The �Male Family Violence Prevention Training Project� aims to prevent male family violence by providing competency-based training for men. Initiated by Family Violence Prevention Association (NTV) Inc., the program has been rolled out across the state of Victoria, Australia, including regional (rural) districts. Currently, NTV is negotiating to provide specialized training across Australia, and internationally.

While it is estimated that over 80 percent of family violence incidents go unreported, more than 25,000 cases still made it to the Victoria authorities in the last year. The Men's Referral Service (MRS), the statewide confidential and anonymous telephone counseling service offered by men to men ready to address their violent behavior, received over 3,500 calls in the last financial year. Also, more than 300 men per week attend behavior change programs across Victoria every week.

Anecdotal evidence of additional impact comes from many of the partners of men who have attended the men's behavior change programs. These women report a decrease in levels of violence subsequent to the men's participation in the programs. Beyond that, according to research (Ed Gondolf, 'Evaluating Batterer Counseling Programs: A difficult Task Showing Some Effects and Implications', 2003, IUP, www.iup.edu/maati/publications), only longitudinal studies of approximately 15 months post completion of a program will be able to gauge the 'success' rates of programs. To date MRS has not been able to fund such research.

There is a significant lack of services and programs for men throughout the state, particularly in regional areas. The Male Family Violence Prevention Training Program was designed to fill this gap. It provides an integrated training package, including the development of training resources and a training team, along with the delivery of accredited training courses developed between 1996 and 1998 by NTV and Swinburne University of Technology.

As it developed, the project was overseen by an industry group of experienced telephone counselors and professionals working with abusive males and their female victims. Launched in 1999, the Graduate Certificate in Social Science (Male Family Violence) course was the first accredited training program of its kind in Australia.

Currently, all women's and family violence service organizations throughout the state are supporting NTV. Representatives from two of the most respected women's family violence services, WIRE - Women's Information Referral Exchange and the Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Centre are assisting NTV and Swinburne in a re-accreditation process for all competency-based training. Other women's services are represented on the NTV Management Committee, including the Immigrant Women's Domestic Violence Service.

NTV operates knowing that protecting women and children from family violence depends on changing the mindset of abusers. The approach is steadily gaining ground among those who work in and advocate for treatment and prevention programs. When NTV and MRS started ten years ago, their work on family violence was vastly different from what had been done before, and many viewed the work with understandable suspicion.

Given the support the programs now receive from these sectors, it is evident that there is far greater understanding by the community regarding the role men need to play in preventing family violence, represented by the ongoing funding from the Victorian Department of Human Services and the contribution to many of the projects by other services, including the Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Centre, WIRE, the Women's Domestic Violence Crisis Service, and the Immigrant Women's Domestic Violence Service.

While the competency training was aimed toward practitioners working in the family violence sector, NTV has expanded its training and sensitization program to others, including government officials involved in the development of policy and public and private sector industries keen to put an end to violence in the work place.

In 2003 NTV received funding to develop and deliver one-day seminars across the state to enhance communities� abilities to develop their own responses to family violence and to engage men fundamentally in the process of change.