In 2016 the Victorian Government announced an ambitious plan: 10 years to rebuild Victoria’s family violence system. The commitment to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence provided the basis for this reform.

Over the last 4 years we have invested more than $3 billion to establish the key elements of our new system.

The reform in the context of 2020

The Rolling Action Plan 2020-2023 has been a coordinated effort across government. It was developed while Victoria was deep in the second wave of coronavirus (COVID-19) and is being delivered as Victoria continues to respond to the global pandemic.

We know that the need for family violence response and prevention is greater than ever. There are many victim survivors yet to seek help, and perpetrators who must be held to account and supported to change their behaviour.

The government has reaffirmed that the family violence reform remains a priority as part of the social and economic recovery of Victoria. The two are inseparable: the continued rollout of our family violence reform will support Victoria’s recovery, and a strong recovery will help reduce the stressors that contribute to perpetrators choosing to use violence.

The bushfires at the beginning of this year and then COVID-19 have created additional challenges for our community: increased anxiety, social isolation, financial stress.

We know from evidence here and internationally that these factors increase the incidence and the severity of family violence and that we must be prepared to meet those challenges.

We will consider what we have learnt from the changes and innovations that have already taken place as we assess the impacts of these events on the system and continue to deliver the reform.

Despite the extraordinary context of 2020 in Victoria, the reform has kept going, continuing to build a system that is stronger, better joined up, more flexible and more resilient.

Next steps

We are four years into our 10-year reform and making good progress.

Royal Commission into Family Violence:
167 recommendations implemented, 60 still to go

Each recommendation implemented is another step towards a reformed family violence system. But there is still much to do.

Maintaining our focus on bringing together key elements of the reform will support an effective response to all Victorians who need to access the family violence system, or indeed, multiple systems.

We know we have to:

• keep improving how the system works together
• get the fullest possible picture of who is accessing the system and how it is working for them
• strengthen our evidence base by improving the quality of data we collect, sharing it more widely and commissioning more research
• continue to build a specialist family violence workforce which is highly trained and culturally safe
• continue to develop innovative and targeted approaches to preventing family violence

We are in the embedding phase of the reform. The first rolling action plan (2017-2020) laid a solid foundation with investment and activities implementing 167 of the 227 recommendations. The Rolling Action Plan 2020-2023 builds on this, with more new areas of focus, so that by 2023 we have a system that is more connected, sustainable and demonstrably delivering better outcomes for victim survivors.

The roadmap to 2023

The Rolling Action Plan provides an overview of where we have made progress, where we will improve, and what we will be working on.

It will be our roadmap from now until 2023, developed across government and with input from the broader family violence sector, people with lived experience and the community.

Rolling Action Plan 2020-2023

• continues the delivery of reform programs and projects already underway
• sets out the delivery of new activities with projected timelines
• provides an overview of key government initiatives and how they integrate with ongoing projects and programs, and other social services reforms
• reflects the impacts of COVID-19 on the family violence system and sets out how we will build on and learn from the changes and innovations introduced as a result of the pandemic

We acknowledge the contribution of the sector to the reform. We note that much more reform and change is being delivered across government and the broader family violence sector beyond that contained in this plan.

The Rolling Action Plan also reflects feedback from the several hundred Victorians, many with lived experience of family violence, who have provided additional insight during the consultation. They will continue to inform our actions as we enter this next phase of the reform.

Acknowledging the foundations

As we set out our planned activities it is also a moment to capture a big picture overview of the reform progress to date. There is much to be proud of, but we know there is still more work to do.

Our activities for the next three years build on the foundations that have been laid during delivery of the first rolling action plan (2017-2020).

We have established two agencies to oversee Victoria's family violence prevention and response:

Victoria – towards a state of respect

We now have a deeper understanding of the causes and impacts of family violence. We understand far better now than we did four years ago that family violence is experienced differently for different people in different communities and therefore requires a range of prevention, early intervention and response activities.

Addressing gender inequality remains at the heart of achieving a Victoria free from violence. We know that gender inequality creates the social conditions that enable violence to occur.

The Rolling Action Plan sets out how we are applying our increasing understanding of the dynamics and different forms of family violence, and different types of family relationships to better prevent and respond to people across Victoria’s diverse community.

Measuring progress

Many of our programs are truly world firsts. This is why we have adopted a continuous improvement approach of incorporating new knowledge as we design and deliver policies, programs and services.

We have refreshed our Family Violence Outcomes Framework and developed a staged approach for comprehensive outcome measuring and reporting.

This approach will help us track progress and show how the reform is making a difference. We will also continue to build the evidence base, encouraging collaboration and a joined up approach to research and evaluation.

Connecting and strengthening

The family violence system is complex because it relies on multiple systems, including justice and police, family violence and community services, health, child protection, housing and education - all working together to deliver services and support. The family violence reform also intersects with other key social policy reforms in justice, housing and the findings of the Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System.

The family violence system is getting stronger as each part of the system is reformed and connections across the system are built.

Some of these collaborative practices and working relationships have come about by careful planning, drawn from the recommendations of the Royal Commission. But other connections are being developed in response to new conditions, fast-tracked in many cases because of the 2019-2020 summer bushfires and COVID-19.

Delivering the ultimate goal of generational behavioural change can only be achieved by the community, sector and government:

• listening to and working with the diversity of Victoria's communities
• forming partnerships to maximise our understanding of what is happening on the ground: with the community, services, across government and from people with lived experience
• sharing what we know, learn and do

Listening and learning

We’ve built the Rolling Action Plan by talking with Victorians who are experiencing family violence, victim survivors of family violence, those working to stop family violence before it starts and those who support victim survivors, from family and friends through to support services and the community.

We can't just rely on government campaigns to change society's attitudes, society needs to be involved in fixing its problems.

We’ve heard that, overall, the changes we are making are effective:

• Our prevention activity is opening new community conversations and changing attitudes.
• Victim survivors are better supported to be safer and to get on with their lives.
• We are improving our interventions so that perpetrators are more accountable now for their actions than they were four years ago.
• With more and more happening – new services, supports and prevention campaigns coming online - we need to provide more information about what we are doing.
• This web platform for the Rolling Action Plan is an example of how we will communicate better about the connection of activities across the reform.

Introduction

This is the second of the 3 rolling action plans to guide delivery of our 10-year plan to build a Victoria free from family violence.

During the first phase we began to roll out the foundational reform projects and programs and established two new agencies to strengthen primary prevention and response: Respect Victoria and Family Safety Victoria.

We are seeing the system come together. Over the next 3 years we will continue our planned expansion of programs and projects and delivery of the activities outlined in this second rolling action plan.

Evolving from outputs to outcomes

Around a quarter of the 227 Royal Commission recommendations remain in progress.

We will increasingly use the Family Violence Outcomes Framework as the organising framework of the reform.

Our focus is to show a clear picture of an integrated set of activities for each priority, how they connect to other reform activity – and how their delivery will enable us to achieve our objectives under each of the four Family Violence Outcomes Framework domains:

The Framework is supported by an implementation strategy that outlines our approach to comprehensive annual outcomes reporting. It sets out the actions we are taking to improve outcomes measurement, data collection and data quality and is supported by a whole of government approach to research and evaluation.

Index to the Rolling Action Plan 2020-2023

Children and Young People

Children and young people are recognised as victim survivors in their own right and some young people who have experienced violence and trauma will also use violence in the home.

This page outlines the differentiated support and safety needs of Victorian children and young people across the reform priority areas.

Sexual Assault and Family Violence

We know that sexual assault within an intimate relationship is often experienced by a victim of family violence.

This page recognises that sexual assaults on women and children share the same roots in gender inequity and power imbalance as other forms of family violence and outlines the family violence system response to sexual assault.

Reform-wide Priorities

Across the family violence system, we are designing our reforms, services and programs to be inclusive, equitable and accessible from the outset to better support all Victorians.

Three reform-wide priorities underpin the reform and guide delivery.

The principles behind the reform-wide priorities are set out in detail on these web pages; the activities that apply them are embedded throughout the Rolling Action Plan.

Priorities for 2020-2023

We have identified 10 priority areas for 2020-2023 which are critical for enabling and progressing the reform. They include the continued rollout of major projects and cross-cutting themes that support consolidating the reform across government.

The actions and activities for the next three years for each of the priority areas are the core of the Rolling Action Plan. Each priority has its own page setting out why it’s important, what we have done so far and what we plan to do next.

The Rolling Action Plan does not capture all activity across the reform. This is particularly so for projects and programs that are already fully delivered and transitioning to business as usual.

The 10 priority themes and projects for 2020-2023 are:

Showcasing reform delivery

Focus on two examples of family violence reform delivery:

Oversight

A revised governance and reporting framework will guide delivery of the next phase of the reform. This page outlines our approach.

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

During the pandemic, prevention and response to family violence has remained a critical priority for the government; all Victorian family violence and sexual assault services continued to operate.

This page summarises the key impacts of COVID-19 on Victoria’s family violence system: how we adapted and what we have learnt from the experience as we continue to rollout the reform.

Summary of Rolling Action Plan activities 2020-2023

Children and young people as victim survivors

The changes we are making in Victoria recognise the distinct needs of children and young people as victim survivors of family violence in their own right, and the cumulative harm that living with family violence creates.

We’re building a system in which children and young people will be able to access information, support and safety when and where they need it. We know we still have a lot of work to do.

Lived experience

Natasha Anderson, now a young adult, was a member of the inaugural Victim Survivors' Advisory Council. In 2019, Natasha wrote, illustrated, narrated and directed an animation of her experience growing up with family violence.

Her story tells us of the cumulative and devastating effects of family violence on children and young people and her family’s experiences of the system.

Listening to and validating their lived experience will help us build a better system for our children, which prioritises their safety and supports child victim survivors to ultimately thrive.

Natasha’s award-nominated film is shared with her permission. It is a powerful reminder for us to heed the voice of children.

Progress since 2016

The Royal Commission found that children and young people had been the 'silent victims' of family violence, but this was shifting. It also found resources were insufficient and not tailored to meet the distinct needs of children and young victim survivors.

Since 2016, significant progress has been made in strengthening our response. The foundations are being put in place that enable children and young people to be recognised as victim survivors in their own right and to drive change across all the places where children and young people interact with the system.

Information sharing

• MARAM, Victoria’s family violence risk assessment framework, has been designed with children as victim survivors in their own right. This means that the risk assessment tools, safety plans, practice guides and training are in place to assess and work with children and young people as victim survivors.
• Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme and the Child Information Sharing Scheme (CISS) prioritise the rights of children and their safety over any person’s right to privacy, promoting wellbeing and preventing the potentially devastating consequences of not sharing information.

The Orange Door network

• The Orange Door network is bringing together family violence, child and family and perpetrator services. This enables the system to take a whole of family approach which considers the individual needs of all family members, including children and young people.

Justice

• Victoria Police are asking questions specific to children and young people when responding to incidents. They are improving their consistency in referring children and young people to services and ensuring children are consistently recorded as protected persons on family violence protection notices.
• Court Support 4 Kids is a trauma-informed service which has been made available at some courts for victim survivors with children.
• Upgrades to the database enable child protection practitioners and practitioners in The Orange Door to search historical Victoria Police family violence (L17) reports back to August 2004.

Support

• The Preventing the Cycle of Violence Fund and Community Initiatives Fund have supported a number of trauma informed and strengths based initiatives specifically targeted to at-risk and vulnerable Aboriginal children and young people.
• Therapeutic interventions, flexible support,and counselling for children and young people is provided to keep children and young people safe and to support them to recover from their experience of family violence and sexual assault.

Delivery to 2023

More needs to be done to meet the needs of children and young victim survivors and to ensure their voice is heard. Building on the foundations, the focus over the next three years will be to continue to drive a consistent approach across the whole system. This includes:

• continued delivery of reform initiatives, including The Orange Door network
• delivery of evidence-based therapeutic support
• delivery of core and cluster refuges
• collecting data and evidence to inform the design and delivery of services

CISS implementation

CISS allows authorised organisations to share information to support child wellbeing and safety and is being rolled out in alignment with FVISS and MARAM.

When Phase 2 of MARAM and CISS is rolled out, education workforces including education and care services will be prescribed under the CISS.

The video provides a perspective on how child information sharing will benefit children.

Adolescents who use violence

Adolescent violence against family members occurs in a specific context and requires interventions that treat it differently from adult-perpetrated family violence.

