Download and print the PDF or read the accessible version:

1.1. Overview

This guide supports you to create respectful, sensitive and safe engagement with people you know or suspect are using family violence.

This includes:

• keeping victim survivors and their lived experience at the centre of all risk identification and assessment
• using trauma and violence-informed principles in your practice
• recognising common presentations of people who use violence
• being aware of risks the person presents to victim survivors, as outlined in the Foundation Knowledge Guide
• maintaining professional curiosity and a non-judgemental stance when engaging with people using violence.

This guide builds on concepts in the Foundation Knowledge Guide.

When you engage with a person using violence in a respectful, sensitive and safe way, you support disclosure, facilitate identification and keep them in view of the system.

Responsibility 2 includes more information on identification of family violence risk.

Your organisation will also have its own policies, practices and procedures relevant to safe engagement, including worker safety.

Leaders in your organisation should support you and your colleagues to understand and implement these policies, practices and procedures.

1.2. Engaging with people who use family violence

1.2.1. Engagement as part of Structured Professional Judgement

Reflect on the model of Structured Professional Judgement, outlined in section 10.1 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide and in Figure 1 below, when working with people you suspect or know are using family violence.

Using this model supports you to put the victim survivor self-assessment of risk and their experience at the centre of your engagement with the person using violence.

Engaging with people who use violence helps to keep victim survivors safe.

It keeps people who use violence in view of the system and enables professionals to support them to address their needs, circumstances and behaviours that relate to family violence risk, which reduces risk for victim survivors.

Respectful, sensitive and safe engagement allows you to build rapport with people you suspect or know are using family violence. This increases the likelihood they will disclose their use of family violence.

Through safe engagement, you can observe behaviours and narratives that indicate likely use of family violence. Engagement also increases the chances the person will directly disclose evidence-based risk factors (discussed in Responsibility 2).

Further information about Structured Professional Judgement will be provided in each of the relevant chapters of the Responsibilities for Practice Guide.

1.2.2. Creating a safe and respectful environment to engage

To create an environment where the person feels safe and respected to talk about their needs, circumstances and family violence behaviour, consider:

• the immediate health and safety needs of each person, including each person experiencing violence (adult or child) and the person using family violence
• the physical environment, including accessibility
• communicating effectively
• safely and respectfully responding to the person’s culture and identity
• asking about identity and giving people the choice to engage with a service that specialises in working with Aboriginal communities or diverse communities
• undertaking cultural awareness training and connecting with local supports for advice and referral.

1.2.3. Why we use safe engagement with people using violence

Safe engagement with service users is a universal obligation of all professionals. This contributes directly to victim survivor safety by:

• keeping people using or suspected to be using family violence in view of the service system
• identifying and managing family violence risk
• improving capacity of a person using violence to change their behaviour.

Many of the skills and practices you already use will contribute to creating a safe and respectful environment for people who may be using family violence.

It is likely you already use trauma and violence-informed approaches, and you may have protocols for welcoming service users into your service in ways that reduce the likelihood of re-traumatisation.

These types of protocols create safety for all service users, including people you suspect or know are using family violence.

Safety in the context of working with Aboriginal people and people from diverse communities involves using culturally safe practices, including offering referrals to culturally appropriate supports and organisations.

You should also use secondary consultation with Aboriginal community or culturally specific services to ensure you are providing culturally safe responses.

1.2.4. Non-engagement and disengagement

Some service users may not engage with or disengage from the service system over time. These terms refer to:

• non-engagement – this is when you have been unable to engage or had minimal contact with a service user
• disengagement – this is when a service has commenced, but the service user does not continue, withdraws, misses appointments, rejects the service or engagement you are offering, or rejects what has been said to them. For example, people using family violence will often disengage when the crisis subsides and will minimise, deny or justify what has occurred.

Both outcomes provide information for your understanding and analysis of the service user’s context and family violence risk.

Be aware of your personal biases when you determine whether a service user is open to engaging, is experiencing a barrier to engagement, is not engaging or has disengaged.

1.2.5. Limited confidentiality statement

During initial engagement, you should make sure the person understands how their privacy is managed in your service, including how you will protect, use and share their information as authorised under law.

Where a person is engaging with your service and you know or suspect they are using family violence, your service should have a clear limited confidentiality statement covering the ways their information can be shared without their consent. This includes assessing or managing family violence risk under the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme, or as otherwise required under law where there is a risk to themselves or others.

You do not need to re-confirm their understanding of this statement before or after making a request or sharing information under the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme or the Child Information Sharing Scheme.^[1]

Sensitive, clear and transparent engagement is important to keep the person who may be using violence engaged with your service and the broader service system.

Refusal or reluctance from a service user to agree to participate in your service with an understanding of limited confidentiality and authorised information sharing may indicate current or future family violence risk and must be recorded (See Responsibilities 2, 3 and 7).

Responsibility 6 has further guidance on information sharing and the ‘limited confidentiality’ conversation.

1.3. Prioritising immediate health and safety

Your first priority is to establish whether a service user presents an imminent risk to adult or child victim survivors, themselves, third parties or professionals.

If there is an immediate risk, contact:

• the police or ambulance by calling ‘triple zero’ (000), and/or
• other emergency or crisis service for assistance.

Assessing immediate safety includes:

• Identifying that a threat is present, such as from disclosure by a victim survivor or the person using violence, or information provided by another agency. This can apply to people known to be using family violence and people who do not have a known history of family violence
• Identifying whether the threat is an immediate threat, including situations where the service user has made a specific threat to a victim survivor, themselves, a third party or a professional and is able to access them to carry out the threat
• Determining the likelihood and consequence if immediate action is not taken to lessen or prevent that threat.

Actions to respond to an immediate threat may include:

• calling police or emergency services if required (as above)
• facilitating or encouraging access to medical treatment if you are aware the victim survivor or person using violence has sustained injuries or appears otherwise unwell. This may include if the service user does not present an immediate threat to others but requires immediate intervention for their own safety and wellbeing, such as being drug affected or experiencing an acute mental health crisis. Follow your organisation’s procedures for establishing safety
• using Section 3.10 and Appendix 6 in Responsibility 3 to identify common suicide, self-harm and family violence risk factors.

Responsibility 2 has further guidance on determining the immediate risk to safety a person using family violence may present to adult and child victim survivors, other family members, themselves or third parties.

Your service or organisation should have established policies and processes to manage an immediate threat. These may include calling security or other suitable personnel.

It may not be appropriate, safe or reasonable to engage further with the person causing the immediate threat until safety risks or health needs are addressed.

1.4. Physical environment

The physical environment sets the context for establishing and maintaining rapport. This underpins effective risk identification, assessment and management.

You can create a safe environment by:

• making the service user feel welcome, that their cultural safety is important and that their identity will be respected (refer to section 1.6 and the Foundation Knowledge Guide)
• asking what they need to feel comfortable, increasing the likelihood they continue to engage with your service.

You could also consider the physical safety of the environment, including:

• removing objects that could be used as weapons
• separating waiting areas from consultation areas (if applicable)
• making sure there are different access points and times for people who are known to use violence and victim survivors (if applicable)
• being aware of exits and ways of moving between spaces, including for staff and other service users.

Do not ask a person known or suspected to be using violence questions about their risk behaviours in front of any adult, or child victim survivors in their care.

Use a private environment when asking about sensitive and personal information. This is critical to supporting safety and maintaining rapport.

If a victim survivor is present, your organisation should have policies and procedures for safely separating them to provide a private space for conversation.

You can also create a culturally safe, respectful and accessible physical environment by:

• not using stigmatising signage or language (for example, do not include the word ‘perpetrator’ in any room signage)
• displaying artwork that is hopeful, empowering, recovery focused and culturally diverse
• displaying acknowledgment of the Aboriginal custodians of the land upon which your service is located
• displaying a rainbow flag and flags recognising other identities and communities
• having safe and accessible parking.

The benefits of providing a safe environment for people who may use family violence include:

• reducing their resistance to engaging with services and support, and promoting their capacity to seek help
• increasing their motivation and self-efficacy to make positive changes
• reducing their perception of ‘unjust’ persecution, such as by the ‘system’. This perception is sometimes called a ‘victim stance’.

1.5. Communication

Communicating appropriately with people who use family violence is essential for establishing a safe and respectful environment.

To build trust, you should provide key information about what you and/or your service is there to provide, and set clear expectations.

Many of the skills that you already use in your role will help you establish a safe and respectful environment.

As a priority, make sure the service user can communicate with you, and address any barriers to communication, including using plain English resources. Make adjustments or identify supports for people with disabilities that affect their communication.

1.5.1. Addressing barriers to safe, respectful, and responsive communication

People’s lives and identities are complex. Service users may face multiple barriers to engaging with your service.

These may include the circumstances or reasons why a service user is engaged with your service – such as being mandated to or having voluntarily accessed your service.

You should also understand how discrimination, structural inequality and barriers affect Aboriginal people, people from diverse communities, and people from at-risk age cohorts (refer to section 12in the Foundation Knowledge Guide).

Considering these factors with an intersectional lens supports you to identify and respond to barriers to engagement.

These barriers may arise from a lack of specific responses to the service users diverse needs – including culture, language proficiency, identity, gender, physical and cognitive abilities and other needs.

Barriers may also arise from a lack of training for staff in identifying co-occurring issues, such as poor mental health, alcohol and other drug (AOD) use or homelessness.

