• Recognising and addressing all forms of intersectional discrimination as major drivers of violence, including but not limited to racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia. In addition, poverty and social inequality are contributing factors, with a lack of public housing and financial services placing women and children at greater risk of violence. • Understanding and addressing individual, systemic and institutional racism, how all forms of racial discrimination and racial violence is present within Australian society, the justice system, policies and legislation, and the particularly harmful effects it has on First Nations women and children in everyday life and when interacting with services, the public and when seeking help. System enablers Forum participants emphasised these priorities as key to achieving the objective of ending violence against First Nations women and families including: • Sustained and targeted long-term investment by all levels of Australian governments across the family and domestic violence sector and into women and family-oriented community-controlled organisations and women’s centres. • Designing and strengthening governance arrangements and mechanisms to ensure accountability of governments at all levels, policymakers and stakeholders and for First Nations women and organisations to have clear and accessible pathways to self-determination in decisionmaking processes. • Investing in First Nations data sovereignty and data governance as a key tenet of selfdetermination and ensuring significant improvements to data collection and research to form a comprehensive understanding of violence, what works to prevent violence, and to be able to measure and track progress toward ending all forms of violence experienced by women, children, and families. • Rigorous evaluation processes and criteria to be developed to guarantee that funding is directed to community-controlled and evidence-based approaches responding to or preventing violence. • Cultural safety as a pre-requisite for all people delivering services to First Nations women and families experiencing violence. • Large-scale systems change to shift responses to violence from uncaring and punitive to caring and enabling, ensures cultural safety, centres self-determination, sovereignty and First Nations knowledges and cultures. Women are being incarcerated as a result of violence, children are removed from families and communities, and the lack of recognition of violence as a serious public health issue that demands urgent attention limits our ability to respond appropriately. Wiyi Yani U Thangani • First Nations Women’s Safety Policy Forum • Outcomes Report | 34