Given young people’s need for care and protection, services responding to adolescent family violence require a specialist approach.

Adolescents who use violence in the home are a distinct group where the approach to intervention is not the same as it would be for an adult perpetrator. Young people who use violence against a family member are often also themselves victim survivors.

The justice system and the police response recognise their legal status as minors and the complex circumstances and factors over which they may have had little or no control and which might have contributed to their behaviour.

The Royal Commission said that adolescent violence in the home needed to be better recognised and understood and better resourced. The wellbeing of the young person who is using violence should be the prime consideration: diversionary and therapeutic responses are considered preferable to any punitive interventions available.

Approach to adolescents who use violence

Adolescents who use violence in the home is a complex issue and requires a different approach from traditional interventions available to victim survivors and perpetrators of family violence.

Since the Royal Commission, we have been building the evidence base for intensive and early intervention approaches for adolescents who use violence.

Overview

Sexual assault is often experienced within a family violence context.

Safe Steps, Victoria’s 24/7 family violence response line, found that 28% of women who used their services in 2016-2017 reported that they had been sexually assaulted by the perpetrator.

The intersection between sexual assault and family violence is well-established:

• The 2016 Personal Safety Survey noted that for 66 per cent of people who had experienced sexual assault in the last 12 months, this was perpetrated by a current or former partner, boyfriend or girlfriend or date.
• For those who have experienced sexual violence since the aged of 15, 87 per cent was perpetrated by a known person, including by intimate partners, other family members, friends, housemates, acquaintances and colleagues.

The reform will continue to address the connection between sexual assaults on women and children and family violence and its root cause in gender inequity and power imbalance.

Royal Commission sexual assault recommendations

The Royal Commission recognised that sexual assault is a common form of family violence and often an indicator of heightened family violence risk. As with other forms of family violence, intra-familial sexual assault is underreported, and women and children are overwhelmingly the victims.

The Royal Commission made two recommendations aimed at greater coordination and improved collaboration between family violence and sexual assault services.

While the recommendations are not yet fully implemented, progress is being made. Sexual Assault Services Victoria (previously Victorian Centres Against Sexaul Assault Forum) provides support and intervention to people who have been sexually assaulted. It is a prescribed organisation within MARAM, the new multi-agency risk assessment framework.

Strengthening our response to sexual assault

A joint project overseen by Sexual Assault Services Victoria and Domestic Violence Victoria has found that specialist family violence and sexual assault services complement one another and are often interconnected:

• They both provide different specialist services, sometimes to the same client, and a high level of collaboration already exists across the sectors.
• They share underpinning frameworks including a gendered understanding of family violence and sexual assault and commitment to trauma informed practice.
• These commonalities provide a solid foundation for further work that recognises the occurrence of sexual assault in all its forms, including in the context of family violence.

Key initiatives

1. Sexual assault strategy

In recognition of the range of forms that sexual assault manifests, and the complex service system interrelationships, a comprehensive sexual assault strategy will be developed. It will be informed by victim survivors and developed in partnership with the sexual assault and family violence sector.

2. Interface with The Orange Door network

Sexual Assault Services Victoria and Domestic Violence Victoria will shortly complete a joint project exploring how they can better interface with The Orange Door network to provide integrated support to victim survivors of family violence where sexual assault has been a feature of their experience.

3. Intermediaries Program

Successful pilots of an Intermediaries Program delivered assistance to people with a cognitive impairment who are complainants in sexual offences. $2.2 million was provided in the 2020/21 State Budget to continue the Intermediaries Program in 2020/21.

4. Sexual Assault Support Services

Following funding increases in 2019/20, access to sexual assault support services have improved to help meet increased community demand.

Funding to boost the capacity of sexual assault services was also provided as part of the Government's response to coronavirus (COVID-19).

As part of Victoria's recovery from COVID-19, the Government has also announced $8.1 million to build the sexual assault and family violence workforce, supporting coordination of up to 240 traineeships across the state.

5. Support for Aboriginal Victorians

Specific initiatives to support Aboriginal people, families and communities who have experienced sexual assault, including:

• a training package and practice tools to support the Aboriginal workforce in responding to disclosures of sexual abuse
• 3 Aboriginal designed and led sexual assault service pilots for victims and survivors of sexual assault, including child sexual abuse

6. Sexually Abusive Behaviours Treatment Service

We will continue to roll out the Sexually Abusive Behaviours Treatment Service, which is available for all age groups up to and including 17-year-olds, providing interventions for children and young people displaying harmful sexual behaviours.

7. Victoria Police

Policing Harm, Upholding the Right: Victoria Police Strategy for Family Violence, Sexual Offences and Child Abuse 2018-2023 takes an integrated approach to responding to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse, recognising the links between these crime themes and their cumulative harm.

Strengthening the legal response to sexual assault

1. Victorian Law Reform Commission

The Victorian Law Reform Commission is reviewing Victoria's laws relating to rape, sexual assault and associated adult and child sexual offences to identify opportunities to:

• embed and build upon previous reforms to sexual offence laws
• identify barriers to reporting and resolving sexual offences
• make recommendations to improve the justice system's response to sexual violence

The Commission’s report is expected to be delivered to the Attorney-General on 31 August 2021.

2. The Justice Legislation Amendment Bill 2020

The Justice Legislation Amendment (Supporting Victims and Other Matters) Bill 2020 was passed by Parliament in November 2020.

• The Bill amends the Judicial Proceedings Reports Act 1958 to make it easier for victim survivors of sexual offending to tell their stories, and to give permission for others (for example, family members or the media) to do so, without court involvement.
• The reforms will also make it easier for victim survivors to control how and when their stories are told, by allowing them to tailor their permission (for example, a victim survivor may give permission to publish their name, but not their image).
• Following further consultation with victim-survivors, family members of deceased victims and other stakeholders, further amendments to the Judicial Proceedings Reports Act 1958 will be developed and presented to Parliament in 2021 to amend the law relating to identification of deceased victims and other related issues.

Summary of activities to 2023

We will continue to integrate intersectionality across reform activity and programs, to deliver our commitment to Aboriginal self-determination, continuing to listen and learn from lived experience to build an inclusive and accessible system for all Victorians.

Overview

We all know that people from diverse communities have fundamentally different experiences of family violence. Those differences are often shaped by social attitudes, which in turn create structural barriers and long-term disadvantage and marginalisation including from the family violence service system.

Each person’s experience of family violence is different. Many Victorians face additional challenges and are at greater risk of violence, because of social structures of disadvantage that marginalise their cultural or social identity or their personal circumstances.

Adopting an intersectional approach allows us to consider the range of factors that can affect the risk, severity, frequency and diverse ways in which an individual might experience or perpetrate family violence.

For example, women with disabilities experience all kinds of violence at higher rates, at a higher severity and duration of abuse than women who do not have disabilities.

The Royal Commission into Family Violence recognised the additional barriers faced by people from diverse communities when seeking and obtaining help.

The Royal Commission called for more accessible, inclusive and non-discriminatory service provision, and an improved understanding of how family violence is experienced by people from diverse communities.

The Royal Commission identified the following diverse community groups:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
• culturally and linguistically diverse communities
• faith communities
• lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) communities
• people with a disability
• people experiencing mental illness issues
• older people
• women in or exiting prison or forensic institutions
• people working in the sex industry
• rural, regional and remote communities
• male victims
• young people and young adults (12–25 years of age)

Since the Royal Commission report in 2016 and the subsequent launch of the Victorian Government's 10-year plan to end family violence, fundamental changes have been introduced. These are strengthening the system to ensure intersectionality is considered in designing and delivering the family violence system.

Everybody Matters: roadmap for a safe and inclusive family violence system

In 2019 the Victorian Government released the Everybody Matters: Inclusion and Equity Statement.

The statement sets out government’s 10-year vision for achieving a more inclusive, safe, responsive and accountable family violence system for all Victorians.

The vision is to build a system founded on inclusion and equity where people are supported to be safe and free from violence; a system that is accessible to them and responsive to their unique needs.

Everybody Matters recognises that a range of characteristics define both how people might experience family violence and differentiates their needs. These factors often overlap and compound the barriers to support and include:

• age
• gender
• ability
• sexuality
• ethnicity
• culture
• religion

Everybody Matters: Inclusion and Equity Statement

The first Everybody Matters Inclusion and Equity Blueprint 2020-2022, due for release in late 2020, will outline the actions and initiatives that will be delivered to achieve the Everybody Matters Statement's 10-year vision of a more inclusive, safe, responsive and accountable family violence system for all Victorians.

In this video which was released in 2019, representatives from diverse community groups explain why the Everybody Matters: Inclusion and Equity Statement is so important.

Embedding intersectionality

These are some examples of how we are applying an intersectional approach to building the new family violence system.

It is not a comprehensive list; further detail, activities and actions are reflected elsewhere on this page, and in the individual Rolling Action Plan priority areas.

People with disabilities

The family violence reform is improving responses to the needs of children and families affected by disability.

People with disabilities and the Royal Commission into Family Violence

There are 10 Royal Commission recommendations specific to the needs of people with disabilities who experience family violence. Three are still in progress.

Culturally and linguistically diverse people

People from migrant and refugee communities experiencing family violence face additional barriers that make it particularly difficult to identify their needs and for them to get appropriate, timely and culturally safe support.

Residency status

• they may be on a temporary visa
• this can be weaponised by a perpetrator who might suggest they can’t leave or their visa will be cancelled

Social isolation

Social isolation can be an issue:

• particularly when newly arrived and with no or low English language proficiency and limited understanding of Australian law and our human rights standards
• these can be additional risk factors if appropriate supports in accessible languages are unavailable or inaccessible

Actions since 2016 to support Victorians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds include:

Prevention and early intervention

The 2020/2021 State Budget has provided $9.7 million over 4 years to support programs that strengthen the capacity of multicultural, faith and ethno-specific organisations to prevent family violence at its earliest stages.

Multicultural communities and the Royal Commission into Family Violence

Of the 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission, seven are specific to people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Three recommendations are still in progress:

LGBTIQ+ people

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or gender diverse, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) people also experience violence in their relationships or from family members.

During consultation for the Rolling Action Plan we heard from several LGBTIQ+ victim survivors of family violence about their experience. They told us that the family violence system needs to continue to address barriers to the identification of family violence, accessibility of services and the need for individualised responses.

A 2014 report by the University of New South Wales, “Calling it what it really is”, found that:

• 34.8% of all LGBTIQ+ participants reported that they had been abused sexually or physically by a previous partner
• rates of sexual and physical abuse were higher (52.5%) for trans and gender diverse and intersex participants
• only 12.9% made a report to the police and 31.3% never sought support, information or advice on the abuse

LGBTIQ+ and the Royal Commission into Family Violence

Of the 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission, four relate to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities. Three recommendations are still in progress:

Older Victorians

Elder abuse is any act which causes harm to an older person and is carried out by someone they know and trust, usually a family member. The abuse may be physical, social, financial, psychological and/or sexual and can include mistreatment and neglect.

The Royal Commission into Family Violence also highlighted elder abuse as family violence, recognising the unique dynamics between the older person and a family member, and that it can include intimate-partner violence or intergenerational family violence (such as an adult child).

Elder abuse is a significant, complex and sensitive community issue. Available evidence suggests that the causes of elder abuse may be gender inequality and ageism.

Evidence about the prevalence of elder abuse is limited in Victoria, although international research suggests up to 14 per cent of older people experience elder abuse in a given year.

Progress since 2016

Reform actions relating to older people and family violence include:

Delivery to 2023

The next phase of the Integrated Model of Care evaluation is underway. It will capture the client experience and inform future policy work and sustainable reforms.

We will develop an Elder Abuse Statement across the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, the Department of Justice and Community Safety, and Family Safety Victoria. The statement will:

• set out the shared commitment to ending elder abuse in a family violence context
• outline the partnerships and intersecting sectors that need to work together to support older people experiencing family violence
• set the expectations for the family violence service system to support older people experiencing family violence, including the role of The Orange Door network

Summary of activities to 2023

Overview

Aboriginal people know what is best for themselves, their families and communities. We acknowledge the right of Aboriginal Victorians to have decision-making control over the issues that affect their lives.

Family violence has a disproportionate impact on Aboriginal people in Victoria, particularly women and children, regardless of whether they live in rural, regional or urban areas.

Victorian Aboriginal women are 45 times more likely to experience family violence and, where violence occurs, 25 times more likely to be killed or injured than non-Aboriginal women.