The following examples show how to address common barriers to communication:

• Arrange access to an accredited interpreter if needed (level three if possible) or an Auslan interpreter for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. For some communities with smaller populations, it is more likely an interpreter may know the victim, or the person using or suspected to be using family violence. You can avoid identifying names or use an interstate interpreter. Where possible, offer an interpreter of the same gender as the service user. Children, family members and non-professional interpreters should not be used. It is essential to ensure the service user understands the information available to them, using plain English and other forms of communication where necessary.
• Some service users may be more comfortable with a professional from their own community or cultural group or with a support person present. Ask the person about their choice of service and refer and/or engage by secondary consultation with services that work with the service user’s community. Continue to use reflective practice in your consideration of culture and the impact of dominant white culture on engagement barriers, and how you can adjust your practice to support safe engagement.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people may feel more comfortable if your service or organisation has Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander staff. You should also consider being less rigid in your intake approach, physical setting and time constraints. Your agency’s reputation and history regarding child removal or negative engagement with Aboriginal people may affect the level of trust you can achieve. Understanding context and using similar language to the service user is essential.^[2] Use engagement approaches that incorporate narrative counselling techniques. Consider past and current impacts of colonisation, displacement, historic and ongoing child removal, trauma and racism.^[3]
• Make sure the person can access any communication adjustments or aids if they have a disability affecting their communication or other communication barriers and confirm that they understand the information provided to them. If the person has a disability or developmental delay that affects their communication or cognition, seek their advice or the advice of a relevant professional regarding what adjustments might assist. (This includes any augmented or alternative communication support, such as equipment or communication aids.) If the person has an existing augmentation or alternative communication support plan in place, you should engage directly with them, with help from a support worker, advocate or other communication expert, if required, to help you navigate its use.
• If the service user has a cognitive disability or requires communication adjustments, it is important to work on the assumption they have capacity to engage and adapt your service to overcome any communication barriers. Talk to the person directly – rather than through their nominated advocate, support person or carer. Take the time you need to work with the person at their pace. This will help to build trust and rapport and support disclosure of information. If required, you can consult with the Office of the Public Advocate for further advice.
• Gender-sensitive policies and procedures will improve your service’s accessibility. More service users will feel welcome if your organisation’s forms, resources and approach is inclusive of all gender identities.

A commitment to continuous improvement, professional development and reflective practice will strengthen your ability to engage safely with all service users and minimise barriers to communication.

Section 10.3.1 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide has detailed information on applying an intersectional analysis when working with people using family violence.

1.6. Cultural safety and respect (using intersectional analysis in practice)

Reflect on information provided in the Foundation Knowledge Guide and the MARAM Framework on using an intersectional lens.

The Foundation Knowledge Guide and Section 1.12 of this chapter include more information on recognising personal bias and understanding the experience, structural inequality and barriers experienced by Aboriginal people and people from diverse communities or at-risk age groups.

Cultural safety is about creating and maintaining an environment where all people are treated in a culturally safe and respectful manner.

All people have a right to receive a culturally safe and respectful service. This means:

• respecting Aboriginal people’s right to self-determination
• not challenging or denying a person’s identity and experience
• showing respect, listening, learning and carrying out practice in collaboration, with regard for another’s culture whilst being mindful of one’s own potential biases
• undertaking genuine and ongoing professional self-reflection about your own biases and assumptions including with more experienced professionals
• listening and understanding without judgement.

Providing a culturally safe response also involves understanding how family violence is defined in different communities, including for Aboriginal communities. Further information is outlined in the MARAM Framework and section 12 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide. Assessment processes must be respectful and inclusive of broad definitions of family and culture.

For example, it is particularly important not to assume who is ‘family’ or ‘community’, but rather to ask who should be considered in risk assessment and management.

1.7. Asking about identity

Always enquire about and record the language, culture and other aspects of identity of each family member.

Never assume you know these, or that they will be the same for each family member.

It is good practice to openly acknowledge the culture a person identifies with in a positive and welcoming way.

Information about a person’s identity must inform all subsequent assessment and management responses.

Until you have built trust and rapport, some people may choose not to disclose their identity groups. This might be for a range of reasons, including fear of discrimination based on past experience.

For Aboriginal people, structural inequality, discrimination, the effects of colonisation and dispossession, and past and present policies and practices, have resulted in a deep mistrust of people who offer services based on concepts of protection or best interest.

You should be mindful of how this might affect a service user’s actions, perceptions and engagement with the service.

Acknowledge the impact these experiences may have had on the person, their family or community. Assure the person that you will work with and be guided by them. Affirm your commitment to providing an inclusive service and minimising future discriminatory impacts in their engagement with you.

It is also important to recognise the strength and resilience of Aboriginal people and culture in the face of these barriers and structural inequalities.

Kinship systems and connection to spiritual traditions, ancestry and country are all important strengths and protective factors.

The role of family is critical, and Aboriginal children are more likely than non-Aboriginal children to be supported by an extended, close family. Assessment of Aboriginal children must support cultural safety and take into account the risk of loss of culture.

You can find out more about cultural safety, Aboriginal identity and experience in section 12.1.4 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide.

People who have diverse individual and social identities, circumstances or attributes may not choose to disclose these to you unless they trust you and feel a rapport with you.

You can support disclosure by never assuming how the person and their family members identify.

For example:

• Don’t assume gender identity (which can result in misgendering) based on a person’s voice, appearance or how they dress, as this can lead to disengagement.
• You can ask what pronouns a person uses by saying ‘I use [she and her / he and him / they and them] pronouns, what do you use?’. This lets the person know you provide an inclusive and respectful service.
• You can ask if a person identifies as LGBTIQ, and if there is a way you can support them to engage with your service, or if there are external supports available to ensure they are comfortable engaging with you.
• You can ask if the person has any disabilities, developmental delays or mental health issues, and if there are any supports or adjustments you need to make.

Services should be aware that identity is complex, and that aspects of a person’s identity should be considered as part of their whole experience. To help inform your response, you might choose to engage in secondary consultation with specialist family violence services with an expert knowledge of a particular diverse community, and the responses required to address the unique needs and barriers faced by this group (see Responsibilities 5 and 6).

You should offer Aboriginal people, people from culturally, linguistically or faith-diverse communities, or LGBTIQ people specialised supports as needed.

This may comprise bilingual and/or bicultural supports. Support from a trusted family or community member, or a group such as an Aboriginal men’s behaviour change group, may provide a crucial support to engagement and sustainable change.

However, do not assume a person would prefer to access a specialist community service. Aboriginal people and people from diverse communities may want to engage with a mainstream service due to confidentiality.

A warm and safe referral to a community service that you have a direct connection and relationship with will assist the service user to engage with an appropriate service. Responsibility 5 and Responsibility 6(information sharing, secondary consultation and referral) provide more on this.

1.8. Building rapport and trust

Building rapport and trust with service users is the responsibility of all professionals. Building rapport and trust with a person you know or suspect is using family violence supports their continued engagement with your service, which provides opportunities to identify, assess and manage family violence risk.

Reflect on the key concepts for practice when working with people using family violence in section 10 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide.

Some people who use family violence may present to services as defensive, wary and self-justifying.

To minimise this while increasing their engagement, consider ways to bring together a trauma and violence-informed approach, culturally safe and responsive practices and authentic communication styles.

This can indicate to the person using violence that you will listen and be present with them and uphold their dignity throughout your engagement.

Do not mistake a trusting relationship for an objectively uncritical one. A core goal of building rapport and trust is to create an environment where family violence narratives and behaviour are easier to identify.^[4]

To assist with balancing engagement and rapport building while avoiding collusion, you can also seek supervision and collaborate with managers and colleagues for guidance on particular situations and your approach.

Consider if it is appropriate to engage with a service that can provide culturally specific expertise to support your approach.

Key methods to building rapport and trust include:

• Ask open-ended questions to start the conversation. This might include questions about the person’s day, feelings about coming to your service, or what they might be hoping to get out of the engagement.
• Explain your role, including being clear that assessment of risk (as applicable) is part of your role.
• State your obligations under legislation – including information sharing authorisation. See limited confidentiality statement in Section 1.2.5.
• Invite collaboration, for example, ‘I was wondering if you could help me understand …’.
• Be conversational in your assessment – listen for risk-relevant information, and avoid a call-and-response dynamic, in which you go through a list of questions and the person provides yes/no or one-word answers. The more natural the conversation, the more genuine the person’s response is likely to be.
• Listen for points of tension or discomfort. What topics does a person avoid or gloss over?
• Do not ask ‘why?’ questions. This type of questioning is often experienced as judgement or rejection, especially if the person using violence is experiencing shame.
• Be curious and match your service user’s language, while avoiding colluding with invitations to minimise or excuse violence.
• Understand the person’s context. Be aware of how they express their identity and situation. Be aware of experiences of structural inequality, oppression and discrimination that create barriers to engagement.
• Be aware of how power is operating in the situation. Consider your own identities, culture, assumptions and biases, and your own place in the service system’s creation of structural privilege and power.
• Be mindful of barriers associated with language, cultural meanings and understanding of Australian legal systems for some people from culturally, linguistically and faith-diverse communities. Addressing these, and considering your own culture and dominant cultural assumptions (if applicable), can be an important starting point for rapport building.
• For Aboriginal people, narrative approaches, including sharing of connections, selective sharing of some of your story and deep listening, may be important in gaining trust.

Note that while creating a safe, respectful and non-judgemental environment is key to risk assessment and management processes, there will be times when you are required to take action without the service user’s knowledge or consent, based on information shared with you from the service user or another professional.

