Subject to the evaluation of the Adolescent Family Violence Program, extend this program across Victoria

The Victorian Government provided a $700,000 funding boost in 2016–17 to the existing Adolescent Family Violence Program to extend the program and enable providers to work with more families, bringing the total funding to approximately $1.3 million for 2016–17. The $700,000 per annum funding boost was continued for a further two years (in 2017-18 and 2018-19).

The government is trialling a more intensive approach for adolescents who are using violence in the home. This work, together with the findings of an evaluation of the Adolescent Family Violence Program, is helping inform future options for the delivery of these services.

The 2021-22 State Budget provided funding to expand services for adolescents using violence in the home across the state.

This expansion follows from the evaluation of the Adolescent Family Violence Program which found that the program delivers an effective specialised response to specific issues affecting young people who use violence in the home and their families. The evaluation also found that:

• young people's understanding and management of their behaviour improved
• parents had increased confidence in managing young people's behaviour
• the nature and frequency of violence and aggression reduced
• education, work and health outcomes for young people improved.

The evaluation executive summary is publicly available.

The expansion of services builds on work to improve supports to adolescents who use family violence, and their families across the service system including:

• Regular meetings of Adolescent Family Violence program providers, allowing practitioners working with adolescents who use family violence to share learnings and best practice.
• A series of consultation workshops with the child and family services and specialist family violence workforces to identify current interventions, practice resources and tools for adolescent family violence.
• Adolescent Family Violence Symposium ‘Starting with the young person: Reframing how we understand and respond earlier to adolescent violence in the home’ held in March 2020, hosted by the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare in partnership with Family Safety Victoria.

Specific advice and guidance for practitioners working with adolescents who use family violence is included in the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework (MARAM).

Implemented.