We acknowledge that colonisation, dispossession, child removal and other discriminatory government policies have resulted in significant intergenerational trauma, structural disadvantage and racism with long-lasting and far-reaching consequences. We recognise that family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture and that family violence against Aboriginal people is perpetrated by both non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal people.

Embedding Aboriginal self-determination in the family violence reform aims to ensure a holistic, culturally safe approach to our delivery of prevention, response and intervention activities.

In a family violence context, Aboriginal self-determination requires a systemic shift of power and control from government and the non-Aboriginal service sector. It requires the transfer of power, control, decision-making and resources to Aboriginal communities and their organisations.

The bigger picture

Victoria has a nation-leading agenda to progress Aboriginal self-determination. In partnership with Aboriginal Victorians we are creating policies and establishing structures that put Aboriginal communities at the heart of decision-making on the matters that affect their lives.

The necessary reform to achieve and embed Aboriginal self-determination is large and will take time. Perhaps most significantly, this is being progressed through the Victorian Government’s commitment to advancing a treaty process with Aboriginal Victorians via:

2018

• Advancing the Treaty Process with Aboriginal Victorians Act 2018.
• Victorian Treaty Advancement Commission.

2019

• Establishing the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria.

2020

• Developing a truth and justice process for Aboriginal Victorians to reckon with injustices perpetrated against Aboriginal Victorians.
• Commencing formal treaty discussions.

Since 2014, the Victorian Government has been committed to self-determination as the guiding principle in Aboriginal affairs. This is expressed in the Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Framework 2018-2023 (VAAF), which recognises government practices and institutions have systematically discriminated and excluded Aboriginal people.

The VAAF commits government to undertake systemic and structural transformation to better enable self-determination. The VAAF applies to the family violence reforms.

The VAAF identifies four critical enablers for self-determination which require government action:

• prioritise culture
• address trauma and support healing
• address racism and promote cultural safety
• transfer power and resources to communities

Aboriginal self-determination and the family violence reform

Systemic change to embed these enablers will take time. However, family violence reform activities are working to progress the enablers and to support the achievement of key VAAF goals. For example:

Nargneit Birrang Family Violence Holistic Healing Framework

• launched in 2019
• an Aboriginal-led, culturally safe initiative to develop holistic healing approaches for Aboriginal families, children and young people to respond to trauma and promote wellbeing

Umalek Balit

• a Magistrates’ Court service for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and men who are attending for family violence related proceedings
• available at Melbourne, Mildura, Ballarat and Shepparton Magistrates’ Courts

Aboriginal Housing Victoria

• During 2020 we completed the handover of 1448 properties from the Victorian Director of Housing to Aboriginal Housing Victoria.

Dhelk Dja: Safe Our Way – Strong Culture, Strong Peoples, Strong Families

• It is one of the 10 Rolling Action Plan priority areas for 2020-2023.
• Dhelk Dja is an Aboriginal-led agreement to address family violence in Aboriginal communities.
• It commits Aboriginal services and government to work together and be accountable for ensuring Aboriginal people, families and communities are stronger, safer, thriving and free from family violence.
• Dhelk Dja is built upon the foundation of Aboriginal self-determination.
• The Dhelk Dja Family Violence Fund is for eligible Victorian Aboriginal organisations and community groups.
• It funds a range of Aboriginal-led tailored responses for victim survivors and people who use violence.

Royal Commission into Family Violence

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations left to be implemented, five relate to Dhelk Dja.

Download the frameworks

Connections to existing strategies

The Self-Determination Reform Framework and the Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Framework 2018 are both critical to Victoria’s commitment to self-determination and support delivering self-determination across government.

They work alongside and align to existing strategies, including:

Dhelk Dja: Safe Our Way – Strong Culture, Strong Peoples, Strong Families

• 10-year Aboriginal-led family violence agreement

Korin Korin Balit-Djak (Growing very strong)

• Aboriginal health, wellbeing and safety strategic plan 2017–2027

Wungurilwil Gapgapduir (Strong families)

• Aboriginal Children and Families Agreement

Overview

Embedding lived experience of family violence and the family violence system into policy development and service delivery will lead to better outcomes for victim survivors and for Victoria.

Through the First Rolling Action Plan (2017-2020) we have seen the benefits of taking the time to understand how victim survivors experience the system.

Lived experience practice in family violence is an emerging field. Over the next three years, in partnership with the family violence sector, survivor advocate groups and academia we will draft an agenda to develop this discipline. This includes more work focusing on children and young people’s experience and how to better hear and incorporate this into our reforms.

Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council

The most visible element of our commitment to embedding lived experience is the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council (VSAC).

... through their courage to share their personal stories, VSAC members have made a difference and started to shift and challenge thinking about family violence and disrespectful behaviours towards women.

VSAC Members represent their own diverse lived experience of family violence and include representatives from communities including Aboriginal communities, multicultural communities, people with disability, regional and rural Victoria, LGBTIQ+ communities, older Victorians, sex workers, criminalised women, family members who have lost relatives to family violence and people who experienced family violence as a child or young person.

Over the last 4 years VSAC has:

• contributed to the development of foundational strategies including our 10-year plan, 'Ending Family Violence: Victoria’s Plan for Change', as well as strategies for inclusion and equity, gender equity and primary prevention
• advocated for change and reform in family violence by sharing personal stories and providing keynote speakers for events
• provided advice across multiple government portfolios, relating to the design of courts, intersections with the NDIS, behavioural change campaigns and the design of a family violence memorial
• advised on legislative changes, including the Victorian government’s Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence Protection and Other Matters) Act 2018 and the Gender Equality Act 2020
• provided feedback and insights for the Rolling Action Plan 2020-2023 through participation in four deep-dive workshops on priority areas of members’ choosing: Primary Prevention, Housing, Legal Assistance and Courts

Liana Papoutsis is a victim survivor of family violence and was a member of the inaugural Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council. She explains how the reform benefits from embedding lived experience at every stage.

Victim Survivors' Advisory Council

Progress since 2016

People with lived experience have informed and influenced policy development and service design activities across the reform

Lived experience central to developing The Orange Door network

• People with lived experience were instrumental to the design of The Orange Door network: development of the concept, service model, website, communications, branding and physical buildings.
• People with a range of lived experiences were consulted as part of this work, as appropriate, including: service users of family violence services, family services and perpetrator services.
• The Orange Door Client Partnership Strategy has been co-designed with people with lived experience and outlines a vision and roadmap to embed clients as partners in all aspects of work related to The Orange Door network.

Lived experience delivered the Voices of Hope Project

• For the first time, victim survivors from across Victoria came together to identify what a better experience with the service system might look like.
• The project created a human-centred approach which positioned victim survivors at the heart of designing many of the family violence reforms.
• The collaboration created tools for government and service providers to use in policy development and service design.

Lived experience developed the Nargneit Birrang Framework

• An Aboriginal-led family violence holistic healing approach for Aboriginal communities across Victoria.

By including lived experience as one of our reform-wide priorities for the next three years we are signalling our continued commitment to embedding the wisdom and expertise of people with lived experience across the breadth of family violence reform.

Delivery to 2023

All four domains of the Family Violence Outcomes Framework integrate lived experience as an essential element.

VSAC and people with lived experience will continue to contribute to the development of

• policies and service delivery
• evaluations of key family violence reform projects
• advice to government agencies and ministers

2020 - 2021

• design and implement a refreshed VSAC model
• existing VSAC members complete their term
• refresh the Terms of Reference and Terms of Engagement
• continue to best reflect trauma-informed and strengths-based practice

2022

• the third VSAC council will be appointed

Royal Commission into Family Violence

Embedding lived experience into the family violence reform delivers on this remaining recommendation, but also influences the delivery of many other recommendations.

Summary of activities to 2023

Building momentum

The legal system and the courts themselves are the most 'unreal' place for many victim survivors. They are like a foreign land, with its own language and landscape. Victim survivors are vulnerable, hyper alert, fearful and anxious…

Court is a crucial part of a victim survivor’s journey when seeking protection from family violence. We are committed to having a court system where victim survivors of family violence feel physically, emotionally and culturally safe – a court that is accessible and where our diverse Victorian community, including Aboriginal Victorians, have equal access to justice.

Four years on from the Royal Commission into Family Violence, the courts have been transforming their response to family violence to make court safer, ensure people have the support they need, and keep perpetrators in view.

Specialist family violence responses, such as family violence applicant and respondent practitioners, are currently available at all headquarter courts.

Specialist Family Violence Courts build on this and provide further specialisation. Three Specialist Family Violence Courts are now operating, with another four to be delivered. Key features include:

• enhanced safety features, such as separate entrances for victim survivors and remote hearing facilities
• magistrates and court staff with training in family violence
• processes that give victim survivors more choice about how they want to participate in their court proceedings, for example, in person or remotely
• magistrates who have powers to mandate that perpetrators of family violence engage in programs to change their behaviour
• a dedicated service for Aboriginal Victorians

This trauma-informed approach to family violence means that victim survivors have more control over their court experience and have greater access to support services that can help them at court and beyond.

The safe waiting space provided me with a sense of control because I was given a choice.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has changed how the courts operate and has prompted courts to quickly adapt and make greater use of technology.

• The new Online Magistrates’ Court allows court users to participate in their hearing remotely.
• The fast-tracked Family Violence Intervention Order (FVIO) online form offers more choice and control for victim survivors when they apply for a FVIO.

The Magistrates’ Court will continue to develop and refine these initiatives with a view to expand and embed their use in the coming years.

While courts have made considerable progress to improve the safety and experience of victim survivors, there is still more to do. Courts will continue to improve their service to all Victorians, to keep victim survivors and their families safe through the court system and to ensure that perpetrators of family violence are appropriately held to account.

Progress since 2016

Court reforms are fundamental to Victoria’s 10-year plan to end family violence. Key activities which have been delivered since the Royal Commission have been grouped here into five areas.

Delivery to 2023

Activities for 2020-2023 will continue to progress the courts’ family violence reform. This overview groups delivery of our planned courts activities to 2023 under the relevant Family Violence Outcomes Framework domains.

Connecting courts across the reform

The ongoing delivery of connected reform activity is building further strength into the court reforms. For example:

• strengthening legal responses to family violence incidents through exploring opportunities for new legislation
• providing more funding and training to integrate legal assistance earlier in the response to family violence and improving family violence legal literacy to support better court outcomes
• extending MARAM training to other workforces intersecting with family violence
• integrating services across the reform and providing clearer referral pathways from courts to better support victim survivors with wraparound services

Reform-wide priorities

Activities to strengthen court services are informed by our reform-wide priorities of intersectionality, Aboriginal self-determination and lived experience.

Intersectionality

Victim survivors from diverse communities face a range of challenges and barriers when accessing the court system and processes. Initiatives to address this include:

• dedicated family violence practitioners at every headquarter court to support victim survivors and perpetrators during their court experience
• LGBTIQ+ family violence practitioners at the Neighbourhood Justice Centre, Melbourne Magistrates’ Court and Heidelberg Magistrates’ Court provide specialised practitioner support to the LGBTIQ+ communities
• the Umalek Balit program provides a dedicated support service for Aboriginal Victorians

The courts will continue to build on specialist programs which reflect the trauma-informed approach to family violence such as the LGBTIQ Family Violence Practitioners Pilot.

Intersectionality Overview

Aboriginal self-determination

Umalek Balit, which means ‘give strength’ in& Woiwurrung, the language of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations, is a dedicated Aboriginal family violence support program.

Umalek Balit supports self-determination and aims to redress the historical inequities experienced by Aboriginal people within the justice system. Umalek Balit has been developed in conjunction with representatives from Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations, Elders and Respected Persons, Dhelk Dja, Regional Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committees and court staff.

A cultural safety professional development program is introduced at each court location prior to Umalek Balit being implemented, enhancing workforce training and safeguarding Aboriginal court staff, including Elders and Respected Persons, who are involved in family violence-related hearings.

The Umalek Balit program:

• builds the court’s knowledge of Aboriginal people in Victoria and the barriers faced in accessing the justice system
• provides culturally safe and appropriate support, information and referrals to services
• improves the court’s capacity to engage with Aboriginal respondents and applicants in family violence matters
• improves the Victorian Aboriginal community’s confidence in the courts and justice system

Women’s and men’s practitioners work with Aboriginal people to guide them through the court experience. This includes offering culturally relevant, non-legal expertise regarding family violence matters.

