Building from Strength - five years on

Five years ago we launched our Building from Strength: 10-Year Industry Plan for Family Violence Prevention and Response to lay the foundations for building a supported, valued, skilled and diverse workforce.

We have always known that the success of our ground-breaking family violence reforms depends on the strength of the workforces that deliver them.

Our workforce is the backbone of the system-wide changes we are working collaboratively to implement and we are fortunate in Victoria to have such a highly skilled, dedicated and resilient family violence and sexual assault workforce who have worked for decades to keep our community safe. We developed Building from Strength using this experience, leadership, wisdom and expertise.

Since then, and based on Strengthening the Foundations: First Rolling Action Plan 2019-22, we have seen significant progress, including hundreds of workers undertaking new training programs and visiting our family violence jobs hub and portal. But of course, there is more to come.

This is a critical time to be talking about the needs of our family violence and sexual assault workforce, especially after we saw workers across the sector respond quickly and innovatively to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and the increase in demand for help and support.

This month’s edition of the Family Violence Reform Newsletter provides updates on some of our actions so far under Strengthening the Foundations. We are proud to be undertaking this work in collaboration with the sector, and I thank them for their ongoing expertise and support.

Eleri Butler, CEO, Family Safety Victoria