Social justice

Liz de Rome has an established track record in the research and development of social justice programs. She started her career in the educational research and development at the Tertiary Education Research Centre, University of NSW, specializing in the design of attitude change training programs. Since that time she has completed a number of major contracts including managing the Commonwealth Community Relations Strategy for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1991/93) and a national Adult Literacy development project for DEET and TAFE NSW as part of International Literacy Year (1990).

She has been involved in the production of a number innovative programs including the development in 1992 of a national youth anti-racism campaign called Different Colours, One People. The campaign used youth heroes from the sports and entertainment industries to act as advocates and role models to encourage young people to stand up against racism. The campaign was initially produced as part of the Commonwealth Community Relations Strategy for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Different Colours, One People Week has now become an annual event in youth calendars.

Liz was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to further her research and development work on the design of attitude change programs. In 1990 she was awarded the International Literacy Year Award for the design and production of a series of self help literacy videos and educational materials.

Police training

In 1996, Liz initiated a pilot project to develop a training program for police on Dealing with Racial Violence. The project was funded by the NSW Police Service and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The success of this project led to it being endorsed by the National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau, who obtained funding from DIMA (under the auspices of the Conference of Commissioners of Police) to develop training programs on Dealing with Racial Violence for police in each state and territory. This involved tailoring the pilot project to meet the procedural needs and local law for each Police Service. This involved working for two years with operational police on the development of best practice responses to incidents motivated by prejudice.

In 2000, Liz attended the Massachusetts Police Hate Crimes Training Program including a session with the FBI on hate crime offender profiles. She spent a week with the Boston Police Community Disorders Unit (hate crime unit) and also visited the San Francisco Police Department, Hate Crimes Unit.

In 2001 she was invited to comment on the Racial and Religious Tolerance Bill proposed for introduction in Victoria.

Other projects include:

• Monitoring Hate Crimes: A Report on the Community Relations Strategy Data Project. (1993). This was a research project to examine the incidence of prejudice-related crime in three NSW Police patrol areas and two WA Police patrols in 1991/92. The questions used were subsequently incorporated into the NSW COPS system. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
• Dealing with Racist Violence, a video-based training program for police on attending incidents of racist violence. It was produced as a joint project between the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the NSW Police Service.
• No Story to Tell and The Difference Racism Makes. two videos for the Victoria Police and the National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau on working with victims of racist violence.

Youth and Racism

• The design and management of the national Different Colours, One People youth program for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The campaign, aimed at giving young people the skills and courage to stand up to racism, was repeated for 3 years due to the overwhelming success of the first year.
• Burringilling - Walking Together - An educational video and teaching package on issues of identity and the influence of cultural diversity for senior school students. This package has been purchased and distributed to all schools in NSW by the state Department of School Education.