Since Umalek Balit was established, the dedicated Koori Practitioner services have enhanced safety and improved perpetrator interventions. Umalek Balit improves alignment to Aboriginal self-determination through stronger engagement with Aboriginal community support services and creates greater cultural safety for Aboriginal clients and court staff.

Koori Practitioners are available at Melbourne, Shepparton, Mildura, and Ballarat Magistrates’ Courts.

I’m pleased that Aboriginal people are supporting Aboriginal people.

Koori Family Violence Practitioners support the Umalek Balit program.

This case study was collected from information provided by a Koori Women’s Family Violence Practitioner.

Aboriginal Self-Determination Overview

Lived experience

Lived experience informs the courts’ family violence reform.

A family violence consultant advises the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria on lived experience for victim survivors and their families. They provide advice on the design of new service models, operational processes and policies developed as part of the courts' family violence reform.

The views and experiences of court and family violence service users are regularly engaged during evaluations, such as the Remote Hearing Pilot Evaluation and the Evaluation of the Magistrates’ Court-led Family Violence Reform.

The courts are working to improve access to justice and help victim survivors feel supported and safe when they encounter the justice system, wherever they are in Victoria.

Lived Experience Overview

Measuring outcomes

Family Violence Outcomes Framework

Delivering the activities for this priority area will likely have the greatest impact in achieving outcomes against the following domains:

Royal Commission recommendations

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations still in progress, nine relate to courts.

Summary of activities to 2023

Building momentum

We are committed to a community-led response to end family violence against Aboriginal people, underpinned by self-determination.

We recognise that family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture and that family violence against Aboriginal people is perpetrated by both non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal people.

We acknowledge that colonisation, dispossession, child removal and other discriminatory government policies have resulted in significant intergenerational trauma, structural disadvantage and racism with long-lasting and far-reaching consequences.

Dhelk Dja: Safe Our Way – Strong Culture, Strong Peoples, Strong Families 2018-2028 is the key Aboriginal-led Victorian Agreement that commits Aboriginal communities, Aboriginal services and government to work together and be accountable for ensuring that Aboriginal people, families and communities are stronger, safer, thriving and living free from family violence.

Dhelk Dja sets out six guiding principles to achieve this vision:

• self-determination
• collaboration and partnerships
• strengths based
• culturally and trauma informed, resilience and healing-based approaches
• safety (cultural, physical and community)
• accountability, transparency and honesty of all parties

Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum

The Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum and its members are the individual and collective champions and strategic leaders overseeing the Dhelk Dja 10-Year Agreement. It is their responsibility to work closely with the community and stakeholders to implement Dhelk Dja and ensure that the principles of self-determination are at the heart of the Partnership Forum’s work.

The Partnership Forum, which meets three times a year, is the mechanism through which the Agreement comes to life. The agenda for each meeting reflects both the lived experience and the many voices and stories of Aboriginal people living across Victoria.

Dhelk Dja Agreement

The Dhelk Dja Agreement commits to the development of three-year action plans to articulate the critical actions and supporting activities required to progress the Dhelk Dja Agreement’s five strategic priorities.

Each of these priorities recognise the need to invest in Aboriginal culture, leadership and decision-making as the key to ending family violence in Victorian Aboriginal communities.

The Dhelk Dja 3 Year Action Plan 2019-2022 is providing a strategic framework for the implementation of significant priority investments.

In this video, Aboriginal Victorians explain why the Agreement is important and how the community is working together to deliver it.

Dhelk Dja: the symbolism in the image

Dhelk Dja are the Dja Dja Wurrung words for ‘good place’ pronounced ‘delk ja'.

The Dhelk Dja artwork in this video represents the 11 Dhelk Dja Action Groups that are working with Aboriginal communities to address family violence.

Progress since 2016

The key Dhelk Dja activities which have been delivered since the Royal Commission are grouped here into four areas.

Delivery to 2023

Activities for 2020-2023 will continue to progress Dhelk Dja's family violence reforms. We have grouped the planned actions for this priority under four headings

Connecting the Dhelk Dja Agreement across the reform

The Dhelk Dja Agreement recognises the need to respond to all forms of family violence experienced by Aboriginal people, children, families and communities.

The definition recognises that the cycle of family violence brings people into contact with many different parts of the service system.

Efforts to reduce violence and improve outcomes for Aboriginal people and children must therefore work across the family violence services:

• police
• the justice system and the courts
• housing and homelessness services
• child and family services
• child protection and out-of-home care
• health, mental health, and substance abuse

The Dhelk Dja Agreement connects across the breadth of reform activities. For example:

The Orange Door network

• Three Aboriginal access points are being delivered to complement The Orange Door network at Mallee, Barwon and Peninsula Bayside areas with the first due to be established in mid-2021.

Primary Prevention

• Primary prevention campaigns delivered by Respect Victoria will include a specific campaign for Aboriginal Victorians.

Housing

• Family Safety Victoria are increasing accommodation options for women and children escaping family violence.
• Department of Families, Fairness and Housing are supporting Aboriginal people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness through the new Victorian Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Framework, Mana-na worn-tyeen maar-takoort: Every Aboriginal Person Has a Home. The framework will build a new approach to ensuring Aboriginal Victorians have safe, secure and stable housing.

Victoria Police

• Victoria Police are improving how they capture data through a new methodology and a compliance framework.
• The framework will standardise how Victoria Police measures Standard Indigenous Question (SIQ) compliance against legislation and policy requirements.

Legal Assistance

• Increased referrals for legal support through Djirra.
• A formal referral pathway between The Orange Door network and Djirra was finalised in July 2020 to provide legal advice and support.

Courts

• Court Services Victoria has implemented Umalek Balit, a dedicated Aboriginal family violence support program, where women’s and men’s practitioners work with Aboriginal People to guide them through the court experience.
• This includes offering culturally relevant, non-legal expertise regarding family violence matters.

Reform-wide priorities

Activities to deliver a community-led response to end family violence against Aboriginal people are informed by the reform-wide priorities of intersectionality, Aboriginal self-determination and lived experience.

Intersectionality

The recognition in the Dhelk Dja Agreement of the need to respond to all forms of family violence experienced by Aboriginal people supports an intersectional approach to the delivery of the reform.

This approach must value the strength, knowledge and rich diversity of Aboriginal people, families and communities:

• Aboriginal people with disabilities and mental health issues
• LGBTIQ+ people
• Elders and older people
• children and young people
• people in or exiting out-of-home care
• people leaving State Government services such as prisons
• people living in rural and regional areas
• families comprising Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal family members

For example, Family Safety Victoria funded six Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations to undertake Rainbow Tick Accreditation and a Statewide Rainbow Tick Project Worker to support Aboriginal services' efforts towards accreditation.

This initiative builds and supports collaborative working relationships between LGBTIQ+ specific services and provides advice on culturally-appropriate content for the workforce development aspect of accreditation.

Intersectionality Overview

Aboriginal self-determination

We heard in our consultations with communities that to support Aboriginal self-determination it is important to embed Dhelk Dja across the family violence sector. Dhelk Dja is best supported through a holistic whole-of-community approach.

Aboriginal members of the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum developed and agreed operating guidelines for the Dhelk Dja fund. This included prioritising funding streams and setting evaluation criteria to ensure that Aboriginal organisations are prioritised to deliver Aboriginal family violence services.

Further activities include:

Aboriginal Self-Determination Overview

Lived experience

Including the knowledge and insight of Aboriginal people with lived experience of family violence ensures the reform meets the needs and aspirations of the Victorian Aboriginal community, including in the design, delivery and evaluation of services.

Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum membership is representative of the Aboriginal community and Aboriginal family violence sector.

The Aboriginal community in Victoria is represented on the Victim Survivors' Advisory Council.

Lived Experience Overview

Measuring outcomes

Family Violence Outcomes Framework

Activities in this priority area contribute to achieving outcomes against all the Family Violence Outcomes Framework domains:

*We acknowledge that while the Family Violence Outcomes Framework references the term ‘perpetrators’ the Nargneit Birrang Family Violence Holistic Healing Framework prefers use of the term ‘person/people who use violence’.

Royal Commission recommendations

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations still in progress, five relate to Dhelk Dja.

Summary of activities to 2023

Building momentum

The Royal Commission into Family Violence found that family violence is the number one cause of homelessness for women.

Understanding and responding effectively to the housing needs of victim survivors is key if we are to meet the reform’s ambition to ensure victim survivors are safe and supported to recover and thrive.

Meeting the housing needs of Victorians experiencing family violence is complex with each victim survivor bringing different needs and considerations.

While emergency accommodation may be the first response in a crisis, we know that many victim survivors want support to stay in their own homes.

The biggest trauma in your life is happening in what should be the safest place in your life, your home…

For those who can’t stay at home, they need assistance beyond short-term refuge. A stable home in a suitable location will help deliver the best outcomes: security and support to meet their needs for stable work and education.

Housing supports for someone experiencing family violence may include:

• a safe and supported place to stay in an emergency
• access to longer term social housing
• financial assistance to keep or obtain a private rental
• help to stay in their own home if they choose to

While the goal is to provide a pathway to stability so that families can move on with their lives, supporting victim survivors requires different responses at different stages.

Our priority is safety, whether that’s supporting victim survivors to stay at home or to leave.

It can be really challenging to know when is the right time to leave – when a woman has made that choice, it is essential to get her out.

If people in family violence situations don’t know that their physical needs like housing can be met, that traps them.

Our focus is now on:

• continuing to minimise risk at points of crisis by supporting victim survivors to exit safely from a family violence situation
• delivering the long-term solutions that will be most effective in re-establishing stability for victim survivors, including children

Some of the ways we will do this is to:

• continue to replace our communal refuges with new core and cluster model refuges providing greater privacy and independence
• increase support for victim survivors to stay in their own homes
• build more new social housing homes

Progress since 2016

The key housing activities which have been delivered since the Royal Commission are grouped here into three areas.

Delivery to 2023

The main housing activities include new activity and continued delivery of the significant long-term housing investments announced over recent years.

This overview of our housing activities to 2023 is grouped into five areas.

Connecting housing across the reform

Connections across reform activity are building further strength into our delivery of housing solutions.

Reform-wide

• Services across family violence, homelessness and social housing are working collaboratively to provide holistic support to victim survivors where housing is considered in the context of their wider needs.

Perpetrators and people who use violence

• Perpetrator-focused services are coordinating with housing providers to find alternative accommodation for perpetrators so more victim survivors can stay in the family home.

The Orange Door network

• Flexible support packages available through The Orange Door network and other family violence services providers are providing tailored options for immediate assistance beyond temporary emergency accommodation.
• $85.1 million over four years has been committed in the 2020/21 State Budget to continue providing flexible support packages.

MARAM and information sharing

• Extending the Multi Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework to homelessness service providers will help identify, assess and manage family violence risk for people using their services.

Reform-wide priorities

Activities to deliver safe, stable and affordable housing are informed by our reform-wide priorities of intersectionality, Aboriginal self-determination and lived experience.

Intersectionality

We are committed to meeting the needs of all Victorians when improving and expanding housing options. More housing options are already being delivered for people with disabilities, younger people, and large families.

Intersectionality Overview

Aboriginal self-determination

Government need to do more than seek input from Aboriginal organisations into service design and response – they need to give over the systems, resources, power and authority. Community need to be in control of all aspects including delivering our own self-determined programs.

Consistent across all the family violence reforms, the principles of self-determination underpin housing responses to family violence. Aboriginal-led initiatives form a combination of specific family violence reform activity and broader government activity to address the housing needs of Aboriginal Victorians.

Both contribute to better outcomes for Aboriginal family violence victim survivors and those who use violence.

Aboriginal Self-Determination Overview

Lived experience

Embedding lived experience allows us to capture insights which only someone who has experienced family violence can provide.

It supplements the data we collect and gives us a better understanding of what supports work. For example, victim survivors were consulted in the design for the new model of core and cluster refuges.

Our housing workshop with the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council heard that moving to somewhere secure and private are the principle considerations in deciding when to exit.

When you’ve lived through family violence and abuse, you actually live in a state of hyper-alertness for your own safety and that of your children…

It’s really unfair or sad to be taking someone from an unsafe situation and placing them in another location where it still feels quite unsafe.

We also heard that the sense of feeling unsafe never really goes away and hyper-vigilance becomes second nature.

It emphasises the importance of providing a holistic response to victim survivors, not just a new roof.

