ARISE Foundation: Empowerment through employment

About the learning community

This learning community brought together peer learning groups representing diverse perspectives and experiences related to employment support for survivors of DFV. It shared insights and learnings to help build the capability of the Australian social enterprise sector, as it relates to barriers to employment for this cohort of job seekers.

Support for survivors of family and domestic violence is critical at crisis stage and beyond crisis stage. Survivors of financial abuse face many challenges in the road to sustainable recovery - with poor credit scores, low financial literacy, and inconsistent employment histories acting as barriers to their financial security and freedom. There remains a systemic gap and identified need for effective support to create financial independence pathways for DFV survivors.

About the convenor

Arise Foundation was founded in 2021 with the purpose to empower female survivors of DFV towards achieving sustained financial independence. Arise Foundation offers education and employment pathways, job placement, wrap-around support and advocacy services to help survivors of DFV pursue their aspirations for a brighter future.

How did this learning community work?

It consisted of 6 online meetings, each with a different group of people who are involved in helping survivors of domestic and family violence (DFV).

The goal was to hear from different perspectives about how to better support DFV survivors and find ways to work together to improve job opportunities for them.

Each meeting included 10–20 people from one of the following stakeholder groups:

• DFV survivors
• Recruitment agencies
• Employers
• Government workers and researchers who design DFV support programs
• Not-for-profit and social enterprise organisations
• ARISE facilitators (people helping run this program)

How to learn more

To learn more about this learning community contact Arise Foundation.