3. Investment in co-designing the standalone National Plan that is culturally and contextually appropriate, including resourcing allocated to face-to-face national consultation. This must include a range of culturally-secure and trauma and healing-informed safe engagement methods to meet and talk with First Nations peoples in urban, rural, remote and very remote areas. Government must work closely with and alongside First Nations women to design a specific engagement approach to develop a standalone National Plan that speaks to the needs of First Nations women and children, regardless of their gender identity, sex identity and sexuality, and families in all their diversity. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies are not homogenous. Within each nation there exists a multitude of groups and clans with unique languages, cultural practices and connections to lands and waters. All those engaged with throughout the designing of the plan must be offered culturally safe and secure healing supports and access to counselling and therapeutic services. 4. Establishment of transparent, interdepartmental governance to oversee the plans, with clearly articulated lines of accountability to government departments and Ministers for achieving the objectives and targets. The drivers of violence against First Nations women and children are complex and multi-faceted. Forum participants spoke to the intersection of issues that must be addressed to adequately respond to violence in First Nations communities, including but not limited to housing, criminal justice, responses to children, health and gendered drivers. Operating within traditional portfolio boundaries and a siloed response system will not be sufficient to progress the aim of ending violence. With advice from the taskforce established under Recommendation 2, governance must be transparent, with publicly available information that demonstrates accountability for measurable targets. 5. Alignment of all national First Nations plans to end violence with existing relevant Commonwealth plans and the principles, articles, targets and goals of: a. Human Rights treaties and declarations ratified and endorsed by Australia b. The Wiyi Yani U Thangani Report (2020) and Implementation Framework (2021) c. The Closing the Gap National Agreement, with a particular emphasis on the four priority reform areas. Alongside alignment, develop mechanisms to build effectively on previous recommendations and to continuously track progress of, and ensure accountability for, implementing recommendations and actions across all relevant frameworks to end violence against First Nations women and children. Plans should align, but not be limited by what already exists, so that they reinforce one another, providing for the whole of government response that is required to effect systemic change. Decades of reform, plans and inquiries have demonstrated that no one plan will be sufficient to address all the factors that need to be considered to end violence against First Nations women and children. Wiyi Yani U Thangani • First Nations Women’s Safety Policy Forum • Outcomes Report | 41