Listening to victim survivors

We learnt that little things can make a big difference. During consultation for the Rolling Action Plan we heard one participant in a housing workshop say that in her community something as simple as a hot shower somewhere safe was an instant stress reliever.

The video on this page tracks the five-year journey to open the Hope Street First Response Youth Service in Melton, in western Melbourne. A large proportion of the young people who go there will be escaping family violence.

Young victim survivors were asked what they wanted in the new building. Their lived experience informed the design.

The two things they asked for was really good wi-fi and a really nice bath.

Emotional trauma and physical trauma can be a big part of their existence and just being able to crawl into a nice bath with a great outlook… is something they really said they wanted to be able to experience.

Lived Experience Overview

Measuring outcomes

Family Violence Outcomes Framework

Delivering the activities for this priority area will likely have the greatest impact in achieving outcomes against the following domains:

Royal Commission recommendations

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations still in progress, ten relate to family violence housing support.

Summary of activities to 2023

Building momentum

Legal assistance for both victim survivors and perpetrators is an integral part of the family violence service system. It is both a source of advice on legal matters and a gateway to other support services.

Victim survivors need information about their legal options to support decisions about their family and safety needs and to advocate for their access to justice.

Legal assistance also helps perpetrators to understand police and court processes and to meet obligations associated with court outcomes, such as adhering to any court orders and conditions, including attending men’s behaviour change programs.

Legal assistance is integral to supporting better outcomes for children and young people who are experiencing family violence at home.

We are committed to ensuring that family violence legal assistance is effectively embedded and integrated across the family violence system.

The Royal Commission into Family Violence found that unequal access to legal assistance was facilitating perpetrators to abuse and exert control over victim survivors.

It has commonly forced victim survivors to deplete their financial resources to access legal representation.

The Legal Assistance reform priority is intended to address inequity to ensure that the justice system is accessible and effective for all.

The first phase of the reform has been focused on establishing strong foundations in the legal assistance sector by increasing access to legal support services, building a specialist workforce and ensuring there is a specific focus on Aboriginal Justice through dedicated funding for Djirra and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service.

The family violence reform is ongoing and further work is required to strengthen the integration of the legal assistance sector with the broader family violence service system.

Our priorities are:

• strengthening connections between legal services and the specialist family violence sector, including The Orange Door network
• increasing access, including to culturally safe legal services by investing in legal assistance for at-risk groups
• supporting the family violence, justice and legal assistance sectors through workforce initiatives to better identify and respond to client risks and needs
• working with the Commonwealth to embed family violence competency within professional development frameworks for legal practitioners

We have heard that several issues require further examination and consultation, including:

• access to justice barriers
• perpetrators’ exploitation of legal processes
• stronger pathways between legal and related supports

We are committed to addressing these issues through ongoing engagement with the legal assistance sector. This will ensure that the family violence service system continues to evolve to meet the needs of victim survivors and keep perpetrators in view.

Progress since 2016

Actions since the Royal Commission to improve access to legal assistance are grouped here into three areas.

Delivery to 2023

Legal assistance activities for the next three years builds on base funding and has a focus on early intervention, workforce capacity, service integration and responding to the impact of COVID-19.

This overview of our planned legal assistance activities to 2023 is grouped into five areas.

Connecting legal assistance across the reform

The reforms to increase access to legal assistance for family violence victim survivors and people who use violence connects and supports activities across the family violence reform. For example:

• the continued rollout of The Orange Door network will consider how legal assistance can be best embedded
• embedding a client-focused approach to developing the Specialist Family Violence Courts legal practice model
• strengthening knowledge of legal responses across other workforces which intersect with family violence

Reform-wide priorities

Activities to increase access to legal assistance continue to be informed by our reform-wide priorities: intersectionality, lived experience and Aboriginal self-determination.

At-risk and vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected by inadequate access to legal assistance. Activities outlined below will assist in improving access and services.

Intersectionality

Victoria Legal Aid and Community Legal Centres around Victoria are continuing to adapt and provide nuanced support for the communities they service. For example:

• Victoria Legal Aid is working with culturally specific services to identify the training and resources needed so their legal services are culturally safe environments.
• Victoria Legal Aid provides free access to interpreter services and information about their services in more than 20 languages.
• St Kilda Legal Service and Fitzroy Legal Service provide a free community legal service to assist LGBTIQ+ Victorians with their legal needs.
• Senior Rights Victoria, funded by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing and Victorian Legal Aid provides a free, confidential helpline for advocacy and legal assistance.
• Brimbank Melton Community Legal Centre runs the Vietnamese Lawyer Project in partnership with the Vietnamese Women’s Association to deliver legal assistance in the Vietnamese language

Intersectionality Overview

Aboriginal self-determination

Consistent with our commitment to Aboriginal self-determination, our legal assistance activities include Aboriginal-led, culturally appropriate options for Aboriginal Victorians.

Aboriginal Self-Determination Overview

Lived experience

Embedding lived experience is a key feature of the legal practice model at specialist family violence courts and in the future design and delivery of legal assistance programs and services.

Victoria Legal Aid - client-centred approach to legal practice model

Victoria Legal Aid is working with clients, staff, community legal centres, Aboriginal legal services, the courts, police and family violence services to design and deliver the legal services at five of Victoria's specialist family violence courts.

Actions include:

• exploring clients’ experience of family violence legal services in a court setting at two specialist family violence courts
• developing client stories and journey maps through interviews and discussions with clients about their experience
• holding workshops about the justice response with people with lived experience of family violence
• facilitating one-on-one consultations with people with lived experience

This approach will help the specialist family violence courts to offer a more therapeutic model of justice that promotes safety and accountability, while giving people intensive and integrated support.

Lived Experience Overview

Measuring outcomes

Family Violence Outcomes Framework

Delivering the activities for this priority area will likely have the greatest impact in achieving outcomes against the following domains:

Royal Commission recommendations

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations still in progress, four relate to legal assistance.

Summary of activities to 2023

Building momentum

The Royal Commission identified that organisations working with victim survivors and perpetrators were failing to share information and to identify, assess and manage risk effectively. This was compromising the safety of victim survivors and not keeping perpetrators accountable for their actions.

In response, we legislated the new Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework, known as MARAM, and the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme (FVISS).

The Child Information Sharing Scheme (CISS) was also introduced following numerous independent reviews and inquiries. It promotes shared responsibility for children’s wellbeing and safety and increasing collaboration across the service system.

Phased rollout

MARAM and the two information schemes are being rolled out in two phases:

• Phase One: Commenced 2018 across 850 organisations, covering approximately 37,500 professionals.
• Phase Two: Commencing April 2021 across 5,800 government and non-government organisations, covering approximately 370,000 additional professionals.

Phase One organisations

Phase Two organisations

What will this approach achieve?

The aim of MARAM is to ensure that people affected by, experiencing or using family violence are provided with an appropriate, consistent and capable response no matter where or how they engage with services.

MARAM aims to establish a system-wide shared understanding of what family violence is, and how to respond to it. By improving knowledge across all services of how family violence can impact people from different backgrounds and at different stages of life we can ensure that people get the help they need.

There is no one experience of family violence. MARAM recognises that each person's experience of family violence is shaped and influenced by multiple factors that may require specialised responses.

MARAM provides guidance on how to work with different groups of people and communities such as Aboriginal and culturally, linguistically and faith diverse communities; children, young people and older people; people with disabilities and LGBTIQ+ people, so that we understand how family violence affects them and how services might need to be tailored.

Understanding MARAM and information sharing

MARAM

• provides a comprehensive definition of family violence and supports workers to identify and assess family violence risk
• applies to a prescribed list of organisations and workforces across the services system including specialist family violence services, child protection, maternal child health nurses, courts and Victoria Police
• sets out the responsibilities of these workforces when they come into contact with individuals and families experiencing family violence

FVISS

• enables risk relevant information about victim survivors, perpetrators, alleged perpetrators and other people involved in family violence to be collected, used and shared between authorised workforces

CISS

• allows for broadly the same set of prescribed services and organisations to share information to promote the wellbeing or safety of children

This video highlights the reasons for the three schemes and how together they will benefit the wider service system and the lives of Victorians.

Supporting organisations to implement the schemes

Relevant organisations are required to change how they work and make sure their policies and procedures align with MARAM, and comply with the requirements of FVISS and CISS.

Tools, practice guides, training and grants are being provided to organisations and staff to support change management and help them implement the schemes.

MARAM promotes collaboration between workforces who deal with family violence, through a shared understanding of family violence and supported by effective sharing of information between government and non-government organisations and agencies that intersect with family violence.

MARAM and the information schemes have been developed to be adaptable, as we learn more through research and evaluation or as circumstances change. For example, additional material has been prepared for workers and organisations in response to changed conditions under coronavirus (COVID-19).

In recognition of the size of the workforces, implementation is being rolled out in a way which recognises it will take time for organisations to change and for sufficient workers to be trained and use MARAM.

It is a big task but each step counts. As each new health, community services, justice and education worker is trained and puts the training into practice, we are building a system or ‘web’ across the community with workers who can recognise family violence and offer help.

During consultation, a family violence sector worker shared what MARAM and information sharing is – and what it does:

MARAM gives us the tools to identify, assess and manage family violence risk. FVISS is the mechanism to share relevant family violence risk information. Training tells us what is relevant risk information. If the scheme is working well, there's little risk of important information not being shared.

Children and young people under MARAM

MARAM recognises children and young people as victim survivors of family violence in their own right.

It is a core principle of MARAM that children and young people who are victim survivors of family violence have a voice and should be heard. This recognises that children are present in one third of family violence incidents in Victoria.

MARAM recognises risk factors caused by perpetrator’s behaviour which are specific to children. For example, perpetrators often engage in behaviours that damage the relationship between a mother and her child or children.

Tactics that undermine confidence in parenting and undermine the child-parent relationship can have long-term effects on the psychological, developmental and emotional wellbeing of the children.

This video explains how the MARAM Framework has been developed to consider the needs of children and young people as victim survivors.

Progress since 2016

The key MARAM and information sharing activities which have been delivered since the Royal Commission are grouped here into four areas.

Delivery to 2023

This overview of our planned MARAM and information sharing activities to 2023 is grouped into five areas:

Connecting MARAM and information sharing across the reform

The ongoing delivery of connected reform activity is contributing to growing the reach and strength of our risk assessment and management and information sharing. For example:

• workforce capability and capacity-building is aligned to the implementation of MARAM
• competency in applying MARAM and information sharing policies, procedures, practice guidance and tools is a key deliverable in the industry plan for workforce development
• when fully implemented our risk assessment and management frameworks will support collaboration and consistency across the specialist family violence workforce and the workforces that intersect - in community services, health, justice and education
• the reforms improve shared understanding of the structural inequalities and barriers experienced by Aboriginal and diverse communities and at-risk age groups

This connected delivery will continue to contribute to better outcomes for victim survivors.

Reform-wide priorities

Activities to delivered MARAM and information sharing are informed by our reform-wide priorities of intersectionality, Aboriginal self-determination and lived experience.

Intersectionality

Intersectionality is embedded as a core principle of MARAM. It recognises that social categorisations – such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, language, religion, class, socioeconomic status, gender identity, ability or age – can intersect in a way which compounds discrimination or disadvantage for either an individual or group.

Under MARAM:

• Family violence practitioners consider intersectionality as one of four key components of their structured professional judgement.
• Guidance on reflective practice and unconscious bias are included in the MARAM Foundation Knowledge Guide.
• The Intersectionality Capacity Building Project is developing specific tools to apply an intersectional lens in all family violence practice, building on MARAM Practice Guides.

Intersectionality Overview

Aboriginal self-determination

We acknowledge the ongoing leadership role of Aboriginal communities in addressing and preventing family violence, and will continue to work in collaboration with Aboriginal Victorians to eliminate family violence from all communities.

MARAM recognises:

• broader Aboriginal definitions of family violence, including community violence
• the need to reduce the disproportionate impact of family violence on Aboriginal people, particularly women and children
• the need to continue to develop our evidence base to ensure effective and targeted responses for priority communities

Aboriginal engagement in developing and implementing the MARAM Framework

A range of Aboriginal stakeholders were consulted during the development of the MARAM Framework, including the risk assessment tools, practice guidance and training.

In addition to attendance at the Aboriginal Co-Design Forum and Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum, representatives of Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations were engaged directly on specific products.

