2021 began with a rumble that became a roar heard across the country: Australian women would no longer be silent about the gendered abuse that long pervaded their workplaces and homes. From this moment of urgency comes There’s No Place Like Home - a groundbreaking podcast that captures what the nation demanded: that we listen to the lived experience of victim-survivors.
At every juncture, it dispels the stigmatising myths about abuse and certain victim-survivors with compassion and truth, laid out by the victim-survivors themselves. They refute and reframe the incorrect perceptions of their identities and their abuse in Future Women’s most substantial piece of journalism to date.
May* and Carly address the bedrock of colonial trauma underpinning First Nations women’s experiences of abuse. Jex, a trans man abused by his female partner, outlines the additional complexities the LGBTQIA+ community face in seeking help and compassion. Amani, a Muslim woman, opens up about her journey to healing after her mother Salwa was murdered by Amani’s father. Deborah, who lives with a disability, speaks about its impact on her long-term recovery.
There’s No Place Like Home was sponsored by Commonwealth Bank, who are doing objectively impressive work in the space of financial abuse prevention with their Next Chapter program. The partnership allowed for significant amplification of the series, as well as financially supporting best practice journalism.
Based on more than 100 hours of interviews with victim survivors, advocates and experts in the family violence prevention and response sector, There's No Place Like Home provides a rigorous summary of the current situation, while keeping its gaze firmly fixed on the future. Together the episodes clearly and comprehensively explain the drivers of violence against women and children, and the various innovative solutions already being put into practice here in Australia and internationally.
Our production team was made up of a full time senior producer, with additional contributions from contract journalists and on-staff researchers. We worked with Bad Producer productions to ensure the audio quality was of the highest possible standard. The complexities of production were high as the podcast was recorded during Australia's lockdowns, where being in the same room as experts and victim-survivors was only very rarely possible.
Production also needed to be deeply empathetic and caring, with constant care and attention paid to the needs of survivors. Each of the ten individuals whose stories made up the core of the series, has faced significant trauma. Interviews were timed flexibly, often conducted in shorter than usual stints of time and participants were given the opportunity to amend and approve their episodes before going to air.
The production team were deliberate in choosing victim-survivors on whose lives the episodes would be based. We prioritised a diversity of voices, including those who are not always heard in the mainstream media. The ten episode series features stories of two Indigenous women, May* and Carly, a trans man, Jex, a disabled woman, Deborah, a woman who lives regionally, Laura*, and a Muslim woman, Amani.
This podcast is listened to by victims of violence who could be put in further danger if their abusers realised the content of this work. That’s why the name and artwork for There’s No Place Like Home are deliberately obtuse. Future Women has already received dozens of emails and messages from survivors for whom this podcast has been personally impactful. While we are delighted by the large, engaged audience for There’s No Place Like Home, the podcast was made for them. To find a balance between accessibility and safety was one of our greatest conceptual challenges.
The production team, as well as victim-survivors, embarked on a strategically executed public relations campaign which resulted in a total of 23 articles, TV appearances and radio spots about the facets of domestic abuse covered in the podcast, including on commercial radio and TV, Australia's national broadcaster the ABC and some of Australia's biggest print outlets.
Along with this, Future Women used its own social media and the channels of guests to amplify the words of the victim-survivors via audiograms and static carousel posts. Each highly curated post amplifies the voice, vision, and lived experience of a victim-survivor, intertwining their personal story with expert opinion and analysis. This level of granular detail is what sets this outstanding piece of journalism apart from others of its kind.
The response to There’s No Place Like Home has been overwhelming, notching up more than 120,000 downloads at the time of this award submission. It has been featured in Apple’s Browse carousel as a special investigation and was one of only six podcasts to be selected by Apple Australia/New Zealand's 'Shows That Captured the Moment' in its curated collection, 'Shows We Loved 2022'. It was named 'Best Podcast - Series' and 'Best Podcast - Single Episode' at the Mumbrella Publish Awards in 2022.
It has been consistently in the top 200 charts in Apple peaking at 32; and has regularly appeared in Apple’s trending section. It has also consistently appeared in Spotify’s top 200 charts.
There’s No Place Like Home was sponsored by CommBank, who are doing objectively impressive work in the space of financial abuse prevention. The partnership allowed for significant amplification of the series, as well as financially supporting best practice journalism and drawing attention to CommBank's work in this space.
Most importantly, though, Future Women has already received hundreds of messages from victim-survivors for whom this podcast has been personally impactful. While we are delighted by the large, engaged audience for There’s No Place Like Home, the podcast was made for them.