1.9. Practice approaches to safe, non-collusive engagement

Use the following approaches when engaging with people who use family violence:

• Prioritise victim survivor safety. All professionals must be aware of victim survivors’ safety and wellbeing in their communication with people using violence. This includes professionals who do not have a role in asking questions about family violence.
• Keep information provided by the victim survivor confidential from the person using violence. Never disclose that you are aware of information provided to you or another agency by a victim survivor. This applies whether a person is suspected or known to be using violence. If a person using violence thinks the victim survivor has accessed a service, or provided any information, they may escalate their violence in retaliation or use the information to further intimidate and coerce the victim survivor.
• Reflect that addressing the wellbeing, needs and family violence risk behaviours^[5] with a person using violence can support them. People using violence have values and goals for their family, relationships and themselves. A collaborative, respectful approach is more likely to support ongoing engagement and keep the person using violence in view, compared with a judgemental or confrontational approach. In communicating with people using violence, you should give the dual messages of acceptance of them as people with potential to change, while rejecting coercive or violent attitudes and behaviours and invitations to collude with them.
• Recognise that people who use family violence may seek you to collude with them. Reflective practice can support you to identify whether a person using violence is engaging with your service to reinforce their position of control over the victim survivor. This includes by presenting as charismatic and caring. If a victim survivor feels your service may not believe them if they disclose violence, this may further isolate or demotivate them from seeking help. Responsibility2 has more guidance on responding to invitations to collude.
• Reflect an open attitude and demeanour. Maintain a curious and open approach when you are learning about a service user’s family life and other aspects of their lives. Each person comes to a service with their own history, experience, needs and circumstances. The more you learn about the person’s life, the more information you will have to support effective risk identification, assessment and management opportunities.

1.9.1. Professional curiosity

Professional curiosity is the capacity of professionals to hold a non-judgemental approach while exploring what is happening in the person’s life.

You can do this by seeking clarification or more information to help build an understanding of the person’s life, relationships and experiences. You can also observe their narratives, behaviours or changing presentation over time.

Patterns of family violence behaviour emerge more easily when you give the person using violence space to tell their story.

This does not mean you should believe the person is telling the absolute truth. You should reflect on the experiences of victim survivors as you contextualise the information shared with you.

Holding the victim survivor experience at the centre, you can use professional curiosity and careful questioning to guide the direction and parameters of the engagement. You can then identify risk and opportunities to manage it.

Professional curiosity helps you to:

• set up a professional and respectful relationship
• set expectations for behaviour and engagement
• demonstrate you are willing to hear and work with the person, regardless of their behaviour
• place boundaries around the behaviour as part of, and not intrinsic to, the person
• create a sense of trust and transparency in your work together.

Being open-minded and non-confrontational with the person will foster a sense of trust and minimise the likelihood of risk to victim survivors to escalate.

1.9.2. Respectful and non-judgemental approaches

Research shows that people who use family violence often feel shame or embarrassment at the idea of seeking help for violent and abusive behaviours.^[6]

This can lead to avoiding help-seeking, which is often linked to attitudes about traditional gender roles and behaviours – in particular, expressions of masculinity that do not include showing emotion or concern for other men.^[7]

People using violence are more likely to engage if they believe that you as a professional and your service are trustworthy and can offer support in a non-judgemental way.

People who use family violence are unlikely to disclose or discuss their behaviour if they feel judged, disrespected or dismissed.

This means they will be more likely to minimise or deny their use of violence, disengage from the service system, and not seek help now or in the future.

To keep the person in view of services and engaged with supports, your conversations should:

• be respectful and non-judgemental
• include professional curiosity
• be non-reactive to the person when you hear behaviours or narratives that are concerning
• use a strengths-based approach.

Strengths-based and healing approaches can be particularly important for Aboriginal people using violence who may be disconnected from country and culture. Cultural strengthening serves as a critical protective factor against violence.^[8]

1.9.3. Strengths-based approach

Using a strengths-based approach when engaging with service users does not mean ignoring the risk you or another professional have identified.

Strengths-based practice takes different forms, depending on your role and responsibilities, including:

• recognising the capacity for change (which may inform your referral options)
• identifying protective factors and sites of support that can be drawn upon for safety planning. For Aboriginal people, this includes discussing healing approaches and connections with community, culture and whole of family^[9]
• noticing when the person tells you their presenting needs or circumstances related to their risk behaviours are unmet
• identifying internal and external motivation (when considering referrals, risk management actions, and ways to develop their insight and capacity to engage with change work)
• recognising resilience and other individual and community resources that support risk management and change efforts. When working with Aboriginal people, this means you should also practice in a way that values the collective strengths of Aboriginal knowledge, systems and expertise.^[10]

1.10. Common emotions and thought patterns of people using violence entering the service system

People who use family violence experience a range of emotions when entering the service system. These emotional processes may produce defensiveness or ‘resistance’ to engaging with you or your service.

Be aware of these common presentations among people who have used family violence and consider your response in order to support safe engagement.

Table 1 lists common emotions and corresponding thought patterns.

Table 1: Common emotions and thought patterns of people using or suspected to be using violence upon entering services

1.10.1. Victim stance

People who use family violence may have feelings that they are the ‘true victim’, which is sometimes referred to as taking a ‘victim stance’.

Many people using violence may not recognise they need to address a problem, and if they do, the problem they recognise is unlikely to be the family violence risk they themselves present.

For example, this narrative is common where a system intervention or relationship breakdown related to their family violence has resulted in them being prevented from returning to the family home or seeing their children.

This victim-stance positioning may be in the form of inviting collusion from professionals as a tactic of systems abuse, such as through making false reports against a victim survivor to police, courts or Child Protection.

This may also occur if the person is in a caring role and is using violence towards the person they are providing care for, such as an older parent or person with a disability requiring care and support (who may or may not also be an intimate partner).

The person in this situation may consider themselves a ‘victim of circumstance’ and feel resentment about their caring role.

They may have no or limited insight into their behaviour, or they may have a limited understanding of a need for change.

1.10.2. Limited self-awareness

People using family violence may acknowledge or have some awareness of the impact of their violent or abusive behaviours. However, they are unlikely to recognise their use of violence as a choice or take responsibility for behaviours used to coerce or control victim survivors.

Instead, they are more likely to view their violent and abusive behaviour as a ‘relationship problem’ or a problem caused by other factors, such as use of alcohol and other drugs.

Similarly, the use of violence may have become normalised over a period of time. They may frame the violence as ‘this is how we interact’. This affects their ability to identify their behaviour as violence, and it may be a barrier for the victim survivor to report the violence.

This is why voluntary, overt disclosures of family violence perpetration are rare, and where they do occur, these disclosures do not reveal the full extent of family violence risk.

Your engagement with a person using or suspected to be using violence is an essential component of developing an understanding of family violence risk in a given situation.

1.11. Key methods for trauma and violence-informed practice

Reflect on information in the Foundation Knowledge Guide about trauma and violence-informed practice.

Use the following approaches when engaging with people using violence:

• Remain curious and interested in the person, listen to what they say and be aware of their non-verbal trauma response cues. Invite them to take their time or breaks when needed.^[11] Be alert to signs they are agitated or ‘zoned out’. This may indicate they are experiencing the effects of trauma or may indicate heightened risk to the victim survivor. For their own safety, as well as that of victim survivors, make sure they are emotionally safe when they leave.
• Build trust by listening to them respectfully and learning about their life experiences. This will help you to tailor your response to them. It provides context for their use of violence, not a justification for it.
• Provide opportunities for choice during your engagement. For people using violence, who may not have chosen to engage with you or your service, you can build small choices into your process, such as how often and where to meet, how they would like to be communicated with, and being asked what they think would support them to engage with you.
• Collaboration means doing things with a service user instead of for them. Support them to express what they want for their life and set expectations about what your service can do to support them to be safe and respectful in their relationships and stop their use of family violence (or address their presenting needs linked to family violence). Explore the person’s life goals and the sort of person/partner/parent they want to be. This may create or renew a positive narrative and hope and increase their motivation to change.
• Empowerment is critical in correcting the power imbalances created by interpersonal trauma. People using violence use power and control over family members, but they too may have a sense of disempowerment from past trauma experiences. Building on a person’s self-efficacy to change, rather than focusing only on ‘problems’, is essential.^[12] Empowerment should focus on pro-social/antiviolence strengths. This can be particularly important for Aboriginal or other cultural groups who have experienced historic or recent disempowerment by society (for example, colonisation, experience of systemic discrimination, child removal).

1.12. Reflective practice and recognising bias when working with people using family violence

When engaging with people using family violence, you should maintain a critical awareness of:

• your role and responsibilities within the system
• the depth of engagement and intervention within your role or service
• how your reflective practice and awareness of biases in your engagement may contribute to stronger risk management, or conversely, where it is absent, may inadvertently contribute to risk
• how your own biases might be used by people using violence in their invitations to collude.

Reflecting on professional biases and agency-level responses can help professionals and services address issues of discrimination and marginalisation and increase opportunities for service engagement.

In particular, you can identify barriers to access for a person using or suspected to be using violence by considering:

• how you can allow people who use violence to access resources and professional support
• how service exclusion, such as withdrawing services, can increase risk to victim survivors by reducing the visibility of the person using or suspected to be using violence within the system
• how communication styles, such as confrontation and direct challenging of a person using or suspected to be using violence, can reinforce already held strong feelings about system injustices and increase service disengagement.

Biases can lead to increased risk for victim survivors as well as people using family violence. Unconscious and conscious biases about a person’s use of violence, identity or circumstances may limit capacity of professionals to observe narratives or behaviours that can indicate use of violence.

You should engage in reflective practice by considering how these might affect your decisions, capacity and willingness to engage with people using family violence, and approaches to applying Structured Professional Judgement.

When seeking to identify conscious and unconscious bias, you can consider:

Table 2: Examples of conscious and unconscious bias

1.13. Responding when you suspect a person is using family violence

Throughout your service provision, it is likely you will come into contact with service users you know or suspect are using family violence.

This may be indicated by the person’s narrative or behaviours, such as overt or subtle disclosures, or information shared by another service or organisation.

A person using violence may use collusive tactics to try to align you with their position, in order to justify, minimise or excuse their use of violence or coercive behaviour, or to present themselves as a victim survivor.

This is known as collusion. These behaviours are outlined in section 10.5 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide and in perpetrator-focused Responsibility 3.

Identifying who is perpetrating family violence can be complex.

In order to respond safely when you suspect a person is using family violence, you should understand:

• narratives that indicate family violence
• when it is safe to ask questions or when to simply observe
• why a person using or suspected to be using violence may not be aware their behaviour is abusive or violent.

