Facilitation of workshops aimed to provide hands on facilitation skills training for perpetrator program staff with opportunity to participate in interactive training and enhance their perpetrator group facilitation and one-on-one meeting skills.

It is anticipated that participants will learn skills necessary to address accountability, collusion and co-facilitation while centring a survivor's lived experience; connect our work to the four pillars that keep widespread domestic violence in place and deepen each facilitator’s understanding of Paulo Freire’s approach to facilitation.

This will include:

The principles of dialogue;

What makes an effective facilitator;

Connect with social, cultural and individual experiences of power, families and violence;

How to respectfully expose contradictions in thinking by perpetrators;

Paulo Freire’s stages of consciousness; and

Alternative possibilities for beliefs based in equality and partnership.

This program references work undertaken by Paulo Freire – stages of consciousness and is set within the Duluth model of domestic violence. 

Event Details

Workshop 1: Monday, 26th May 2025
Workshop 2: Tuesday, 27th May 2025
Workshop 3: Wednesday, 28th May 2025
Workshop 4: Thursday, 29th May 2025

Time: 9:00am - 4:00pm (all four days)
Location: Room B6, The Bolands Centre, 14 Spence Street, Cairns City, QLD, 4870.

Please note: This is a 4 day workshop. Participants are required to attend all four dates.

Who should attend

Those working in perpetrator intervention group facilitation looking to complete their 25 hour training.

About the facilitators

Melissa (Petrangelo) Scaia, MPA

Co-founder of Global Alliance for Women’s Safety and Equality
Domestic Violence Trainer and Consultant for UN Women and Domestic Abuse Project in Minneapolis, MN
Co-founder and author of Domestic Violence Turning Points
Former Director of International Training at Global Rights for Women

Former executive director of Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP) also known as “the Duluth Model”. Prior to working in Duluth she was the executive director of Advocates for Family Peace (AFFP) for 17 years, a local domestic violence advocacy program. She has also trained internationally on Integrated Responses and has led and organized three Coordinated Community Responses (CCR) to address domestic violence in Minnesota. She also has trained internationally on perpetrator programmes while also co-facilitating groups for men who batter and women who use violence for nearly 25 years.

Rosemary O’Malley

Rosemary O'Malley was the CEO of the Domestic Violence Prevention Centre (DVPC) from 2016 to February 2023. She commenced working for DVPC in 209 and was the Manager of the Men’s Domestic Violence Education and Intervention Program (MDVEIP) for seven years. Previously she worked for many years at Queensland Corrective Services (QCS) where she commenced facilitating the MDVEIP in 2005. Her academic background is in criminology, and she has written journal articles and contributed a chapter to the book Domestic Violence, Working with Men: Research, Practice Experiences and Integrated Responses. Rosemary sat on the Domestic Violence Death review Advisory Board and was the Convenor of the Queensland Domestic Violence Services Network from 2020-2022. She has travelled to the United States to investigate good practice regarding men's programs, fathering programs and integrated responses and she delivers workshops and speaks at conferences throughout Australia on the importance of collaborative practice between government and non-government organisations to improve the safety and well-being for those experiencing and escaping violence.

Rosemary now works in a consultative capacity in the DFV Sector and delivers workshops and training, as well as Professional Supervision across all levels of the workforce.

Contact the host of The Art of Dialogue – Working in a Perpetrator Program (25 hour training) - Cairns, May 2025