Lived Experience Advisory Council | Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission

The Advisory Council is a council of people with lived and living experience of domestic, family and sexual violence. Members share advice with us, report on implementation and progress towards the objectives of the National Plan, and provides advice to governments to inform policies, systems and services.

Current Members

Akii

Akii is an international multi-award-winning disability, gender equity advocate and violence survivor activist, trainer and educator who is dedicated to and deeply passionate about human rights, accessibility, intersectionality, inclusion, advocacy, non-tokenistic representation and co-design/co-production. A 2022 United Nations International Day of People with Disability Ambassador and winner of the 2023 National Awards for Disability Leadership Institute Inclusion Award, they are a proudly disabled, neurodivergent (Autistic, ADHD and CPTSD), gender-diverse, trans non-binary and queer/LGBTIQA+ person of colour from a refugee and culturally diverse background. Akii lives with numerous complex chronic illnesses, disabling chronic pain and various physical disabilities. Akii has dedicated their entire career to making a positive and sustainable difference to their communities and all marginalised and disadvantaged groups.

Deborah

Deborah is a disabled survivor advocate and campaigner for law reform. Deborah’s activism recently saw a successful campaign for non-fatal strangulation to become a standalone offence in Tasmania, rather than a common assault charge. Deborah is the author of three books focusing on domestic and family violence. These books are used as educational resources in social services for counsellors and students on practicals.

Famin

Famin is a pro bono lawyer. She also is a founder of a social enterprise project, which raises money for a domestic violence organisation that provides legal advice to women facing violence and raises awareness about domestic and family violence in the wider community. Famin is particularly passionate about creating systemic change for culturally and linguistically diverse women facing domestic and family violence.

Sharon

Sharon has first-hand experience of the challenges many in the LGBTQIA+ community face when trying to navigate the domestic, family and sexual violence service system. She is committed to bringing her unique perspective to government to help remove barriers for those in the LGBTQIA+ community reporting domestic, family and sexual violence, seeking support and accessing appropriate services.

Alison

Alison is a proud Noongar woman from Western Australia. She is a lived experience champion who has experienced intimate partner violence, and her sister’s life was tragically taken through family violence in 2019. Alison has extensive experience in government and Aboriginal services and is passionate about creating safe communities, addressing inequity, empowering First Nations people and healing.

Ella

Ella is a domestic and family violence lived experience advocate. She has experience working with children and young people who have been impacted by domestic, family and sexual violence, and has worked as a survivor advocate on numerous projects across local, state and national levels. Ella is passionate about amplifying the voices and advocating for the rights of children and young people.

Holly

Holly is an Indigenous early years educator and a survivor advocate who lives and works in very remote NT. She hopes to create pathways for First Nations women and their children — free from domestic, family and sexual violence. Her recent focus has been the delivery of an Indigenous mental health app, Gundirr, which provides an opportunity for people to advocate for themselves through the mental health system and broader health systems.

Tiffiny

Tiffiny is a lived experience advocate and survivor of childhood sexual abuse and family violence. She leads vulnerability strategy for one of Australia’s big four banks and is passionate about the role corporates can play in minimising financial harm through better product and service design. She is married and a proud mother of two.

Amani

Amani is an author, visual artist and advocate for women’s health and safety, based in Western Sydney. Amani’s ground-breaking feminist memoir The Mother Wound, published in 2021, explores the effects of domestic abuse and state-sanctioned violence on women. It has received several awards, including the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Prize for Nonfiction. In recognition of her advocacy against domestic violence, Amani received the 2021 UTS Faculty of Law Alumni Award and was named Local Woman of the Year for Bankstown in 2020. Drawing on her legal background and lived experiences, Amani has served on the boards of Bankstown Women’s Health Centre and the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights, and consults with various institutions on improving access and outcomes for victim-survivors. As an active visual artist and former Archibald Prize Finalist, Amani collaborates with various organisations to facilitate visual arts and storytelling workshops for victim-survivors from migrant communities.

Quinn

Quinn is a survivor with diverse expertise from lived experience, policy and research. They are passionate about advocating for safer housing and mobility for victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence.

Libby

Libby is a queer young woman, survivor advocate and consent and respectful relationships educator. She is experienced in working with young people to co-design solutions to gender-based violence.

Vincent

Vincent (or Vinnie) is a community legal centre lawyer working to support children and young people experiencing disadvantage and marginalisation in the western suburbs of Melbourne. Vinnie is a survivor of childhood family violence and shares his story to amplify the voices of children and young people, to ensure they are not forgotten in the national conversation around family violence. Vinnie was born in South Korea but has lived in Melbourne for the majority of his life. Vinnie’s dream is for all women and children to feel safe and loved in their own home, free from all forms of violence and harm.

Founding Members

Adele

Adele is a queer disabled person of colour and lived experience advocate. They draw on their experience working in various capacities in domestic, family and sexual violence services and responses, research, survivor advocacy and collective social justice action.

Kim

Kim is a parent of six and proud descendent of the Yanyuwa and Larrakia people of the NT, who works as a speaker, educator and coach in healing, group work for youth, men, families and culture. Kim is founder of IvolveGen, which promotes spiritual and cultural development as the catalyst for healing, wellbeing and growth.

Jay

Jay is a hearing-impaired and culturally diverse human rights lawyer, lived experience advocate, and survivor of sexual and family violence. They are the founder of a Victorian advocacy project for the victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence used by police officers, an active police accountability and response reform advocate, and the co-founder of a national survivor-led advocacy group which seeks to embed varied and diverse lived experience — particularly marginalised voices — in all aspects of family violence response reform and the deployment of the National Plan.

Beck

Beck is a queer feminist who is passionate about ensuring the safety of rainbow families and is a long-time campaigner of LGBTIAQ+ rights. They have significant experience leading domestic and family violence organisations.

Amanda

Amanda is a Yorta Yorta woman, a trauma, domestic and family violence-informed survivor advocate, activist, speaker and writer. They are the founder of an initiative to amplify historically excluded survivors of gendered violence.

Aishwarya

Aishwarya, also known as Ash, is a survivor advocate who has a keen interest in advocacy, education and intersectional feminism. Originally from India, Ash strongly believes that violence against women and children is not a part of her culture, or any other culture. Ash joined the Council to support and platform the voices of women of colour in the family violence sector reform.

Saxon

Saxon is a survivor advocate, law reform campaigner and advocate for the rights of survivors to tell their stories. Their advocacy triggered a review of sexual assault laws, to better protect victims and survivors of sexual assault and violence.

Why is the Advisory Council needed?

No effective solutions can be developed without the people most affected by them.

People with lived experience of abuse and violence have specific contextual expertise which must be at the heart of solutions. They have intimate, first-hand knowledge of services, systems and structures that are supposed to support them — but have sometimes failed them. They know the weaknesses and strengths of interventions in practice.

The National Plan commits to working with people who have experienced domestic, family and sexual violence, and recognises the value of this experience in informing appropriate and effective initiatives.

You can contact the Advisory Council’s secretariat at secretariat@dfsvc.gov.au.

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