Guidance on understanding misidentification of victim survivors and people using or suspected to be using violence, and identifying predominant aggressors is outlined in section 12.2.1 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide as well as in Responsibilities 2, 3 and 7.

If you suspect a person is using family violence, you should not engage with them directly about family violence, unless you are trained or required to do so to deliver your service.

This is because confrontation and intervention may increase risk for the victim survivor.

Instead, you should consider proactively sharing information, as authorised, with a specialist family violence service that can support the person you suspect is experiencing family violence (see Responsibilities 5 and 6).

You can also talk with other professionals in your service who have a role in working with people who use violence, or contact a specialist family violence service with expertise in assessing risk, and who can safely communicate with a person who may be using violence to engage them with appropriate interventions and services, such as behaviour change programs, explored further in Responsibilities 3 and 4 and/or7 and 8.

1.14. Next steps

Responsibility 2 provides guidance on identifying narratives and behaviours linked to evidence-based family violence risk factors.

All professionals who suspect that a person is using family violence should use the guidance in Responsibility 2.

Responsibilities 3 and 4 provides guidance on asking questions about presenting needs and circumstances related to family violence risk factors (risk-relevant information) and exploring motivation to manage risk is in.

Footnotes

^[1] Services that are not prescribed under FVISS or CIS should consider how to seek consent from service users to share information under privacy laws.

^[2] Using the language of the client is an essential part of meeting them where they are at. This practice must be used alongside a balanced approach to engagement, that supports professionals to recognise and address invitations to collude.

^[3] Day A et al. 2018, ‘Assessing violence risk with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders: considerations for forensic practice.’ Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law 25(3), 452–464.

^[4] Kozar C 2010, ‘Treatment readiness and the therapeutic alliance’, Transitions to better lives: offender readiness and rehabilitation, pp. 195–213.

^[5] Specialist family violence services work with known perpetrators about their use of violence. Other services play an important role in keeping a perpetrator in view, which supports ongoing risk assessment and management. Specific services address specific risk factors, such as drug and alcohol services.

^[6] Hashimoto N, Radcliffe P, Gilchrist G 2018, ‘Help-seeking behaviors for intimate partner violence perpetration by men receiving substance use treatment: a mixed-methods secondary analysis’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence. doi: 088626051877064.

^[7] Ibid.

^[8] Department of Health and Human Services 2018, Dhelk Dja: Safe Our Way – Strong Culture, Strong Peoples, Strong Families, State Government of Victoria, Melbourne.

^[9] Where safe to do so, ensure the victim survivor also has case management and wrap around support.

^[10] Department of Health and Human Services 2018, Dhelk Dja: Safe Our Way – Strong Culture, Strong Peoples, Strong Families, State Government of Victoria, Melbourne.

^[11] Kezelman and Stavropoulos 2018, Talking about trauma: guide to conversations and screening for health and other service providers, Blue Knot Foundation, p. 60.

^[12] Wendt et al. 2019, Engaging with men who use violence: invitational narrative approaches, ANROWS Research Report, Issue 5, p. 27.

Download and print the PDF or find the accessible version below:

Appendix 1: Response options following identification of indicators of family violence risk

Appendix 2: Identification Tool for people who use violence

2.1. Overview

This chapter helps you identify narratives and behaviours that may indicate a person is using family violence.

You should use this guide when you suspect a person is using family violence, but this is not yet confirmed.

This guide also helps you determine what else you need to do, such as further assessment or information sharing.

Section 2.2 outlines the observable signs and narratives that may indicate the use of family violence. Section 2.3 guides you on using the Identification Tool to document these indictors.

Sections 2.11 and 2.12 explain how to respond when you suspect family violence is occurring.

Key capabilities

All professionals should have knowledge of Responsibility 2 which includes:

• awareness of the evidence-based family violence risk factors and explanations, outlined in the Foundation Knowledge Guide
• understanding how to identify indicators a person is likely to be using family violence by observation of common narratives and behaviours, including denial, minimisation, justification and externalisation of responsibility for violence
• understanding when it is safe to ask about presenting needs and circumstances, with awareness that they may be linked to likelihood, change or escalation of family violence risk behaviours
• using information gathered through engagement with service users and other providers via information sharing, to identify observable narratives and behaviours indicative of family violence perpetration and potentially identify people using, or suspected to be using, family violence. Responsibilities 5and6discuss information sharing laws and practice in more detail.

2.1.1. Who should use the Identification Tool?

Appendix 2 contains the Identification Tool as a stand-alone template. Section 2.3 below provides instructions for use of the Identification Tool.

All professionals have a role to identify signs of family violence. You should use the Identification Tool when a service user’s narratives and behaviours indicate they may be using family violence.

The tool includes narratives and behaviours you might observe in the context of family violence across all relationship types, including towards Aboriginal communities, diverse communities and for older people.

Narratives such as denial, minimisation and blame are common, but variations in language and behaviour can vary across different identities and communities.

You can use the Identification Tool at any point of professional or service engagement. In service settings where a person has multiple contacts, you and other professionals may identify narratives or behaviours indicating family violence over time.

Narratives and behaviours that indicate family violence risk will inform your professional judgement about how to respond.

2.1.2. Structured Professional Judgement during the identification stage

Reflect on the model of Structured Professional Judgement outlined in Section 10.1 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide.

Observing a person’s narratives and behaviours is the first step towards identifying whether evidence-based risk factors are present. This can be further informed by risk assessment (Responsibilities 3 and 7) and information sharing(Responsibilities 5 and 6).

In the course of your work, you may encounter service users who present with beliefs, attitudes or behaviours that indicate they may be using family violence. In some cases, they may also (intentionally or unintentionally) disclose acts of family violence.

Applying a victim-centred lens when listening to a person’s narratives or observing their behaviours, will assist you to think about the victim survivor’s experience of these attitudes and behaviours.

This will support you to keep victim survivors’ experiences of risks at the centre when you apply Structured Professional Judgement.

2.2. Identification of family violence narratives and behaviours

In any service delivery environment, you should always be aware of the possibility that a service user may be using family violence.

Some service users’ narratives and behaviours will be a direct disclosure of their use of family violence.

However, it is more common for their narratives and behaviours to only indicate the presence of risk factors.

In some circumstances, you will need to seek and share information to confirm, or determine, your identification of risk.

Family violence is prevalent in all parts of our community and is often undisclosed and undetected.

Most organisations, services and sectors do not engage with people to directly change their use of family violence.

However, they do work with them in other capacities to meet their presenting needs.

Given the prevalence of family violence in the community, it is likely that you work with people who may be using family violence every day.

You may suspect a person is using family violence due to:

• the person’s account or description of experiences, themselves and their relationships (their narrative) or behaviours towards family members or professionals – these may indicate use of family violence
• disclosures from family members or indirect disclosures of family violence behaviours from the person using violence themselves
• information shared by professionals, services or other sources.

The person’s use of violence may be known, suspected or not yet identified by you or another professional or service.

The person may also be engaged with services that are directly or indirectly related, or unrelated, to their use of family violence, such as therapeutic services.

Table 1: Service awareness and roles in addressing a person’s use of family violence

The identification process outlined in this Practice Guide will support your decisions about whether further risk assessment and risk management are needed (refer to Responsibilities 3 or 7).

.2.1. What are family violence risk factors?

Section 9 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide outlines the family violence risk factors with a short description.

Family violence risk factors are evidence-based factors that are used to identify:

• whether a person is experiencing or using family violence
• the level or seriousness of risk
• the likelihood of violence re-occurring.

Responsibilities 3 and 7 describe how to assess for risk factors, including determining the level or seriousness of risk.

2.3. How to use the Identification Tool

A stand-alone Identification Tool is provided in Appendix 2.

You can use the Identification Tool to record your observations of narratives and behaviours that may indicate a person is using family violence.

This tool may not be able to definitively determine the presence of family violence, without direct disclosure of risk behaviours.

However, it supports you to record information that you can analyse alongside other information. This includes information shared from other services, any disclosures (by the person using violence or victim survivor, if applicable), and any observations of direct use of family violence behaviours.

You are prompted to consider information sharing, and to apply Structured Professional Judgement to identify whether family violence risk is present.

You do this in the context of understanding the person’s individual behaviours, presenting needs and circumstances.

The Identification Tool includes the following sections.

Intake information

Information about the service user (person suspected of using family violence) and, separately, information about the potential adult or child victim survivor (if known).

Section 1

Outlines the types of information you can record about your observations of the person’s narrative and behaviours that indicate beliefs or attitudes commonly linked to the use of family violence. Observations may also be from a direct disclosure of using family violence behaviours.

Identifying narratives or behaviours linked to use of family violence

Section 2

Identifying the person’s presenting needs and circumstances can help identify and manage family violence risk behaviours.

This section includes considering the person in their context (refer to Section 10.2.2 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide) to identify areas in the person’s life that may be related to risk behaviours, or function as a protective factor.

Protective factors alone do not reduce risk. However, if present, they may help to promote stabilisation and mitigate change or escalation of risk behaviours.

Identifying presenting needs and circumstances that may contribute to risk behaviours or act as protective factors

Section 3

Record whether risk is indicated as present and/or if immediate intervention is required for:

• adult or child victim survivors
• self (whether the person using violence is at risk of suicide or self-harm)
• professionals and community.

You can record the information you collect in the Identification Tool template over time. For example, you may observe narratives or behaviours across a number of engagements.

This section of the tool also asks you to:

• record if the tool was used to determine the predominant aggressor in response to suspected misidentification, and consider secondary consultation and referral if further assessment is required
• refer to the decision flow diagram (Appendix 1),providing response options where you identify family violence risk may be present, particularly if there is an immediate risk
• (if applicable to your role) consider whether you should undertake an intermediate risk assessment, or refer to another professional to undertake this
• consider whether information needs to be shared with another professional or service working with the service user and/or the victim survivor.

