Jessica is a manager in a specialist gendered violence prevention team that is funded to build the capacity of community sport and recreation to address and prevent gender-based violence.   

Sport and Recreation Victoria has a key role in working with statewide bodies representing community sports to help prioritise primary prevention and gender equity, create an authorising environment, and build relationships and networks.  

Key activities for this program are:   

The Safe and Inclusive Sport: Preventing gender-based violence guide (the Guide), which provides guiding principles, case studies and practical tools to support state sporting associations, regional sports assemblies, women’s health and community health services, local councils and other organisations work together to develop and implement prevention of gender-based violence projects in community sport settings.  

• The Preventing Violence Through Sport Grants Program, which supports community sports organisations to design and deliver primary prevention activities aligned with the Guide.  

• The Safe and Inclusive Sport Community of Practice provides an opportunity for state sporting organisations, local councils, professional clubs and primary prevention staff to come together to discuss and learn about gender equity and the prevention of gender-based violence.  

Jessica began her journey in primary prevention after completing a PhD focused on gender equality in the workplace, transitioning directly into the field.  From the outset, Jessica brought a strong foundation of skills and knowledge to her role. Her academic background equipped her with a critical lens for evaluating research and a deep understanding of social systems. Her experience in teaching and facilitation has been central to her work, alongside her expertise in advocacy, leadership engagement and facilitating gender-transformative conversations tailored to specific contexts.  

She values working alongside colleagues with complementary technical skills, such as storytelling, messaging and engagement, as well as those with experience in sport and active recreation organisations.  

A firm believer in lifelong learning, Jessica actively seeks opportunities to develop her practice. She has undertaken training in gender-transformative approaches, values-based messaging and responding to disclosures of violence. Communities of practice have been especially valuable to her, offering spaces to exchange knowledge and refine her approach.  

Jessica believes strong facilitation skills and confidence in managing resistance are critical for primary prevention and advocates for specialist facilitation training to support the workforce. She supports tailored training approaches, including shorter, accessible modules with targeted promotional materials to encourage participation.  

Jessica believes that working with men and boys requires confidence and emphasises the need to adapt materials to meet audiences where they are as a rigid adherence to curriculum can be disengaging. She has also observed that facilitators and educators with strong storytelling and relational skills get the best results. This is best supported by embedded programs that build relationships, trust and contextual understanding over time.  

Equally, Jessica stresses that understanding how to identify and respond to collusion is essential and notes there is currently no training for the primary prevention workforce that focuses on this. She also sees great potential for short “men as allies” training that can be delivered at scale in sports settings.    

Jessica integrates an intersectional lens into her work and looks forward to the Australian Sports Commission’s new intersectionality framework, which she anticipates will greatly enhance intersectional practice in sporting settings. She emphasises the importance of structural change and working with dominant groups that perpetuate inequality, not just minority groups. For Jessica, embedding intersectionality requires both strong conceptual understanding and practical, long-term implementation plans supported by adequate resources.  

In addressing disclosures of violence, Jessica argues for building the capacity of organisational systems rather than just individual workers. At the club level, this means ensuring pathways for referral to services are clear. At high levels, it means integrating gendered perspectives in human resources and governance structures, facilitating effective responses to disclosures and complaints.  

Jessica sees collaboration across the primary, secondary and tertiary prevention workforces as a key opportunity for mutual capability building. She hopes future workforce development efforts will break down silos that often hinder collaboration.  

Jessica envisions a centralised, coordinated approach to capability building, improving alignment between training curricula and resources across the workforce. She hopes to see consistent, scalable workforce development programs tailored to specific settings, supported by clear evaluation frameworks and spaces for collective reflection and alignment.