Fast Track intensive leadership program
Fast Track will help you advance your career by building your leadership and advocacy skills.
This free professional development program is designed for people who want to excel in a leadership role responding to family violence or preventing violence against women.
Fast Track will build your knowledge in feminist leadership, advocacy, creating effective partnerships and program design. Fast Track helps you build an effective, systems-view of your work so you can be a stronger leader.
Designed by experienced practitioners, Fast Track incorporates the values of intersectional feminism that are the foundation of family violence and primary prevention work.
Enhanced learning experience
Fast Track is delivered using a range of methods that are designed to work together to reinforce the learning experience.
Workshops
Develop your technical skills through group discussion and problem solving led by an expert facilitator.
Guest presenters
Hear from sector experts who will share their knowledge and insights on a range of topics in the workshops.
Workplace project
Choose a project to work on during the program that will have a real impact in your workplace, while building your skills.
Expert project mentor
Access support and advice around your workplace project or your career development in three one-hour mentoring sessions.
Forum
Put the skills you’ve gained into practice and celebrate, reflect and share what you’ve learned at the end of the program.
Networking
Meet and connect with other emerging leaders in your sector throughout the program.
"The course is useful to shift thinking space from direct practice to broader sector climate and development. Also very helpful for networking and exposure to leaders in the field to get a better understanding of where the sector is coming from and where it is headed."
Pilot program participant
Facilitator
Sarah Johnson
Sarah Johnson is an independent consultant, facilitator and coach with extensive experience in stakeholder engagement, communications and multi-sector collaboration.
She brings a warm, collaborative and focussed approach, informed by more than 20 years of working across the community sector in service delivery, management and leadership roles in crisis counselling, youth mentoring and family violence.
For the eight years prior to establishing her consultancy business, Sarah was the Family Violence Principal Strategic Advisor for northern metropolitan Melbourne where she provided strategic leadership and advice, supported workforce development and capacity building.
As Fast Track facilitator, Sarah brings considerable sector knowledge and facilitation expertise.
Two streams to choose from
Response
- Who should apply
- Professionals with experience in the Victorian specialist family violence sector, who are looking to move into a leadership role.
- Managers and senior workers in Victorian specialist family violence services (Tier 1) who are new to their roles and/or want to build their leadership and management capability.
- Program outline
- Family violence leadership
- Applying theory, practice, policy and legislative frameworks
- Using systems to manage staff and teams
- Staff support, supervision, wellbeing, development, and contributing to organisational management
- Using research and data to support high-quality evidence-based practice, services and initiatives
- Partnerships, collaboration and service delivery
- Engagement with diverse communities
- Representation, advocacy and public speaking
Duration
Commitment
Workshops: approximately 3 hours per week
Preparation: additional 3-5 hours per week to prepare for workshops and work on your project
- 19 August: half-day face to face session
- 26 August-14 October: weekly 3-hour online sessions (Thursday, 9:30 am-12:30 pm)
- 21 October: full-day online session
Prevention
- Who should apply
- Professionals with experience in the Victorian primary prevention sector, who are looking to move into a leadership role.
- Professionals with significant experience in aligned roles, who are interested in moving into primary prevention in Victoria.
- Program outline
- Foundational knowledge and skills
- Using research, theory and evidence to support practice
- Program logic frameworks
- Project planning and monitoring and evaluation
- Establishing and maintaining partnerships
- Intersectionality
- Working across different settings
- Communicating effectively
- Working with men and boys
- Advocating for change
Duration
Commitment
Workshops: approximately 3 hours per week
Preparation: additional 3-5 hours per week to prepare for workshops and work on your project
- 18 October: half-day face to face session
- 25 October-13 December: weekly 3-hour online sessions (Monday, 9:30 am-12:30 pm)
- TBC: full-day online session
“Family violence work is unique and complex, and expanding as Victoria’s coordinated prevention and response systems grow. We need more people with family violence expertise to build their leadership skills and take up the challenge of leading this important work into the future.”
Tania Farha, CEO DVRCV and Domestic Violence Victoria
How to apply
Applications are open
Applications for the upcoming Fast Track Prevention stream are open now, closing Monday 27 September at 5pm AEST.
Register for the waitlist
Applications for the upcoming round of the Fast Track Response stream are now closed. Register your details using the links below and we’ll let you know when you can submit your application for the next round.
When applications open, you’ll receive an email. You’ll be asked to review your personal details and will then be given access to the application form to provide information about your current role and what you hope to achieve, and submit your resume and a letter of support from your manager or employer.
Please note this program is for participants in Victoria, Australia only. Please do not submit an application if you reside outside of Victoria, Australia.
To ensure the best possible outcome for all participants, we select applicants based on their suitability for the course and to ensure the group is diverse and can work cohesively.
Accessibility
If you’d like to discuss your accessibility requirements or need any further information about the accessibility standards of our online Learning Management System, email [email protected].
Enquiries
If you’d like more information about the Fast Track program, email [email protected].
This program is free for all participants thanks to generous funding from Family Safety Victoria. More programs are planned over the next two years.