The MARAMIS Expert Advisory Group includes Aboriginal community sector membership.

A range of Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations have been funded to lead implementation of MARAM and information sharing schemes within Aboriginal-specific services; a working group composed of these organisations provides ongoing input and advice on reform implementation and design.

Delivery of MARAM with Victoria's Aboriginal communities

Some examples within MARAM of improvements to service delivery for Aboriginal peoples and communities include:

• MARAM assessment tools
  • include specific questions for people who identify as Aboriginal, which aims to improve the quality of risk assessment and safety planning for Aboriginal people
• Cultural safety as a MARAM principle
  • Principle 7 of MARAM emphasises that services and responses provided to people from Aboriginal communities should be culturally responsive and safe
  • the principle recognises Aboriginal understanding of family violence and rights to self-determination and self-management
  • it takes account of their experiences of colonisation, systemic violence and discrimination and recognises the ongoing and present day impacts of historical events, policies and practices
  • the principle applies to improving the cultural capability of mainstream services as well as supporting Aboriginal people to access Aboriginal community controlled services where they choose to
• MARAM Practice Guides
  • include specific guidance on risk management for Aboriginal people, including asking whether people wish to be referred to an Aboriginal-specific service
• The Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme (FVISS)
  • FVISS Ministerial Guidelines include specific guidance on sharing information about Aboriginal people
  • MARAM/FVISS implementation for Aboriginal services and communities is driven by the Dhelk Dja Aboriginal Family Violence Agreement

Aboriginal Self-Determination Overview

Lived experience

The Victim Survivors' Advisory Council was consulted during development of the MARAM Practice Guides.

Victim survivor self-assessment of risk is the first consideration in the MARAM structured professional judgement model.

Lived Experience Overview

Measuring outcomes

Family Violence Outcomes Framework

Delivering the activities for this priority area will likely have the greatest impact in achieving outcomes against the following domains:

Royal Commission recommendations

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations still in progress, three relate to MARAM and information sharing.

Summary of activities to 2023

Building momentum

Every time a person who uses violence interacts with the service system, there is an opportunity to affect behaviour change and intervene.

Behaviour change is more likely to happen when the government, the broader service system, community and society are working together to prevent violence happening and intervene early when it does. This creates a web of accountability that:

• centres on victim survivors and keeps women and children safe
• stops perpetrators from committing further violence
• holds them to account
• keeps them in view
• supports them to change their behaviour and attitudes

While much of the family violence system has a long-standing role of keeping perpetrators in view, fully establishing an effective web of accountability will take time. It requires continuing cultural change across the whole service system, to tilt the focus of reform to the perpetrator.

This ongoing shift will increasingly be reflected in our approach to reform delivery in areas such as:

• The Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework (MARAM) and information sharing
• The Orange Door network
• Victoria Police operational reforms
• Justice and community-based perpetrator programs
• Dhelk Dja initiatives focused on people who use violence
• Central Information Point
• Specialist Family Violence Courts

Acknowledging Aboriginal terminology

‘People who use violence’ is the preferred term used by some Aboriginal people and communities, recognising that the term ‘perpetrator’ can create a barrier to engagement with people who use violence.

Aboriginal-led prevention and response work with people who use violence is guided by frameworks such as ‘Nargneit Birrang’, the Aboriginal holistic healing framework for family violence. These approaches acknowledge the impact of intergenerational trauma, colonisation and racism, and the need for healing to be incorporated into behaviour change programs.

In this video, Uncle talks about ways that people who are angry and frustrated can calm down when they feel overwhelmed: how to manage the build-up of tension and to think differently about triggers. Uncle also suggests ways that family members can help others to avoid explosive conflict.

Adolescents who use violence

Adolescent family violence is a distinct and complex form of family violence requiring a differentiated, whole of family response that is developed and trauma informed.

Information about how the family violence reform is responding to the needs of adolescents who use family violence, is discussed in the Children and Young People page of the Rolling Action Plan.

Adolescents who use violence

Primary prevention of family violence

While perpetrator accountability is critically important, we know that efforts to stop violence before it starts is equally important. Primary prevention aims to stop violence by addressing the underlying drivers.

Primary Prevention

Progress since 2016

We have strengthened and broadened the intervention system, by working together with agencies and services that interact with perpetrators and people who use violence.

Developing a new approach to perpetrators

In 2016, the Expert Advisory Committee on Perpetrator Interventions (EACPI) was established in response to the Royal Commission into Family Violence. The EACPI was asked to consider how to increase the accountability of perpetrators and shift the burden away from victim survivors.

EACPI’s final report and recommendations are informing our whole-of-system approach to perpetrator accountability.

The key activities for perpetrators and people who use violence which have been delivered since the Royal Commission are grouped here into five areas.

Delivery to 2023

We will work with our sector partners, to draw on the experiences of perpetrators and people who use violence, to progress these reform activities.

Responding to the vision and intent of the Expert Advisory Committee on Perpetrator Interventions (EACPI), activities are grouped under three themes for this work program over the next three years:

• Enhanced service responses
• Cultural safety and inclusion
• Enablers

Our program reflects both perpetrator-specific activity and broader actions across the reform that supports the aims of this priority.

1. Enhanced service responses

2. Cultural safety and inclusion

3. Enablers

Connecting perpetrators and people who use violence across the reform

Activities in this priority area support, and are equally supported by, delivery more broadly across the family violence reform.

Reform-wide priorities

Activities to keep perpetrators accountable, connected and responsible for stopping their violence are informed by our reform-wide priorities of intersectionality, Aboriginal self-determination and lived experience.

Intersectionality

The strategic priorities of the Everybody Matters: Inclusion and Equity Statement are being progressively applied across perpetrator interventions.

This will strengthen existing and emerging perpetrator interventions – in line with EACPI’s recommendations – so that they meet the needs of all perpetrators, including those from culturally diverse backgrounds, those with disabilities, and those from the LGBTIQ+ community. This aligns with EACPI’s findings that certain cohorts of perpetrators do not have access to appropriate services.

The Family Violence Multi Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework (MARAM) and perpetrator-focused practice guides will address intersectionality and trauma-informed practice when responding to perpetrator risks and/or needs.

We are building an evidence base from our trials of new interventions to help us design and deliver tailored services for people who use violence who:

• are fathers / parents
• have alcohol and other substance abuse issues
• have a mental illness
• have cognitive impairment
• are women who use force

We are also building an evidence base from our trials of new interventions to help us design and deliver tailored services for people who use violence against:

• Aboriginal people and communities
• people from culturally diverse communities
• people who are LGBTIQ+
• older people
• people with a cognitive impairment or disability

Activities in this priority area which support delivery of the reform through an intersectional lens are reflected in the Progress since 2016 and Delivery to 2023 content on this page.

inTouch

inTouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence (inTouch) provide integrated, culturally responsive services to migrant and refugee communities.

inTouch is funded to deliver the Motivation for Change program, which supports men from migrant and refugee communities who use violence towards family members. This program includes intensive group work and one-on-one case management support for participants to learn ways to relate to people without using violence.

Intersectionality Overview

Aboriginal self-determination

We will continue to support advancement of self-determination through partnerships with Aboriginal organisations and community in accordance with the vision and guiding principles of the Dhelk Dja Agreement and Nargneit Birrang.

Activities relating to people who use violence and which support Aboriginal self-determination are reflected in the Progress since 2016 content and in the actions set out in Delivery to 2023 on this page

Aboriginal Self-Determination Overview

Lived experience

Strategic engagement is being strengthened at Family Safety Victoria to ensure the voices of lived experience and their experience of the service system are reflected in policy development and service design, including in the design and delivery of perpetrator programs and interventions.

The Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council is supporting development of the perpetrator work program, including the development of the Family Violence Outcomes Framework and theory of change for perpetrator accountability.

The Orange Door network statewide concept and service model has been designed using input from people with lived experience, including perpetrators and people who have used violence and have accessed behaviour change programs.

A data collection process to better understand and measure peoples’ experience has been introduced to collect feedback from all clients, including people who have used violence, to understand their experience of The Orange Door network.

Lived Experience Overview

Measuring outcomes

Family Violence Outcomes Framework

The perpetrator domain of the Family Violence Outcomes Framework has been refreshed in 2020, to include a more holistic approach to perpetrator accountability and greater scope for therapeutic and non-punitive responses to perpetrators and people who use violence.

Delivering the activities for this priority area will likely have the greatest impact in achieving outcomes against the following domains:

Royal Commission recommendations

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations still in progress, six relate to perpetrators and people who use violence.

Summary of activities to 2023

Building momentum

It is more important to prevent a problem rather than spending a lot of money, time, lives lost [and] children’s lives destroyed in trying to correct the problem in the aftermath.

Primary prevention is a long-term agenda that aims to prevent violence from ever happening in the first place. Primary prevention works by identifying the deep underlying causes of violence – the social norms, structures and practices that influence individual attitudes and behaviours – and acting across the whole population to change these, not just the behaviour of perpetrators.

Family violence and all forms of violence against women are driven by gender inequality and other forms of discrimination that give rise to power imbalances.

We must call out and challenge bad attitudes towards women and behaviours, structures and systems to stop family violence before it starts.

On average, one woman per week is killed in Australia by a current or former male partner.

Everyone has a role to play, from grassroots community-based organisations to women’s health services, education providers, sporting associations, the arts, workplaces, all levels of government, local communities and individuals.

In this phase of the reform we will integrate primary prevention more widely and broaden activities beyond the prevention sector for greater collective impact.

Primary prevention and coronavirus (COVID-19)

While the pandemic has affected all Victorians, it has disproportionately impacted women. The risk factors exacerbating family violence rose during the lockdown. As the economic impact deepens the longer-term effects of employment insecurity are expected to be hardest on women.

International evidence shows that emergencies and crises, including the coronavirus pandemic exacerbate existing gender inequalities and other forms of discrimination and inequality.

Primary prevention has been critical to the COVID-19 crisis response to ensure our messaging about behaviours that are unacceptable reaches the widest possible audience, and those at risk know where they can seek help.

Primary prevention will be just as critical to our recovery. We will build prevention approaches into our recovery efforts.

Primary prevention action starts with addressing the gendered drivers of violence against women and other forms of discrimination.

We are doing this by using a range of approaches across multiple settings: policy, program, institutional and legislative responses are being delivered in the places where Victorians live, work, learn and meet.

This video was released in March 2020 to coincide with the publication of our first annual report about delivery of our primary prevention strategy. In the video Gabrielle Williams, Minister for Family Violence, outlines what has been achieved - and where we are headed next.

I’d like to see a new motto on Victorian number plates – 'Victoria, a state of respect' or 'I’m an active bystander' car plate, stickers. We need to embed the prevention messaging in our lives.

Building on the foundations

Approximately one in four women has experienced intimate partner violence compared to one in 13 men.

Progress since 2016

The Victorian Government has worked with community-based organisations to develop and embed a statewide primary prevention approach to family violence.

The key primary prevention activities which have been delivered since the Royal Commission are grouped here into four areas.

1 Delivering primary prevention initiatives

2 Building evidence

3 Strengthening the prevention workforce

4 Grassroots activity

Government’s focus on building gender equality and driving primary prevention of family violence and all forms of violence against women builds on the extensive work of grassroots and women’s organisations who have been delivering and championing primary prevention for decades.

Partnerships with organisations representing diverse communities are key to progressing effective prevention work. We also know that supporting local activities and coordinating prevention action around key events increases awareness and promotes positive changes in attitudes and behaviours.

Delivery to 2023

This overview of our planned primary prevention activities to 2023 is grouped into four areas.

1 Strengthening the foundations

2 Scaling up prevention programs and campaigns

We will scale up primary prevention activity across a range of settings, sectors, population groups and geographies, matched by resourcing and investment models that support longer term effort. This will increase the reach and impact of our primary prevention efforts over time, creating the basis for long-term cultural change.

Programs will be designed to reinforce the messages in campaigns and translate them into practical action.

3 Workforce development

We will deliver training and other learning and development opportunities to continue building a skilled, capable and diverse prevention workforce. We will engage workers in schools, community health and across the not-for-profit sector to increase prevention expertise and develop the next generation of prevention practitioners.

Through the reform-wide Industry Plan for workforce development and the first rolling action plan under that plan, Strengthening the Foundations, Government is building workforce capability in primary prevention.

4 Research and evaluation

We will commission research addressing key gaps in understanding about the factors leading to family violence and how these can be prevented. This will lead to more effective prevention programs and services for Victorian communities.

