Create a family violence information-sharing regime

The Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic) was amended on 14 June 2017 to establish a Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme. In February 2018, an initial group of services and organisations were prescribed in the Family Violence Protection (Information Sharing and Risk Management) Regulations 2018 authorising them to share information with each other where it is relevant to family violence risk. In September 2018, further services and organisations were prescribed.

Implementation of the first phase of the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme (FVISS) and the Child Information Sharing Scheme was aligned with Phase One of Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework (MARAM).

The new FVISS has removed barriers that impeded professionals sharing critical information. Evidence gathered to date indicates an increase in information sharing across the service system.

From February 2018 to September 2019, the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria and the Children’s Court of Victoria shared information 10,367 times in response to requests under the schemes. The most requested type of information were copies of family violence intervention orders.

Since October 2018, 7,940 workers have received FVISS training to date. This training has been delivered face-to-face and via a suite of e-learning modules.

Continued development of resources to support whole-of-system embedding, such as an organisational embedding guide, targeted training packages, systems embedding and change management resources.

In 2020, a second phase of organisations including hospitals, general practitioners, aged care services and schools are anticipated to be prescribed under the MARAM Framework, the FVISS and the Child Information Sharing Scheme. Public consultation on the second phase of workforces ran from 6 November 2019 to 6 December 2019.

Implemented.