Community Readiness Studies (CRS) are increasingly used in family violence research.
This study is a way of understanding our community in relation to family violence and is a way to inform a violence prevention programme. This study is not ‘the answer’ for our community, it is not a prevention programme itself, and does not guarantee that the prevention programme created from this study will be successful or that the level of readiness will increase.
This CRS follows a modified methodology from the Community Readiness for Community Change Handbook, hereafter The Handbook published by the Tri-Ethnic Centre for Prevention Research – Colorado State University (Stanley, 2014). The method described in The Handbook was modified to account for the population in Motueka – Aotearoa New Zealand, and surrounding towns of similar size in the greater Tasman region.
Our Community Readiness Study is a way of gauging the community’s views of family violence in Motueka and the surrounding areas. We are using this research method to discover how we can create a programme to prevent violence in our community. In this report, the voices of the participants are prioritised, with quotes from each participant echoing the voices and experience of the people in our community.