2.4. Understanding the conditions that support family violence perpetration

Understanding the conditions that may be present and relate to someone’s use of family violence is crucial for understanding intent and choice.

Four important conditions that can influence the likelihood of family violence perpetration are: social conditions, early life experiences, enduring beliefs and attitudes, and individual choice.

2.4.1. Social conditions

Societal understandings of family and gender create the social conditions for family violence.

These social conditions (which are always changing) create expectations of binary gender roles and narratives for acceptable and unacceptable behaviours of adults and children (for example, ‘boys shouldn’t cry’).

When repeated in social spaces, such as the family home, schools, in media, workplaces and sporting clubs, these narratives become social norms that are reinforced over time.

Individuals internalise these roles and narratives to differing degrees and come to hold expectations of themselves and others that reflect these roles.^[1]

We are all influenced by these broad social conditions.

Some people may define themselves by these social conditions and roles. For others, they may have a more subtle influence on self-concept and behaviour.

Some people may also challenge and subvert these expectations of binary gender roles.

Life experiences tend to determine how important certain roles and narratives come to be for individuals.^[2]

2.4.2. Early life experiences

One of the primary ways in which people learn is by observing the behaviour of others.

Early modelling during the first five years of life is particularly influential on long-term health and social outcomes across a person’s lifespan.

Childhood exposure to family violence is one contributing factor to future perpetration of violence. It is not a determinant on its own.^[3]

The models of behaviour that tend to be the most influential on children’s own behaviour are those of parents and other important authority figures.

When children observe behaviour that is rewarded, or that results in a parent or other influential person getting what they want, they tend to replicate it. On the other hand, behaviour that is punished, or that results in a negative consequence for a parent or influential person, tends to be avoided.

For this reason, people who have grown up exposed to family violence may end up replicating the violence they have witnessed.

If violent behaviour has been modelled by a father, there is a particularly strong modelling effect on boys but not girls. This is because boys tend to emulate their fathers and girls tend to emulate their mothers.^[4]

In order to cope with witnessing and/or experiencing violence in the home, victim survivors may minimise their experiences as a means of achieving emotional distance from these experiences.

This coping strategy over the short term may be adaptive, but over the longer term may result in the minimisation of violence in general and lead to desensitisation and normalisation of violence.^[5]

This may stem from normalisation of a family and community environment of violence from a range of contacts in the person’s early life, not solely from parents or immediate family.

2.4.3. Enduring beliefs and attitudes

People may come to hold attitudes that support family violence because they have:

• had early life experiences that modelled or normalised family violence or promoted being in control or dominating others
• been exposed to pro-violence, discriminatory or sexist social influences
• observed and learned from influential people (such as family and peers) to obtain power and control through the use of coercion, manipulation or violence.

These general attitudes come to be translated over time as beliefs about appropriate behaviour in family contexts. This includes beliefs about violence, women, gender and sexuality, intimate and family relationships, people from diverse communities, people with disability, older people and younger people.

If reinforced enough, these beliefs may then become rigid expectations for both the self and other people.

2.4.4. Expectations for self

Expectations for self are influenced by social conditions, early life experiences and our enduring beliefs and attitudes. They can also be influenced by our hopes and goals for the future.

Expectations often dictate how we (and others) should behave or feel. They are often internalised from dominant social norms.

For people using family violence, this may relate to setting expectations for themselves based on acceptable expressions of feelings and the use of communication and behaviours to solve problems – or the ability or need to control the world around them.

Men (in particular) may use violence because it has become normalised as part of the historical and rigid social norms about ‘masculine’ gender identity. These norms tend to view violence as an acceptable means of maintaining control, solving problems or expressing emotions.^[6]

Additionally, in social contexts where violence is held as acceptable, people who use violence may view other ways of solving problems, such as dialogue and negotiation, as an unfamiliar, uncomfortable or unacceptable expectation for themselves.

Rigid expectations for self that are based on socialised norms can influence the choice to use violence and increase the likelihood of family violence risk.

All people are influenced by expectations for self in the way they enter and maintain relationships. These expectations will be different according to the person’s identities, social conditions and other life experiences.

2.4.5. Expectations for others

The way people create expectations for self will influence how they set expectation for others.

Certain roles and scripts about gender, family and culture may become rigid expectations for others if these roles and scripts have been repeatedly reinforced in an individual’s own life.

Depending on how the person views themselves in the world, they may enforce or ascribe meaning to others, based on their identity, constructs of roles within family and society, or privilege, age and ability.

People who use family violence may be so invested in these rigid roles that they use violence to enforce them.

2.4.6. Individual choice

The processes through which beliefs turn into behaviours are complex.

We all hold many beliefs that are not necessarily reflected in our day-to-day behaviours. For example, most of us believe it is important to be healthy, but this does not always translate into our behaviour, such as getting regular exercise or eating a balanced diet.

This is because there are multiple factors underpinning choice, or intention, that link our beliefs to our behaviours, including attitudes, perceived norms, and self-efficacy.^[7]

2.4.7. Attitudes

Attitudes, described in detail above, refers to the person’s judgement of a behaviour. In the context of family violence perpetration, this means the attitude that the person holds towards the use of family violence, overall, or specific behaviours and tactics.

2.4.8. Perceived norms

Perceived norms work alongside social norms.

A perceived norm is a person’s subjective interpretation of the types of behaviour they believe would be deemed acceptable, or not, by others close to them. These individuals are likely to have great influence in the person’s life, including close friends, parents and partners.

The more a behaviour is endorsed by peers, the more likely it is to occur.

2.4.9. Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is the belief and confidence a person holds about their ability to carry out a specific behaviour, or influence or engage in events and situations in their life, to achieve a goal or solve a problem.^[8]

In the context of family violence, the concept of self-efficacy can be used to understand the way a person using violence makes choices both about using violent, coercive and controlling behaviour as well as stopping or changing their behaviour.

A person’s decision to use violence can be linked to their perceived confidence in their ability to carry out these behaviours.^[9]

This is related to a complex combination of their beliefs and attitudes, their intentions or motives, learning that certain behaviours work to achieve their desired results, and the availability of opportunities and resources to use certain behaviours.^[10]

A person’s confidence in their ability to use family violence can influence their choice of the types of behaviours and tactics they will use and the amount of effort they will use to achieve them.

They may believe it is easy or difficult to use certain behaviours based on past experience as well as anticipated barriers.

Professional curiosity

You should be curious about general attitudes expressed by service users and be aware of how they may translate into intentions or choices.

For example, some service users may express a belief it is appropriate to use physical violence towards a male relative, but not towards a female partner. Or they may believe that verbal abuse is normal but physical violence is unacceptable.

Approaching expressed attitudes with professional curiosity supports you to explore them further with the service user and increases the likelihood of uncovering family violence risk-relevant information.

Motivation to change

Self-efficacy plays an important role in supporting people using violence to increase motivation and change their behaviour.

For example, if a person has goals that motivate them to have healthy relationships (such as wanting to create an environment in which children feel safe and secure), the strength of their confidence can influence the types of actions they will take to achieve their goal (for example, engaging with a family violence parenting program), as well as the amount of effort they will commit to achieving them (such as practising new child-centred parenting skills).

As past experiences and perceived barriers can influence a person’s confidence in changing their behaviours, you should seek to understand the person using violence’s experiences and outcomes of previous interventions when setting goals and working with motivation.

Refer to Responsibility 3 and 4 for further information on understanding motivation and the process of change.

2.5. Recognising family violence narratives

Family violence is most often underpinned by core beliefs and attitudes developed through a combination of social norms and early life experiences.

These core beliefs are formed in childhood and are reinforced throughout development and into adulthood. The most important core beliefs related to family violence are beliefs about gender roles and violence attitudes, both of which tend to overlap.^[11]

Remember, you can observe these narratives and record them in order to share risk-relevant information with other parts of the service system. Section 2.6 to 2.7 provides information on how to ask questions to support further identification.

2.5.1. Common attitudes that indicate support for use of family violence behaviours

Refer to Section 12 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide for information about common narratives across relationship types and communities.

This section outlines how to recognise a narrative that may indicate use of family violence. Guidance on recognising narratives that invite you to collude is outlined in Responsibility 3.

When you engage with a person, what they say (their narratives) about themselves, their relationships, other family members and their behaviours will give you an insight into their attitudes, experiences and the way they understand their use of controlling behaviours and violence.

The below examples of violence-supporting beliefs may be held consciously or unconsciously by people who use family violence.

Table 2: Narrative examples of violence-supporting beliefs

Across all forms of family violence and family relationship types, there are common themes that a person’s narrative may suggest.^[12]

These include how a person talks about the following beliefs:

Narratives about their role in relation to their intimate partner, children and family relationships

A person may believe they should perform their family role in ways that are controlling or violent because that is their right, their role or their obligation.

A person may feel entitled to control aspects of another family member’s life because of their position in the family, or where their position is reinforced by beliefs about binary gender roles.

The person using violence may state their behaviour is justified, and that the victim survivor ‘deserved it’, because they disrespected the person’s authority.

These perceptions often coexist with and are enabled by disrespectful or demeaning attitudes about other family members (discussed in the next section).

Narratives about their position of power and entitlement to use coercive control or violent behaviour

The identity and experiences of a person using violence, particularly their early childhood experiences, influence their views and beliefs.

This includes beliefs about family violence, gender, gender roles/norms, children, family, family structure and role/position of family members, as well as views about how these are enacted in the community.

Often people using family violence perceive a victim survivor who is an ex/partner, child or other family member as ‘lesser than’ themselves in some way, and this is reflected in the way they talk about them.

It may be in language that reflects a belief in ownership over an ex/partner, child or family member.

