Parramatta Eels are MVPs

The Parramatta Eels are the first club in the National Rugby League to have a Domestic Violence Action Plan (DVAP). Written into their DVAP was to run family violence education sessions with club members at all levels. NO MORE Campaign workers Charlie King and Alex Billeter travelled to Parramatta in July to run two Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) sessions with the Eels staff.

The MVP Program is designed to empower adults and adult educators to feel confident to intervene in violent situations. It’s a leadership program focused on preventing all forms of men’s violence against women. The MVP model utilises a bystander approach to prevention and intervention that empowers leaders to think more critically and personally about gendered violence.

The two underpinning values of the training are the importance of leadership and emphasizing the potential power of a bystander. The simplistic ideas that everyone can be a leader in some capacity and that everyone can intervene to stop violence, are the major contributing factors to the program’s success. More than 35 men and women working with the Eels were in attendance for the sessions.

NO MORE Campaign Founder Charlie King said he was proud to continue to work with the Parramatta Eels.

“Even through everything that is happening with the Eels at the moment, they have kept on track with meeting their outcomes outlined in their DVAP. The MVP sessions with staff went really well and both groups were very engaged with the content. We look forward to continuing to work with the Eels in future to broaden their knowledge on family violence,” said King.

Eels staff were engaged in the sessions and had some positive feedback about the content.

“I thought that both Alex and Charlie were outstanding. I would love to do further training in this area if the opportunity ever arose, I’m really interested in becoming more active in the space if you could keep me in mind for things in future!”