Connecting primary prevention across the reform

As we advance primary prevention activities over the next phase of the reform, we will continue connecting with other family violence and gender equality reform initiatives.

Equality and intersectionality

• Safe and strong: A Victorian Gender Equality Strategy sets out the Victorian Government's vision and actions for gender equality.
• Everybody Matters: Inclusion and Equity Statement(opens in a new window) the Victorian Government’s 10-year vision for a more inclusive, safe, responsive and accountable family violence system.

Workforce

• Building from Strength: 10-Year Industry Plan for Family Violence Prevention and Response, which will see increased family violence response and prevention capability across a range of workforces that intersect with family violence.

Dhelk Dja

• Aboriginal-led prevention under Dhelk Dja: Safe Our Way – Strong Culture, Strong Peoples, Strong Families requires Aboriginal services, Aboriginal communities and government to work together and be accountable for ensuring that Aboriginal people are stronger, safer, thriving, and living free from family violence.

Connecting to broader social reforms

• The Victorian public health and wellbeing plan 2019 – 2023 and the Municipal Health and Wellbeing Plans now require the Victorian government and Victorian councils to report on the measures they are taking to reduce family violence and respond to the needs of victims.

Reform-wide priorities

The Victorian Government is committed to creating policy and programs that are relevant, practical and meet the diverse needs of our community.

Intersectionality

We are supporting diverse communities across Victoria to continue to lead in innovating and trialling new approaches to primary prevention.

This includes:

• guidance resources developed by Respect Victoria on embedding diversity and intersectionality into primary prevention program design and delivery
• improving data collection and the primary prevention research approach to respect complex and intersectional experiences
• ensuring commissioned research programs have a particular focus on understanding the intersectional drivers of all forms of family violence and what works to prevent it
• raising the profile of diverse forms of family violence and providing practical guidance for the design, delivery and evaluation of primary prevention work

Late 2020

• Prevention initiatives piloted as part of the LGBTIQ Family Violence Prevention Project 2019-2021 and informed by Rainbow Health Victoria’s Pride in Prevention, a guide to primary prevention of family violence experienced by LGBTIQ+ communities.

2020-2021

• Guidance resources developed to support organisations to apply an intersectional lens to primary prevention program design and delivery.

2020-2022

• Implement the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Multicultural Family Violence program to strengthen multicultural, faith-based and ethno-specific organisations to prevent, identify and respond to family violence in line with the MARAM framework and to ensure community members are accessing the services they need.
• Co-design and deliver primary prevention initiatives with culturally diverse communities to meet the needs of migrant and refugee communities. For example:
  • the two-year Safer and Stronger Communities pilot started in 2018 to support five leading settlement and multicultural organisations to build their own organisational capacity in primary prevention using the Our Watch Workplace Equality and Respect standards.
• Working closely with LGBTIQ+ health and community service providers.

Respect Victoria’s behaviour change campaigns will focus on how key drivers of family violence play out in different communities, reflecting the diversity of Victorians.

Intersectionality Overview

Aboriginal self-determination

Victoria’s leading by having Aboriginal voice in discussions.

We are committed to a self-determined approach to primary prevention activity for Aboriginal Victorians.

Awareness-raising campaigns and targeted prevention activities include:

• providing a culturally safe space for Koori women aged 13-18 to explore the dynamics of healthy relationships
• strengthening Aboriginal women’s capacity to take a leadership role in prevention through the Spark Health’s Wellah Women Aboriginal Health and Happiness project

Aboriginal women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised and 11 times more likely to die as a result of family violence compared to other Australian women.

• Supporting 11 Aboriginal organisations to deliver prevention activities with their communities through the Aboriginal Primary Prevention Innovation Fund.
• Strengthening Aboriginal-led prevention by updating the Indigenous Family Violence Primary Prevention Framework and implementing an Aboriginal-led family violence prevention campaign and education program.
• Supporting Aboriginal-led innovative and new approaches to prevention with the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum, including targeted investment for Aboriginal-led research and community education programs.
• Development of a new Aboriginal-led prevention funding model.

Aboriginal Self-Determination Overview

Lived experience

We will continue to provide support for primary prevention programs and policies that are created and informed by the lived experience of victim survivors, including:

• Respect Victoria will develop a victim survivors engagement plan to ensure all primary prevention efforts are informed by lived experience
• we will work with the Victim Survivors' Advisory Council during the development of the Free from Violence Second Action Plan (2021-2024) to ensure it includes the lived experience of victim survivors

Lived Experience Overview

Measuring outcomes

Family Violence Outcomes Framework

Delivering the activities for this priority area will likely have the greatest impact in achieving outcomes against the following domains:

Royal Commission recommendations

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations still in progress, three relate to primary prevention.

Summary of activities to 2023

Building momentum

A successful research and evaluation program will provide the information we need to make sure that funding for family violence initiatives is contributing to achieving outcomes and delivering value for money.

A strong and effective family violence evidence base is key to delivering long-term, sustainable reform of our family violence system. It tells us what is working, what needs to be adjusted, and where to focus our efforts for the greatest effect.

Building the evidence base for such broad ranging reforms is a long-term project.

• Our early focus has been on building evaluation rigour and capability, to strengthen the body of evidence and to use this knowledge to drive future service design and delivery.
• We are turning our efforts to research activities that fill gaps in our evidence base across prevention, early intervention and response.
• Improving the quality, availability and use of data underpins our research and evaluation activities and is critical in driving improvement.

Over the next three years we will build a stronger evidence base by coordinating and expanding research, data and evaluation activities working across government and in partnership with the prevention and response sectors and academia.

A Victorian Government Family Violence Research agenda and program will support the whole of government approach to research on family violence across primary prevention, early intervention and response.

A clear, coordinated research program with partners will reduce duplication, identify and prioritise gaps, support knowledge transfer and inform policy and practice.

This will help us in measuring how we are going against the outcomes in the Family Violence Outcomes Framework and give us valuable information to help us in the design and delivery of the reform.

Improvements to research and evaluation will deliver:

• a better understanding of how to prevent family violence before it happens
• knowledge of where to intervene early for the greatest impact
• an effective way to understand and show reform progress and impacts
• an evidence base to support us to effectively direct resources to the responses that make a difference
• strengthened culturally safe programs
• a platform to share achievements and lessons

It's a 'learning all the time' curve - it will probably never stop.

Progress since 2016

We have been building capacity and capability to improve data collection, research and evaluation across the reform.

The individual priority areas in this Rolling Action Plan include further detail on relevant research, evaluation and data collection, and report progress in delivery.

The key research and evaluation activities which have been delivered since the Royal Commission are grouped here into three areas.

1 Research and evaluation of key reform initiatives

Effective research and evaluation help us understand where we can focus and improve our reform delivery.

These are examples of evaluation projects and research programs across the reform.

2 Data collection and reporting

We are:

• improving the quality of our data
• making it more widely available across government and the sector
• establishing systems and frameworks to support data collection and reporting across prevention and response

3 Building evaluation capability

We have been building capability and capacity to undertake effective research and evaluation.

For example, the Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS) is:

• developing policy and guidelines for evaluation of family violence initiatives
• developing accessible staff learning resources
• sharing learnings and findings of evaluation outcomes across government

The DJCS Koori Justice Unit has been working with Aboriginal community-controlled organisations to build capacity to conduct evaluations.

Delivery to 2023

Over the next three years we will continue to strengthen the family violence evidence base.

We will do this in partnership with the sector and through cross-government activities that build on current momentum and support continuous improvement. We will also target identified information gaps to build evidence in individual programs, initiatives and reform areas.

Collectively, these activities will enable continuous improvement cycles that support evidence-informed policy making to translate to effective services and initiatives that achieve outcomes.

This overview of our planned research and evaluation activities to 2023 is grouped into four areas. Additional research and evaluation activity supporting the reform is also reflected in the web pages for each priority.

1. Measuring change against a refreshed Family Violence Outcomes Framework

We are measuring and monitoring change against the Family Violence Outcomes Framework to understand the impact of the reform.

Our focus on measurement and monitoring is intended to build the validity and reliability of our outcomes data over the next three years.

We have released the Family Violence Outcomes Framework (FVOF) Measurement and Monitoring Implementation Strategy to continue to improve our data collection and measurement against the FVOF.

2. Progressing research on family violence

Greater transparency and collaboration would enable organisations working in the family violence sector to identify key research gaps and minimise duplication.

Across family violence prevention, early interventions and response we are working with Victorian universities, industry and agencies to build research partnerships that:

• draw on our respective strengths
• drive collaboration
• support information sharing
• help turn research into policy and practice

As part of our work to better understand the drivers, presentation and risk for all forms of family violence in Victoria, we will identify and target research into priority evidence gaps.

3. Monitoring and evaluation of service delivery and response

Government will continue its focus on monitoring and evaluation of programs and initiatives across the reform. Rigorous and high-quality monitoring and evaluation helps us to understand what works in preventing and responding to family violence.

4. Building data quality and availability

Improving the quality, availability and use of data is key to driving continuous improvement and underpins effective research and evaluation.

We are working across government and with the sector to strengthen data collection practices and to enhance and refine data systems. We are also improving how we share and use existing data by expanding routine reporting.

Examples of data quality and availability improvement work are outlined below:

Connecting research and evaluation across the reform

Activities in this priority area support, and are equally supported by, delivery more broadly across the family violence reform.

Reform-wide priorities

Research and Evaluation activities are informed by our reform-wide priorities of intersectionality, Aboriginal self-determination and lived experience.

Intersectionality

Targeted research will help us better understand the impacts of structural inequality and overlapping forms of discrimination or disadvantage, and ultimately help us create inclusive and equitable services and responses.

We will focus on working with the sector to improve data collection and build the evidence base for people from diverse communities. We will also continue to improve and refine data collection systems to make collection of key demographic information easier and more consistent.

The Everybody Matters, Inclusion and Equity Statement highlights significant gaps in research and data collection around access, inclusion and responsiveness to diverse communities.

Respect Victoria will release an intersectionality approach, including policy and guidance to improve data collection and research methods to inform our knowledge of the intersections between the drivers of violence.

Several research and evaluation projects across the reform that address intersectionality are outlined in Delivery to 2023 on this page.

Intersectionality Overview

Aboriginal self-determination

To build an evidence base, the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum has a strategy to monitor the performance of key initiatives, programs and actions. The Monitoring, Evaluation and Accountability Plan will support the Aboriginal-led data collection, research and evaluation agenda.

The plan:

• sets out a monitoring and evaluation strategy for the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum
• oversees performance monitoring of key self-determination initiatives, programs and actions on a three-year cycle alongside action plans in the Dhelk Dja agreement
• supports annual reporting to the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum following development of indicators to inform progress and strategic decisions about priorities

Aboriginal Self-Determination Overview

Lived experience

It is important that research across the reform hears and learns from voices of lived experience including children, in the collection and use of data, evaluation and research.

This is an evolving commitment as we deliver more initiatives.

Family Safety Victoria will prioritise research that embeds the voices of lived experience, and Respect Victoria’s victim survivor engagement plan is a strategy to ensure that lived experience is considered in policy and research development.

The Orange Door network continues to implement and refine routine capturing of client voice and using client voice data to inform continuous improvement.

Lived Experience Overview

Measuring outcomes

Ongoing data development, targeted research, and evaluations of reform activity will improve the evidence base and enable reporting of progress towards outcomes.

The Family Violence Outcomes Framework (FVOF) is the tool we are using to measure how we are doing. The FVOF was first published in the 10-year plan which described it as:

…a tangible tool to keep us accountable...measuring outcomes will provide evidence of what works –and what doesn’t – in delivering real and meaningful change.

The 4 FVOF domains convey the ambition of the reform and shape the design and priorities outlined in this Rolling Action Plan.

• They reflect the long-term outcomes sought through the collective efforts of the reform.
• They represent the key priorities in preventing and responding to family violence.
• They establish what will constitute success.

Our research and evaluation activities have an impact across all four domains, as we strengthen the family violence evidence base and use that to better understand reform outcomes.

Royal Commission recommendations

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations still in progress, four relate to Research and Evaluation.

Summary of activities to 2023

We thought it was a family violence case so I took the lead; it ended up being more child support. I kept the case and worked closely with the children’s worker. We got seven services involved but because I shared information the woman only needed to tell her story once.

