrator-focused, pattern based approach to family violence.

The impact of this training is already evident. Police reports now contain richer detail about emotional abuse and coercive control, leading to better outcomes for victim-survivors and more informed responses from partner agencies.

This editorial draws directly from the ANZPAA Police Conference 2025 presentation by Detective Inspector Rebecca Davis, Detective Sergeant Joshua Wood (Tasmania Police) & Michael Jeh (Small Steps for Hannah).

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