A PhD improves violence response services for women with disability

Life after graduate research: Dr Alicia Yon

Dr Alicia Yon saw that women with disability who experience violence are being left behind. During her Architecture, Building and Planning PhD, she built a policy framework for better access to violence response services for diverse women with disability in non-metropolitan areas.

Assemble evidence for policy with a PhD

Dr Yon began her career as an educator. She also worked as an urban planner developing policy. Though she had always wanted to do a PhD in urban planning, she didn’t find the right opportunity until later in her career.

A research conference she attended convinced Dr Yon that women with disability who experienced violence were being left behind. She proposed her own PhD topic on the disability-gender-violence-service nexus to her supervisors at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Yon chose the University because of the people she wanted to guide her work.

She received a PhD scholarship through the Melbourne Social Equity Institute (MSEI).

“I couldn't have done it without the support from the MSEI, because I had a really young family. It reduced a lot of the stress and worry about finances,” Dr Yon says.

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We need better support for women with disability experiencing violence

"We know regional areas have very poor service provisioning, and at the same time, those areas are also where the rates of violence are very high.”

Dr Yon researched the barriers women with disability and complex needs face when seeking help from violence in the Barwon region, Victoria.

“I specifically used the women's lived realities of violence to create a policy framework grounded in their experiences. I developed a comprehensive and integrated service planning response to meeting the diverse and multidimensional needs of women with disability,” she says.

Dr Yon found that most services were designed around physical access needs, but other access needs weren’t considered.

“We know that one-size-fits-all responses simply do not work because they tend to ignore disabilities that include non-physical impairments,” Dr Yon says.

“There was a mismatch between need and service provisioning. And that's what my policy framework attempted to address.”

Like many researchers at the Melbourne Social Equity Institute, Dr Yon works at the intersection of different disciplines.

“I think it’s the best way to address the wicked challenges of today that cannot be dealt with in siloes. And it's really where true innovation, creativity and solutions come from,” she says.

But it’s also important to ensure that all members of an interdisciplinary group, like Dr Yon’s supervisors, speak the same language and that their expectations are aligned.

“I sought their guidance at every step of the process and we ensured that there was a constant feedback loop.”

How to make the most of your PhD

Getting involved with the research community outside your supervisors can help build your professional network and reveal new opportunities.

Dr Yon collaborated with other researchers and attended seminars and conferences as much as she could.

“To be completely honest, it was a little bit challenging for me as a mother,” she says.

But engaging with the support resources at the University of Melbourne can make the PhD journey easier.

“At the University of Melbourne, we have incredible librarians. They really are an untapped resource and I think we need to take more advantage of what they can offer,” Dr Yon says.

“They can help make your journey a little bit easier by offering guidance on search strategies, understanding the research landscape, information management, and a whole lot of other things to improve research quality and efficiency,” Dr Yon says.

Dr Yon also participated in the Melbourne Social Equity Institute Doctoral Academy. The initiative supports University of Melbourne graduate researchers whose research relates to social equity through peer learning and mentoring opportunities.

A PhD opens doors to career opportunities

Dr Yon’s PhD and part-time work at the Melbourne Disability Institute paved the way for a research fellowship Dr Yon landed at Griffith University’s Inclusive Futures: Reimaging Disability Beacon after her PhD.

“I was involved in the annual Voice of Queenslanders with Disability survey – a crucial piece of work to inform policy” she says.

While at Griffith University, Dr Yon also worked with the Gold Coast City Council.

“I market myself as a pracademic – someone who straddles both the academe and planning practice – because it allows for that bridge between theory and practice that, in my case, makes for a much more grounded educator and policy analyst,” she says.

Dr Yon then rejoined the University of Melbourne as an Education Fellow at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning.

“This has allowed me to return to my first love. I began my career as an educator, and throughout my professional life, teaching has always played a big role, even when working in policy,” Dr Yon says.

“Without the knowledge that I've gained from my PhD, I don't think I would have been able to pursue these roles.”

Learn more about a PhD in Architecture, Building and Planning