Building momentum

Family Safety Victoria is leading the statewide rollout of The Orange Door network, referred to in the Royal Commission’s recommendations as support and safety hubs.

The Orange Door network aims to be accessible, safe and welcoming, providing quick and simple access to support for:

• adults, children and young people who are experiencing family violence
• families who need support with the care and wellbeing of children and young people
• perpetrators of family violence

Since opening in 2018, more than 100,000 Victorians have received help and support from The Orange Door network.

It brings together services as a partnership, so that individuals and families don’t have to go to multiple services or to retell their story multiple times to have their needs met.

The Orange Door network provides initial support to those in need. Services available through the network include:

• risk and needs assessment
• safety planning
• crisis support

The network can connect people to a range of services that provide ongoing safety and wellbeing supports.

Perpetrator accountability is also a strong focus, The Orange Door network engages perpetrators and works with the system, to hold them accountable for their actions and changing their behaviour.

This video is a glimpse into the services The Orange Door network provides and coordinates.

The Orange Door network is now operating in seven of the 17 Department of Health areas in Victoria:

• the latest two opened in the Central Highlands and Loddon in late 2020
• the Goulburn area is next
• a further six areas are set to open in 2021
• statewide coverage will be complete by 2022

Access to The Orange Door network in each local area is facilitated through the establishment of an Orange Door network primary site. Area-wide coverage is supported by two to three access points, outposted services and outreach. Telephone and email options for referrals and to access supports complete the network.

Several reviews have been conducted since The Orange Door network began operations in 2018. The outcomes of those reviews, together with operational experience, are informing our approach as we extend our operations into new areas.

A 2020 audit of The Orange Door network by the Victorian Auditor-General made nine recommendations for improvement.

Family Safety Victoria accepted all nine recommendations. Actions which address the Auditor-General’s recommendations are highlighted in the activities tables (Delivery to 2023 on this page).

Acknowledging the foundations

The Royal Commission found that collaboration between services that support people affected by family violence was difficult and inefficient. And when practitioners worked in isolation they had a limited view of the risks that victim survivors faced.

The Orange Door network is a flagship project of the Victorian Government’s family violence reform following the 2016 Royal Commission into Family Violence. It has been designed to support the Victorian Government’s wide-ranging social policy reform agenda which aims to strengthen support to children and families.

These reforms share the common objectives of achieving a service system for individuals and families that is more connected, better able to intervene before a situation reaches crisis point, and to seamlessly connect clients with the right services at the right time.

The Orange Door network enables practitioners with different specialisations to learn from and with each other, drawing on each other’s knowledge and experience. This provides an integrated assessment of risk and needs, and the ability to take a whole-of-family approach.

The Orange Door network provides cohesiveness of response to victim-survivors of family violence. The network reflects excellent collaborative practice between government agencies, police and non-government services

Progress since 2016

The key activities for The Orange Door network which have been delivered since the Royal Commission are grouped here into three areas.

Delivery to 2023

This overview of our planned activities to 2023, includes actions in response to the VAGO audit and is grouped into five areas. Our program for the next three years will enable The Orange Door network to realise its full potential and will result in better outcomes.

An iterative learning approach will ensure that Family Safety Victoria maintains its focus on continuous improvement.

Actions in response to VAGO recommendations are indicated with an asterisk (*) in the activities tables.

Connecting The Orange Door network across the reform

The Orange Door network is a transformational component of our service system.

The network works with and is influenced by initiatives and activities across related reforms. Key connections include:

Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management (MARAM)

• family violence framework and tools for The Orange Door network workforce

Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme (FVISS) and Child Information Sharing Scheme (CISS)

• information sharing legislation

MARAM and information sharing help identify, assess and manage family violence risk and promote child wellbeing and safety.

These enablers are critical for the assessment of perpetrator risk and risk management, which is core day-to-day business for workers in The Orange Door network.

Perpetrators who engage with The Orange Door network are supported to connect with services that work with them on behaviour change.

Reform-wide priorities

Activities to establish The Orange Door network are informed by our reform-wide priorities of intersectionality, Aboriginal self-determination and lived experience.

Intersectionality

We have designed The Orange Door network to provide inclusive, responsive and accessible services for individuals of any age, gender, ability, sex, sexuality, culture or religion.

The government’s Everybody Matters: Inclusion and Equity Statement provides guidance to the family violence system to foster inclusive, safe, responsive and accountable services.

Family Safety Victoria has developed an Inclusion Action Plan for The Orange Door network to embed inclusion, access and equity in services and policies, and to build the capacity of workers to respond to community members from diverse cohorts by applying an intersectional lens.

Intersectionality Overview

Aboriginal self-determination

The Orange Door network commits to embedding Aboriginal self-determination and works with Aboriginal communities and services with the aim of ensuring Aboriginal people receive culturally safe and appropriate service responses.

The principles of self-determination are embedded into practice by:

• Aboriginal representation in the governance of The Orange Door network, including Hub Leadership Groups and the establishment of Aboriginal Advisory Groups in each area
• providing a choice in Aboriginal specific or broader service responses
• embedding cultural safety for clients and staff of The Orange Door network
• employing Aboriginal Practice Leaders and workers in every area to provide additional support for Aboriginal clients.
• the development of the Concept Model and co-design of the service design elements of Aboriginal Access Points which will provide an alternative service pathway for Aboriginal Victorians experiencing or using family violence
• development of the Aboriginal Inclusion Action Plan, a three-year plan to embed inclusion, access and equity in The Orange Door network

Self-determination in implementation of The Orange Door network was overseen and supported by the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum and its sub-working groups.

Aboriginal Self-Determination Overview

Lived experience

The lived experience of people affected by family violence and who require support with the care, development and wellbeing of children, continues to inform service design, development and planning processes for The Orange Door network.

The Client Partnership Strategy outlines a suite of actions to move towards greater client partnership, in all aspects of service design, development and delivery. This includes increasing client representation in governance, reference and advisory groups.

The Client Voice process is also gradually being introduced to capture information about the client experience of The Orange Door network to inform continuous improvement.

This image of the Client Voice Survey shows the questions a client is asked when they have had contact with The Orange Door network.

A second evaluation of The Orange Door network in 2022 will seek to determine the impact and benefits of the service model for clients and gain critical insights into client experience and outcomes for victim survivors, perpetrators and families.

Lived Experience Overview

Measuring outcomes

Family Violence Outcomes Framework

Delivering the activities for this priority area will likely have the greatest impact in achieving outcomes against the following domains:

Royal Commission recommendations

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations still in progress, six relate to The Orange Door network. NOTE: The Royal Commission referred to these as Support and Safety Hubs in their report.

Summary of activities to 2023

Building momentum

This work has come at a time of huge social change. People are looking for work that is purposeful and meaningful. They want to give back to their communities and we need to capitalise on this appetite for values-driven work.

Strengthening the capacity and capability of the people who work to prevent and respond to family violence is critical to the reform’s success. We recognise that the specialist family violence and primary prevention workforces are distinct, each with a specific focus and expertise. Both are part of the broader family violence system we are building with the same shared goals.

We know that to deliver sustainable long-term reform we must develop the specialist family violence and prevention workforces and grow the family violence capabilities of the broader workforces that intersect with family violence, including:

• community services
• health
• police
• courts
• education

Building strength into our specialist prevention and response workforces means recruiting people with skills from a diversity of backgrounds to give us a pipeline of dedicated and skilled professionals.

We have to provide clear career pathways that develop expertise and knowledge and where people feel valued and supported, so that they stay.

It also relies on creating a system where specialist family violence and primary prevention sectors can work effectively together with the broader social services workforces.

Building from Strength: 10-year Industry Plan for Family Violence Prevention and Response (Industry Plan) is the strategy that will deliver this vision: a family violence and primary prevention workforce that is valued, skilled, empowered and supported to prevent and respond to all forms of family violence.

The Industry Plan is organised around four priorities:

• building prevention and response capability system wide
• strengthening the specialist workforce
• workforce health and wellbeing
• building a system that works together

The Industry Plan is sequenced into a series of three rolling action plans.

The first rolling action plan, Strengthening the Foundations, was launched in November 2019.

Progress has been made in delivering the plan’s 61 actions. These achievements are reflected on this page alongside the key activities that will set the course of workforce development over the next three years.

Download the detailed plans:

Acknowledging the foundations

The strength of the family violence sector is undeniably its people.

We are fortunate in Victoria to have a strong base of highly skilled, dedicated and resilient family violence and primary prevention workforces who have worked tirelessly for decades helping to keep women and children in our communities safe.

The family violence sector and social workers with family violence expertise will continue to be in high demand: Victoria’s social economy is anticipated to create 60,000 new health and community services jobs in the next five years.¹

¹ Victoria's Social Economy: Social Opportunity, Economic Growth

As we continue to build capacity in the family violence system and develop training and career pathways, strong connections and partnerships between government and family violence prevention and response providers will be critical.

Their experience and expertise informed the long-term vision in the Industry Plan for the workforces that intersect with family violence.

In this whole-of-reform second rolling action plan we set out where government is leading workforce development initiatives and broader industry planning over the next three years and the key collaborations with the non-government sector. It is not a comprehensive summary of all workforce development activity that is happening in governments and agencies and across the sector more widely.

Progress since 2016

We are making significant progress towards creating the family violence specialist workforce and building the capability of the wider workforces that intersect with family violence.

It's like a new beginning really... for so long we were off to one side and not thought of as a legitimate part of family violence response. But it's exciting now that we're part of that multi-disciplinary team.

I actually enjoy taking a moment of time just to reflect on where we've come from. And that to me, as someone who's been in this sector for a long time, it's good for me to do that and go, 'hey, we have actually changed quite a bit already'.

Positioning family violence prevention, early intervention and response as a highly specialised employment sector with clear career pathways and professional development opportunities is critical to delivering the specialist workforce needed by the reform.

The key workforce development activities which have been delivered since the Royal Commission are grouped here into four areas.

Delivery to 2023

This high-level overview of the main workforce development activities for the next three years focuses on highlighting key actions from the first rolling action plan, Strengthening the Foundations.

Additional workforce development activity supporting the reform is reflected in the web pages for each priority and in the page showcasing Victoria Police reform delivery.

This overview of our planned workforce development activities to 2023 is grouped into three areas.

Connecting workforce development across the reform

The ongoing delivery of connected reform activity further strengthens the broader workforces that intersect with family violence. For example:

MARAM

• The continued rollout of MARAM with Phase Two commencing in 2021 to a further 5,855 organisations and services across the health and education sectors.

Victoria Police

• Victoria Police delivery of family violence training statewide to officers at every rank through the establishment of Family Violence Centre of Learning, a purpose-built facility at the police academy in Glen Waverley.

Reform-wide priorities

Activities to strengthen the family violence workforce have been designed from the outset to consider intersectionality, Aboriginal self-determination and lived experience.

The MARAM principles provide professionals and services across different workforces with a shared understanding of family violence and facilitate consistent, effective and safe responses for people experiencing family violence.

Intersectionality

Strengthening the Foundations

The first of the industry rolling action plans was developed with a gendered and intersectional lens to embed intersectionality in workforce development.

Under Action 3.8 of Strengthening the Foundations, we are reducing workforce entry barriers to increase workforce diversity, working towards achieving a workforce that reflects the community.

Intersectionality Capacity Building Project

This project supports organisations to embed an intersectionality framework and recruit and develop an inclusive, diverse workforce. It is:

• funded through the Industry Plan
• an action in Everybody Matters: Inclusion and Equity Statement,which outlines the 10-year vision for a more inclusive, safe, responsive and accountable family violence system

The government’s reform delivery is providing funding to the specialist family violence and broader sectors to embed an intersectional approach into their service delivery. For example:

Intersectionality Overview

Aboriginal self-determination

Future workforce activities will be guided by the forthcoming Aboriginal Family Violence Industry Strategy which is being developed through the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum.

Aboriginal Self-Determination Overview

Lived experience

Lived experience is central to the design and delivery of training initiatives and pathways to minimum qualifications for family violence practitioners. It informs the family violence workforce reform through the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council’s representation on Family Safety Victoria advisory bodies.

Lived Experience Overview

Measuring outcomes

Family Violence Outcomes Framework

Delivering the activities for this priority area will likely have the greatest impact in achieving outcomes against the following domain:

Royal Commission recommendations

The Victorian Government has committed to implement all 227 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Of the recommendations still in progress, six relate to Workforce Development.

Summary of activities to 2023