These constructions of self, beliefs and attitudes about the world will influence their thoughts, behaviour and narratives which reflect the intent and choices they make to use violence.

This can be understood in how they view their behaviours in their family relationships and degree of entitlement to power and control.

A person using violence may use coercive controlling behaviours to target a victim survivor’s identity or lived experience.

For example, if the victim survivor has a disability, a person using violence may control their access to money, support aids or services, as a way to maintain power over them.

Attitudes about power and entitlement may be informed by sexism, racism, ableism, ageism or trans/bi/homophobia.

This in turn, can provide an excuse for the person using violence to reduce the autonomy of another family member or compromise the other family member’s rights to make their own decisions and choices.

Their attitudes and narratives may suggest they consider the family member to be subordinate to them, that they should be dependent upon them (also refer to victim stance), or they are entitled to hold power over them.

Listen for the way in which a person talks about other family members having reduced capacity or inability to exercise their autonomy.

Understanding these aspects of identity and experience requires you to use a ‘person in their context’ approach. It supports you to recognise how the person using violence understands their own behaviour within the broader context of their life and experiences.

It can help you avoid invitations to collude (such as minimising or blaming others) while also showing you have heard their story.

Narratives denying, minimising or justifying controlling behaviours

Identifying narratives of denial, minimising and justifying is an important aspect of risk identification and assessment.

People who use family violence deny, minimise or justify their use of violence and their personal responsibility for it in order to maintain power and control over adult and child victim survivors, and to invite professionals to assess their behaviour as ‘not serious’.

They may also do this to maintain a positive sense of themselves or cope with their own experience or trauma, particularly where they have experienced family violence themselves in childhood.

It is common for people using family violence to deny their behaviour is harmful or minimise their recognition of their use of abusive, violent and controlling behaviours. Denial and minimisation often extend to any sanctions they may face, such as intervention or parenting orders.

Often, the person using violence may seek to justify that their narratives indicating coercive controlling behaviour are ‘understandable’. This includes using statements that place their behaviour as a reasonable response to a victim survivor’s behaviour, experience or identity. You should not be drawn into agreeing with them that this narrative is the reason or cause for their use of violence.

All narratives that deny, minimise or justify violence mask the person’s responsibility for their behaviour and the impact of their violence on victim survivors.

A victim-centred approach to identification and assessment will help you expand your field of reference from the person using violence to their family members and any others impacted by their use of violence.

This means being aware of the words or narrative the person uses to describe the situation, the victim survivor, and the level of disclosure or acknowledgement by the person using violence of their violent behaviours and abuse. You should consider the extent to which the person using violence empathises with others or cares about the impact of their behaviour.

Victim stance identified in narratives

Some people who use family violence will present themselves as victims.

They may explain their own trauma, experience of system interventions, role of caring for others or other circumstances in their life, to either present themselves as victims or justify their use of violence, e.g. ‘it caused the violence’.

A person using violence may feel they are a victim of a role they didn’t choose, such as being a carer for another family member. A person may describe this as a victim of circumstance situation.

People who have caring responsibilities may justify or attribute their behaviour as ‘carer stress’, or feeling that their caring work means they have additional responsibility or entitlement to control the person they are caring for.

They may present with narratives about the virtue of being a carer and their perceived self-sacrifice.

They may also express resentment for their carer role. This can include when a carer says they are violent due to their inability to cope with their caring role. They may also minimise or justify their behaviour based on the objective ‘difficulty’ or ‘hardship’ they experience performing the carer role.

They may attempt to frame coercive controlling behaviours as necessary or ‘helpful’ in the context of their caring role and the needs of the person they provide care to.

Recognising and responding to collusion includes identifying narratives related to victim stance. Refer to Responsibility 3 for further guidance.

2.6. Understanding when it is safe to ask questions and when to observe only

Unless there is a direct disclosure, professionals undertaking Responsibility 2 should not ask questions directly about perpetration of family violence. Instead, you should focus on recording observations and information sharing.

Direct questioning about family violence behaviours can increase risk unless you are a skilled professional working with sensitivity and in an appropriate setting.

A person using or suspected to be using family violence can react by threatening the safety of victim survivors, staff, other members of the community and themselves.

For Responsibility 2, you should only ask service users direct questions about observed narratives, behaviours or disclosures that relate to their suspected use of violence if:^[13]

• it is relevant to the primary purpose of their engagement with you (for example, it relates to a presenting need or circumstance that is relevant to your service)
• each of you know they (the service user) are using family violence, for example:
  • they are attending your service due to a related referral or court order or
  • they have directly disclosed they are aware they are using family violence (as opposed to disclosure of behaviours that they are not aware are family violence)
• you can do so in a non-confrontational or non-accusatorial manner, ensuring your communication is respectful and curious to minimise feelings of mistrust or shame,^[14] reducing the likelihood they become defensive or escalate their risk to the victim survivor.

If relevant to your role, reflect on guidance in Responsibilities 3 and 7, on asking questions that relate directly to the purpose of service engagement.

Professionals using Responsibility 3 can identify service-relevant signs of family violence risk factors and indicators linked to motivations for engagement and/or behaviour change.

Professionals using Responsibility 7 will undertake direct comprehensive assessment of risk and needs to support behaviour change work.

If you are uncertain of how to proceed, refer to Responsibilities 5 and 6 on seeking secondary consultation. Secondary consultation will provide you with advice on engaging with a person suspected of using family violence without increasing further risk. It can also help you understand how to share information that is risk relevant for specialists to undertake comprehensive assessment (Responsibility 7).

2.7. Creating space to identify indicators of family violence risk

Sometimes, you can only identify indicators of family violence risk by observation.

In other contexts, where it is relevant to the service you are providing, you can be more direct in your exploration of a person’s beliefs, attitudes, behaviours or presenting needs and circumstances that may be related to family violence.

These are not family violence ‘screening’ questions. Screening often signifies a requirement to routinely use a set of questions as part of service engagement. This does not apply if you are working with a person using violence.

The Identification Tool is designed to record your observation of indicators or disclosure of risk only.

The tool provides descriptions of observations and narratives to assist you to understand the person’s context and identify the presence of risk indicators.

You may be able to focus the conversation, if appropriate to the purpose of your service engagement, by using a prompt such as:

• ‘In our organisation, one of the things we explore is how things are at home.’
• ‘You said before that you’ve already been to a couple of meetings like this one and you feel like no one has listened to you. I am really interested in listening to you and your story.’
• ‘You said that you and ____________ have been getting into lots of fights lately. The word “fight” means different things to different people. Could you tell me what you mean by fights? What usually happens?’

The above prompting statement may also assist you to respond to direct disclosure of family violence behaviour.

Remember, your role in Responsibility 2 is to identify whether family violence is present, not to assess the level of risk, its impacts or to directly intervene with a person using family violence.

The objective at this stage is to ask curious questions that allow for disclosure of behaviour or reveal underlying beliefs and attitudes that may be related to family violence.

If a service user is resistant or reluctant to explore an issue, do not force them to do so. The fact they have avoided some topics is useful information to note and may be relevant to share with another service.

When working with Aboriginal people, you may need to allow for more time, more informal settings and relaxed yarning to assist with trust and rapport building. Refer to Responsibility 1 for further information on building trust and rapport.

2.8. People using violence who are not aware of the impact of their behaviours

In some circumstances, people who use family violence may be genuinely unaware that their behaviour is violent or coercive. Service users need to have an awareness of a problem in order to address it.

Responsibility 3 provides further questions you can use to prompt this.

If relevant to your role and you have developed rapport over time, it may be appropriate for you to explore the impact of disclosed behaviour on others. For example, you could ask them how they think their partner or child is experiencing their behaviour.

Some issues that represent barriers to gaining insight, such as rigid gender norms that reinforce an identity constituted by the use of power and control, can be overcome in an appropriate specialist intervention.

In these circumstances, referral to a specialist perpetrator intervention service may be appropriate.

If you have identified that the person using violence has other barriers, such as cognitive disability or diagnosed mental illness (such as schizophrenia), this may inhibit standard intervention efforts, including supporting a person’s insight into their behaviour.

For support in responding, you can seek secondary consultation and/or refer to specialist services for more coordinated and intensive interventions.

2.9. If it is likely that family violence is not occurring

Risk can change over time. If it is not currently evident that family violence is occurring, remain aware that you may identify indicators of family violence in the future.

Building trust and rapport with service users occurs over time.

The stronger this relationship becomes between professionals and service users, the more likely it is that service users will disclose risk-relevant information.

In circumstances in which there are no clear evidence-based family violence risk factors but your professional experience or ‘gut feeling’ tells you something is not right, consider seeking secondary consultations with specialist perpetrator intervention services (refer to Responsibilities 5 and 6).

2.10. If family violence is occurring

Refer to Appendix 1 flow diagram of response options for a quick reference guide.

For professionals whose risk assessment and risk management responsibilities cover Responsibilities 1 and 2 only, it is more likely that you will have concerns that family violence is occurring based on the service user’s narrative, presentation and disclosed behaviours, rather than a direct disclosure of family violence perpetration.

Use information the service user directly provides to you to frame any further assessment and risk management, including safety planning and information sharing.

Table 3: Service contact and response options

Following direct disclosure, do not close off your engagement with them without putting a safety plan or strategy in place.

If applicable to your role, undertake Intermediate or Comprehensive Risk Assessment and Management (Responsibilities 3 and 4, or 7 and 8).

Consider the risk-relevant information, seek secondary consultation and share with others, as appropriate (refer to Responsibilities 5 and 6).

If the person using violence has accepted an offer of a referral for further support, you can discuss with them sharing their information for this purpose. Refer to guidance on making a referral and sharing information under Responsibilities 5 and 6.

You may also need to contact other services to share risk-relevant information to support the safety of any adult or child victim survivor identified.

You are not required to inform the person using violence you have shared this risk-relevant information if you believe it could increase risk to victim survivors.

