Women’s Health Grampians is leading the Grampians Regional Strategy, which will lay the foundation for violence prevention work through improved equality and respect.

The group is working with 14 other organisations including Wimmera Uniting Care and Wimmera councils to develop the plan.

Women’s Health Grampians chief executive Marianne Hendron said the work was part of a statewide project.

“About two years ago, the state government provided all women’s health services with funding to lead work in regional planning,” she said.

“Our vision for the strategy is very much in line with the goals of the statewide project, which follows the notion that we can have a lot greater impact by working together to achieve common goals in this space.

“We've put in fair bit of time in past couple of years in building relationships, rather than going straight out and putting this plan together.

“It was important to bring people on board and start with a common vision.”

Ms Hendron said family violence was an issue that was gaining prominence in societies.

“In some ways it's making our job a bit easier in the sense that, for instance, many local governments are seeing this as something they want to have in their planning,” she said.

“We haven’t quite settled on our vision wording, but aspirationally we're talking about a region that does not tolerate violence against women.

“The strategy’s working title is ‘Building communities of equality and respect’ – we hope those qualities will be intrinsic in our societies.”

Ms Hendron said she hoped the plan would be something people could relate to in everyday life.

“We hope the strategy will lead to action plans where organisations can identify what to do,” she said.

“Women’s Health Grampians will be responsible for the overall co-ordination of that.

“We are making sure the plan is structured in a way that we have good indicators and ways of measuring and monitoring its success.

“We want it to be accessible to people, and translate into something that a small group or organisation in the Wimmera could look at and say 'this is where we might fit and be part of this'.”

The 14 organisations will meet in April to further develop the plan.