DVFREE Training & Other Services

DVFREE Workplace Training

First Responder Training

First responders are peer support people in your workplace who can support employees experiencing domestic violence, and also support managers. This is a one day in-person training or delivered online over two consecutive mornings. It helps First Responders to:

understand the boundaries of the role
recognise signs and respond safely and appropriately
provide workplace support, safety and wellbeing planning, and refer to specialist community support and
understand broadly how an employer can respond to employees who perpetrate domestic violence, and provide support to change

Organisations can book in-house First Responder Training for their venue or online. (DVFREE Tick Partner Organisation First Responders can attend Advanced and Experienced level training in years 3 and 4.)

Individuals can register to attend open First Responder Training either online or in-person in Auckland. If your organisation plans to train more than a few people, we strongly recommend in-house training so that the training can focus on the context of your particular organisation and help build a stronger team of first responders.

Find out more or register now.

Manager Training

Managers play a key role in supporting a team member who experiences domestic violence and are most likely to see the signs and be able to ask some initial questions. DVFREE Tick partners can access the DVFREE Manager Online Learning Programme, included in our DVFREE Tick Partnership annual fee.

While our best practice recommendation is to provide live training for initial manager training, we can also deliver this training online. Either option is 3.5 hours long.

DVFREE training helps managers to:

understand the boundaries of a manager’s role
recognise signs and respond safely and with empathy
provide workplace support, workplace safety and wellbeing planning, and support to connect with specialist community support, and
understand broadly how an employer can provide accountability and support for employees who use harmful behaviour within a family and domestic relationship

We generally only deliver manager training for an organisation that has already trained some first responders. Read our Guidelines to understand why this is important.

DVFREE Guidelines and Policy Consultation

Guidelines for a DVFREE Workplace Programme

Download our free Guidelines for a DVFREE Workplace Programme to help you create a sustainable, best practice workplace response to domestic violence, that supports the safety and wellbeing of employees who experience domestic violence and meets your legal obligations under relevant employment laws.

Policy Consultation

DVFREE Policy experts can help you to create or improve your Domestic Violence Policy, procedures, or other relevant documents such as content of your intranet or wellbeing guide whether they are for employees, customers or both.

DVFREE Customer Response Training

Customer Response Champions 1-Day Training

This training is aimed at people who:

Deal with customers impacted by domestic violence in their day to day work, eg, providing a service for customers experiencing vulnerability, or who
Support and advise frontline staff on how to respond to customers experiencing domestic violence, such as a group of team leaders.

Bespoke Training Options

Get in touch to discuss bespoke training to meet your organisation’s specific needs.

DVFREE Awareness Raising

Free workplace online learning module

This module was created in collaboration by Westpac and Shine, and updated in 2024. It takes less than 1 hour to complete and provides a good introduction to family violence within a workplace context.

Awareness sessions

A Shine expert from our training team can speak to your group and help raise awareness of domestic violence. These sessions can help build a foundation for a domestic violence staff programme.

Be creative!

There are many ways to engage, inspire and educate staff about domestic violence.

One idea is to participate in Shine’s Light it Orange campaign to raise funds and awareness or you may want to ask your local domestic violence service provider about how you can support their work.

Want to get started?

Your organisation can take a number of steps to provide a safe and supportive workplace for your people experiencing domestic violence, including training first responders and managers, and updating your domestic violence policy.

Get started