Wellington Aboriginal Corporation Health Services hosts domestic violence forum

In Orange, NSW Police responded to about 332 incidents between July 2021 and June 2022, this is almost one incident every day.

The real number though is much higher as many victims will never report their experiences, and this is something that needs to change.

To help foster this, the Wellington Aboriginal Corporation Health Services hosted a domestic violence forum called 'Lets Make Change' on Thursday, May 25.

One of the guest speakers at the event was notorious bank robber turned Indigenous leader and lifestyle coach Jeff Morgan, who after experiencing homelessness and spending more than 18 years in maximum security prison turned his life around by embracing important lessons from his crimes and accepting accountability and changing his mindset.

Experiencing abuse as a young man and growing up in Redfern, Sydney, Mr Morgan has seen the impact of domestic violence both personally and within communities.

He now travels the country delivering well-being and mindset programs, believing that if things are going to change with domestic violence there is a genuine need for role modelling and facilitating honest conversations.

Mr Morgan said he wanted the Wellington domestic violence forum to be a place where residents could sit with a "taboo" topic and have "courageous" conversations so they could learn new skills, ideas, tips or tools to change their outlook on domestic violence.

"You plant the seeds and you nurture it and all of a sudden you're creating more leaders and you're building on resilience throughout the community," he said.

Mr Morgan said forums like this were important not only for the adults but to educate the next generation.

"Everything is around your habits and I know after 18 years in jail as a bank robber, my habits were about survival initially and that evolved into a life of crime," he said.

"Then that one courageous conversation helped me tap into a different version of myself and one I couldn't see before.

"These different things we put in an individual helps them become everything and anything they want to be."

In the 2021 census, Wellington was recorded to have a population of 4096 people, and Mr Morgan said it was important to stay connected with a community of that size.

"The biggest thing is plugging into knowledge of people with lived experience, that helps people make the right choice at the right time and place," he said.

"You'll never be what you cannot see and that's the whole gist of this - getting together with champion human beings who have never been through struggle around this particular space of domestic violence and being able to then help people see a better way to react or respond.

"That allows us as a community to be safer and it could even save a life."

To see people open up and take on the tips and tools Mr Morgan provides is "life changing", he said.

"There's a huge disconnect and it's a lot of what I talk about. In the community, I can totally understand the judgement and perception of that scenario and situation around domestic violence but to create change you need them to be vulnerable.

"Vulnerability creates strength."

But no one will be vulnerable when they're going to be judged, so it's important to sit back and listen to people without the underlying judgement, he explained.

"If we don't do that, it could impact a person to the point where they're no longer on this planet, it's happened many times," he said.

"I speak from experience within community and having seen it and the importance of that conversation and saying 'hey, I'm here and I'll sit down and learn and listen to you' and give feedback and start to change what's embedded within them as normal behaviours."

With one in six women having experienced physical or sexual violence by a current or former partner, and one in 16 men also experiencing it, Mr Morgan said some people have these "in-built" behaviours they think are completely normal.

"Imagine your grandmother sitting with this person and saying 'son, why are you built this way?'," he said.

"That's what happened to me as a kid when I was a bank robber and when these people were coming into my life I was listening and learning and taking these micro conversations and turning them into macro outcomes.

"If we keep slinging judgement and this mud then the mud will stick to the person and that label will be lived up to."

Mr Morgan urges people to go to events and forums like this one to listen and learn as much as you can.

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