2.10.1. Misidentification

Section 12.2.1 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide includes guidance on misidentification.

The family violence identification process provides an early opportunity to look for indicators a person may be using family violence.

You may not be able to determine definitively that someone is using or suspected to be using family violence unless there is a direct disclosure (from the victim survivor or the person using violence), or this information has been shared with you by another professional or service.

If you observe narratives or behaviours indicating or disclosing use of family violence risk factors, consider whether it is safe to ask direct questions or continue to observe only (refer to Section 2.7 and 2.8).

As you gather information directly from the person, document this along with your observations using the Identification Tool.

Throughout the identification process, you should use a victim-centred lens when applying Structured Professional Judgement to understand how the person’s narratives and behaviours may be experienced by victim survivors.

If you are unsure whether a person is using violence, or there is a risk of misidentification, refer to guidance in Responsibility 3 if this is appropriate to your role.

If you have used the Identification Tool to support your determination of the predominant aggressor in response to suspected misidentification, document this in the tool, ensure your records are corrected, and proactively share information with appropriate organisations working with each party.

You should then refer to Responsibilities 5 and 6 for guidance on requesting or sharing risk-relevant information with appropriate services.

2.11. If family violence is occurring and an immediate response is required

If family violence is identified and an immediate risk management response is required, you should:

Assess who is at risk of harm from the person using violence, including:

• an adult or child victim survivor
• themselves (due to self-harm or suicide risk)
• a third party identified by the person using violence (for example, a person who is the target of anger or violence, such as a victim survivor’s new partner, or presumed new partner, even if this is not the case)
• you or another professional (for example, the person using violence has made a targeted threat).

If you determine there is an immediate risk to any person, contact Triple Zero (000) and ask for police.

Be ready to share details about the person using family violence and victim survivor (if known) and be prepared to tell the operator why you believe there is an imminent risk.

Other services may also be appropriate, including:

• Crisis Assessment and Treatment Teams (CATT) – calling the local CATT may be more appropriate where service users are showing acute signs of mental illness but are not necessarily a threat to others
• Child Protection – in order to share information where children are involved or to obtain information about the level of risk a person using family violence may present to a child or young person
• a specialist family violence service – in order to share information and to collaborate with the service on safety planning if a victim survivor is currently engaged in their service.

If you are uncertain how to proceed, call a specialist perpetrator intervention service, or other services such as The Orange Door or Rainbow Door for a secondary consultation on responding to immediate risk. This is outlined in more detail in Responsibility 4.

2.12. What’s next?

Refer to the flow diagram in Appendix 1 for response options where you have identified indicators of risk.

If risk indicators or risk factors are present, the flow diagram will guide you on what to do if there is immediate or non-immediate risk.

Professionals with responsibility for family violence risk assessment should use the information outlined in Responsibility 3 or 7.

If this is not within your role, contact another professional within your service or another service to assist.

Professionals who need to make referrals, seek secondary consultation, or share information should refer to guidance on Responsibilities 5 and 6, respectively.

Consider if any statutory responsibilities apply and if you may have to report to authorities in the situation.

2.13. Document in your organisation’s record management system

It is important that you document the following information in your service or organisations record management system:

• whether you had a conversation about limited confidentiality (refer to Responsibility 6)
• (if possible) contact details for the victim survivor (refer to victim survivor-focused MARAM Practice Guides)
• (if possible/applicable) children’s details
• if an interpreter was used in the conversation
• if you completed the Identification Tool
• if family violence has been identified as present or not present, and if immediate action is required
• if misidentification was suspected and you used the Identification Tool to support your determination of the predominant aggressor
• actions taken to correct your records where misidentification previously occurred and steps to proactively share information about the predominant aggressor with other organisations working with each party
• the action required such as information sharing, referral or secondary consultation for further risk assessment, determining the predominant aggressor or a risk management and safety plan
• consideration of preventative and other healing approaches and supports that may be introduced (refer to Responsibility 3/7 and 4/8 as appropriate to your role).

Footnotes

^[1] O'Neil JM 2008, ‘Summarizing 25 years of research on men's gender role conflict using the gender role conflict scale’, The Counselling Psychologist, vol. 36, no. 3, p. 358-445.

^[2] Goffman E 1990, The presentation of self in everyday life, Penguin, Harmondsworth.

^[3] Other factors such as gender roles and stereotypes and violence-supportive attitudes are important factors discussed in this chapter. Factors including socioeconomic disadvantage, parental mental illness and substance use are also contributors to the likelihood of children who are exposed to family violence going on to use or experience family violence in future. Refer to RCFV, ‘Children and young people’s experience of family violence’, Vol II, Chapter 10, p. 117; The RCFV noted that while. children who witness family violence are more likely to experience or use family violence in future relationships, ‘a number of factors can mitigate the effects of family violence, including the presence of a supportive adult or older sibling, and the mother’s positive mental health. Mothers play a vital role in mitigating the effects of family violence on their children’. Ibid., pp. 111, 117.

^[4] Eriksson L and P Mazerolle 2015, ‘A cycle of violence? Examining family-of-origin violence, attitudes, and intimate partner violence perpetration’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, vol. 30, no. 6, pp. 945-964.

^[5] Chambers JC et al. 2008, ‘Treatment readiness in violent offenders: the influence of cognitive factors on engagement in violence programs’, Aggression and Violent Behavior,vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 276-284.

^[6] The Men’s Project and Flood M 2018, The Man Box: a study on being a young man in Australia, Jesuit Social Services, Melbourne.

^[7] Fishbein M 2009, An integrative model for behavioral prediction and its application to health promotion: emerging theories in health promotion practice and research, 2nd ed, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, pp. 215-234.

^[8] Bandura A 1982, ‘Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency’, American Psychologist, vol. 37, no. 2, pp 122-147.

^[9] Ajzen I 1991, ‘The theory of planned behavior’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 50, pp 179-211.

^[10] Ibid.

^[11] Levant RF 2011, ‘Research in the psychology of men and masculinity using the gender role strain paradigm as a framework’, American Psychologist, vol. 66, no. 8, pp. 765-776.

^[12] These narratives are highlighted in the bold text descriptions here, and are listed in Section 1of the Identification Tool.

^[13] Refer to the ‘Service awareness and roles in addressing a person’s use of family violence’ table on p. 6.

^[14] Unpacking feelings of shame or guilt is the responsibility of specialist family violence practitioners.

Download and print the PDF or find the accessible version below:

Appendix 3 - Adult Person Using Violence Intermediate Assessment Tool 3

Appendix 4: Intermediate assessment conversation model

Appendix 5: Screening questions for cognitive disability and acquired brain injury

Appendix 6: Recognising suicide risk in the context of adult people using violence

3.1 Overview

Professionals should refer to the Foundation Knowledge Guide and perpetrator-focused Responsibilities 1 and 2 before commencing intermediate risk assessment.

This chapter guides you in undertaking an intermediate risk assessment. This helps determine the level or ‘seriousness’ of risk presented by a person using family violence towards an adult or child victim survivor.

You can do this assessment directly after a service user discloses using family violence. You can also do it when you become aware of information confirming the person is using family violence, such as from another service, the victim survivor/s or a third party.

Intermediate risk assessment is also used to assess and monitor risk over time.

Key capabilities

This guide supports professionals to have knowledge of Responsibility 3, which includes:

• asking questions to obtain information related to risk factors
• using the model of Structured Professional Judgement in practice
• using intersectional analysis and inclusive practice
• using the Adult Person Using Violence Intermediate Assessment Tool
• understanding how observed narratives and behaviours and presenting needs or circumstances link to evidence-based risk factors
• forming a professional judgement to determine the level or seriousness of risk, including ‘at risk’, ‘elevated risk’ or ‘serious risk’/‘serious risk and requires immediate protection/intervention’.

When working with a person using violence, an intermediate risk assessment focuses on information gathering and an analysis of:

• responses to prompting questions asked directly to the person using violence (refer to the Intermediate assessment conversation model in Appendix 4)
• your observation of the person’s narratives and behaviours (refer to Responsibility 2)
• information shared by other services about risk factors
• the person’s disclosed motivations for seeking help or support for their presenting needs or family violence behaviours
• family violence behaviours to identify recency, frequency and patterns, including patterns of coercive control.

The Adult Person Using Violence Intermediate Assessment Tool (Intermediate Assessment Tool) in Appendix 3 provides a structure to support your analysis of information and application of Structured Professional Judgement to determine the level of risk.

Remember, Responsibility 3 of the victim survivor–focused MARAM Practice Guides provides practice considerations, guidance and tools for assessing risk for children, young people and adult victim survivors.

Responsibility 3 of the perpetrator-focused MARAM Practice Guides (this document) helps you identify and assess the person’s use of violence and its impact on children, their parenting role and co-parenting relationships.

It also considers the person’s motivations and capacity for change in relation to their parenting role, prioritising the safety, wellbeing and needs of children and young people.

Each guide prompts you to consider what is safe, appropriate and reasonable, considering the age and developmental stage of the child or young person as the first guiding consideration.

After an intermediate risk assessment, a professional may escalate the risk assessment (through secondary consultation or referral) for a comprehensive assessment to be undertaken by a specialist perpetrator intervention service practitioner.

3.1.1 Who should undertake intermediate risk assessment and in what situations?

This guide is for professionals whose role is linked to, but not directly focused on, family violence.

As part of, or connected to, your core work, you will engage with people who are:

• using family violence (identified by observation of their narratives or behaviours, through direct disclosure, or information shared from another service/third party)
• using family violence (not yet identified or disclosed) where the presenting need may contribute to their use of violence and controlling behaviours, for example:
  • their presenting need is related to mental health or drug and/or alcohol use, and may relate to family violence risk factor/s
  • their presenting need is masking or hiding their use of violence (for example, they are using the presenting need to justify, minimise or deny the use of violence)
• mandated to attend your service (their use of violence has been identified by the referring service/agency or disclosed)
• in a crisis situation as a result of their presenting needs or circumstances or use of family violence (and they are or are not aware/ready to admit/disclose this).

