Director
Kelsey Hegarty
Kelsey Hegarty is an academic general practitioner who holds the joint Chair in Family Violence Prevention at the University of Melbourne and the Royal Women's Hospital. She also leads the Safer Families Centre.
Her research includes the evidence base for interventions to prevent violence against women; educational and complex interventions around identification of domestic and family violence in health settings and early intervention with women and children exposed to abuse and men who use abuse. Interventions are delivered through health care and through the use of new technologies.
Deputy Director
Dr Elizabeth McLindon
Dr Elizabeth McLindon is a Clinician Research Fellow at the Women’s and University of Melbourne. Liz has worked to strengthen the Women’s and Victorian healthcare system response to family, domestic and sexual violence since she began at the Women’s in 2008. Liz’s research about family, domestic and sexual violence against health professionals was integral to the workforce component of the Victorian Strengthening Hospital Responses to Family Violence program.
Liz’s research aims to investigate approaches to that help health professionals effectively manage and recover from the stress and vicarious trauma in their lives. Read more about Liz’s research here.
In addition to research, Liz works as a senior clinician at Centre Against Sexual Assault (CASA House). The voices and experiences of the survivors with whom she works underpins Liz’s approach to conducting safe and ethical research that is co-designed with survivors and meaningful to their lives.
Senior Program Manager Family Violence
Ms Amanda Morris
Amanda is the Senior Program Manager for Family Violence at the Women’s, where she has led the SHRFV Statewide Metropolitan Sector since 2022. She brings extensive experience in managing therapeutic family violence services, having worked in the sector as part of the post–Royal Commission into Family Violence reform agenda.
Amanda’s work is informed by feminist social work theory, systems theory, and trauma-and-violence informed practice. She is committed to supporting integrated, evidence-informed responses that enhance safety, promote accountability, and strengthen outcomes for individuals and families impacted by family violence. Her approach reflects a deep understanding of the complexities of risk, behaviour change, and interagency collaboration in the family violence system.
Researchers
Professor Laura Tarzia
Laura is a Professorial Fellow in the Department of General Practice and Primary Care, where she co-leads the Sexual and Family Violence (SAFE) program. Laura has a background in sociology, with an emphasis on qualitative and mixed-methodologies.
Her work draws on the voices of victim/survivors to generate novel theoretical insights that can be applied in practice to strengthen responses to sexual, intimate partner and reproductive violence. Laura is Director of the NHMRC-funded RESTORE Centre of Research Excellence, which is focused over the next 5 years on transforming health systems to promote healing and recovery for survivors of sexual violence in adulthood.
Laura established and coordinates the Reproductive Violence Research Network (RVRN) which is a virtual global network of researchers interested in topics relating to reproductive violence.
Dr Minerva Kyei-Onanjiri
Minerva is a Research Fellow at the Department of General Practice and Primary Care, University of Melbourne. She co-chairs the Melbourne Research Alliance to End Violence against women and their children (MAEVe). Minerva is a mixed methods researcher whose work focuses on health services' responses to domestic and family violence and strengthening family violence screening for women.
She has expertise in designing and implementing evaluations of domestic and family violence programs in healthcare settings. She also brings an intersectional lens to understanding family violence to shed light on experiences, and health care needs of people from different types of backgrounds.
Dr Katie Lamb
Dr Katie Lamb is a Senior Research Fellow who manages a stream of research undertaken in partnership with women who have lived and living expertise in domestic, family and/or sexual violence as co-researchers. Katie has a background in criminology and public policy and brings statewide planning, stakeholder engagement experience from her work in the Victorian Government to her academic work. She is particularly interested in developing best practice standards for ethical research which is co-designed with adults and children using innovative participatory research methods.
Ms Kitty Novy
Kitty has a nursing background and currently has an Education and Recruitment Officer role in the Centre.
She has worked on the SUSTAIN and other student projects assisting with recruitment of staff and patients. She coordinates a large project on Sustaining the Primary Care Response to Family Violence in Melbourne's North West.
Dr Surriya Baloch
Surriya is a General Practitioner in Victoria (with qualifications also in gynaecology) who is undertaking a PhD on effectiveness of screening in antenatal care for women from Pakistani and Indian backgrounds.