3.2 Structured Professional Judgement in Intermediate risk assessment

Reflect on the model of Structured Professional Judgement when working with a person using violence, as outlined in Section 10.1 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide.

The model of Structured Professional Judgement is an approach to risk assessment that supports you to determine the level or seriousness of risk presented by a person using family violence.

It provides a framework for analysing information to identify and understand patterns of family violence.

Risk assessment with a person using violence relies on you or another professional:

• centring the lived experience and risk to the victim survivor during your assessment
• identifying the evidence-based risk factors present.

Victim-centred practice ensures that the lived experience, dignity and safety of all victim survivors is at the centre of your assessment.^[1]

You should apply your knowledge of the impact of family violence on adult and child victim survivors to understand or contextualise their experience of the person using violence.^[2]

You can share information and seek the advice and views of victim survivor advocates and/or specialist family violence services or other professionals working with adult and child victim survivors to understand their self-assessed level of risk and identify protective factors.

You can identify and analyse evidence-based risk factors through:

• your observations of the person using violence’s presentation, violence-supporting narratives and behaviours, including attitudes and accepted norms that may underpin a person’s choice or intention to use violence
• direct disclosures about their use of family violence behaviours
• the person’s presenting needs and circumstances related to family violence risk factors
• your observations of patterns of coercive control, including where behaviours are targeted towards a victim survivor’s identity, lived experience, needs or circumstances
• your observations or direct disclosures of motivations for engaging with your service or a family violence service.

You can seek and share information to inform this approach from a variety of sources, including:

• observing or ‘assessing’ the person using violence directly
• proactively requesting or sharing information, as authorised, about the risk factors present, observations of narratives or behaviours of the person using violence, or other relevant information about a victim survivor’s or perpetrator’s needs or circumstances. This may be shared by other professionals or services, the victim survivor (if disclosed directly to your service), or a third party.

Intersectional analysis^[3] must be applied as part of Structured Professional Judgement.

This means understanding that a person may experience structural inequalities, barriers and discrimination throughout their life.

These experiences will provide context for:

• their own identity and lived experience
• their understanding and capability to name, disclose or understand what constitutes violent behaviours
• how they manage their risk behaviours and safety towards victim survivors and themselves
• their engagement or access to services responding to their use of family violence, presenting needs and circumstances.

Applying a person-centred, trauma and violence-informed lens as part of Structured Professional Judgement also supports a better understanding of the person using violence (outlined in Section 10.1 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide).

Together, the elements underpinning Structured Professional Judgement provide a structure for gathering and analysing information to assist you to determine the level or ‘seriousness’ of risk. You will use this analysis to determine intermediate level risk management responses, as required (refer to Responsibility 4).

3.2.1 Information sharing to inform your assessment

Information sharing is a crucial part of your intermediate risk assessment practice.

Responsibility 6 provides further guidance on ‘risk-relevant’ information when sharing information about a person using violence.

The Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme Guidelines and Child Information Sharing Scheme Guidelines outline how to make requests and share information if you are authorised under these schemes.

Limitations on privacy and confidentiality should be clearly explained at initial engagement unless it would increase risk to a victim survivor (refer to Responsibility 1 and Responsibility 6).

You should document in the Intermediate Assessment Tool whether a limited confidentiality conversation would increase risk to the victim survivor from the person using violence.

Intermediate risk assessment of a person using family violence is a collaborative activity. You undertake it with other professionals and services working with the person using violence, as well as adult and child victim survivor/s^[4] and other family members (where relevant).

You may request information before engaging with the person using violence, particularly if:

• referral processes alert you to high-risk factors that may require an immediate risk management response to reduce or remove an identified threat
• you require further information about the risk the person presents to manage their attendance at your service, including where the identified victim survivor also attends your service.

If you identify information that risk is escalating or imminent, and you are not working with the victim survivor, you should:

• call police on Triple 000
• seek secondary consultation and share information with specialist family violence services to support risk management responses.

3.3 Intersectional analysis and inclusive practice in intermediate risk assessment

Reflect on guidance about applying intersectional analysis in the Foundation Knowledge Guide.

The experience of the person using violence is shaped by multiple identities, life experiences and circumstances.

Applying intersectional analysis means considering the person in their context. This involves recognising how experiences of structural inequality, barriers and discrimination can affect the person’s trust in services and understanding of their use of violence.

It builds a greater understanding of the person you are engaging with. This allows you to assess risk, establish risk management strategies and support behaviour change.

It also supports you to reflect on your own views, biases and beliefs about a person's use of family violence and to respond safely and appropriately in practice.^[5]

Experiences such as service barriers and discrimination related to a person’s identity can influence how they might:

• talk about their use of violence, or recognise that their behaviour, beliefs and attitudes are linked to or reinforce their use of violence
• identify the service options available to them, based on actual or perceived barriers. This may be due to discrimination or inadequate service system responses experienced by themselves or people they know, including institutional or statutory services
• perceive or talk about the impact of their behaviours on their family and adult and child victim survivor/s. You may observe this through narratives that minimise, justify or blame others for their behaviour.

Use professional curiosity to remain open to the way the person using violence presents and engages with you. You can respond to their experience of systemic barriers without colluding with a narrative that justifies violent or abusive behaviour.

This includes:

• identifying and recording any concerns the person using violence has about engaging with your service. By considering their identity, circumstances or previous experiences with the service system, you can ensure your responses are safe and respectful
• engaging in a culturally safe and appropriate manner, including offering warm referral to a community specific service if the person using violence chooses. Engage with other agencies and/or the services of a bicultural/bilingual worker (ideally who is trained in family violence). This may be particularly important to assist with working with people from multicultural communities so that narratives of justification, denial and minimisation can be explored appropriately
• discussing supports available if Aboriginal people who use violence choose to engage with non-Aboriginal services due to privacy and confidentiality concerns. This may include exploring the possibilities of collaborative work between mainstream and Aboriginal community organisations or providing an Aboriginal support person
• seeking secondary consultation and possible co-case management with a service that specialises in responding to people from diverse communities in the context of family violence (refer to Responsibilities 5, 6 and 9)
• where safe and appropriate, discussing concerns you have about the risk they present to themselves and others because of the perceived or real barriers they face in seeking help.^[6]

It is important that you explore and understand the person’s:

• individual needs and circumstances, and how these relate to their use or pattern of family violence, as well as other life choices they may have made
• underlying concerns or any reluctance they have about recommended services or engagement with the system (for example, resistance to support and change)
• relationships with any victim survivor/s (including each child and/or family members) residing in the household to ascertain other risks of family violence for each person.

3.3.1 Assessing risk when cognitive disability is present, including acquired brain injury

Section 12.1.17 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide provides information on the prevalence, presentations and responses required in relation to people who use violence who have cognitive disability, including acquired brain injury (ABI).

Appendix 5 provides guidance on screening for cognitive disability including ABI indicators with people using violence.

The Intermediate Assessment Tool for people using violence includes an intake field to record if the person using violence and/or victim survivor has cognitive disability.

You can also record the existing or required professional or therapeutic service supports in Section 2 of the Intermediate Assessment Tool, ‘Presenting needs and circumstances’. You can use Sections 1 and 2 to record comments on how cognitive disability is relevant to the person’s narratives and behaviours or supports required to respond to presenting needs.

Practice considerations for people with cognitive disability

You should have some understanding of cognitive disability, including:

• how this may affect presentation and capacity of the person using violence to communicate with you and the adjustments needed to ensure your communication approach enables engagement (Responsibility 1)
• observable indicators that they may have a cognitive disability
• how to screen for cognitive disability indicators, to inform your understanding of their narratives and behaviours and guide decision making on levels of risk
• when secondary consultation and referral is needed:
  • for support on communicative and neuropsychological assessment of their cognitive disability (refer to Responsibilities 5 and 6). This can inform service adjustments required to enable appropriate, effective interventions and address engagement barriers
  • to respond to significantly reduced cognitive capacity. This may be for the purpose of upskilling professionals, such as in making changes to the environment and minimising the risk of aggression. In some instances, management of these cases may also be occurring within Transport Accident Commission (TAC) or National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) frameworks
  • for comprehensive risk assessment and management for the person with cognitive disability using violence. This includes support to tailor approaches and interventions to address the use of violence and safety for victim survivors (Responsibility 7 and Responsibility 8).

3.4 How to use the Intermediate Assessment Tool

A stand-alone template for the Adult Person Using Violence Intermediate Assessment Tool is in Appendix 3.

The purpose of the Intermediate Assessment Tool is to:

• identify the narratives and behaviours you observe that may indicate family violence risk
• identify family violence risk factors and behaviours by sharing information with other sources, as well as asking prompting questions when engaging with the person using violence
• identify presenting needs and circumstances that may be related to risk, increase the level of risk, impact on the person’s capacity to act safely or take responsibility, or serve as protective factors
• consider the information gained through the assessment process and apply Structured Professional Judgement to identify patterns of coercive controlling behaviour, the person’s intent or choice to use violence, and any motivations to engage and change behaviour. This analysis will support you to determine the level of risk at a point in time or changes in risk over time.

The Intermediate Assessment Tool asks you to note how you have formed the belief they are using violence.

This may be from:

• direct disclosure (from the service user)
• victim survivor disclosure
• observation of family violence risk factors (narratives or behaviours)
• information shared by another service or professional or third party (Victoria Police Family Violence Report (FVR, also known as an L17), Child Protection report, other risk assessments or information about use of violence shared by another service)
• referred or court mandated engagement.

Consider this information in your analysis of the person’s intent or choice to use violence and motivation to engage and change behaviour.

The Intermediate Assessment Tool includes intake information and sections that help you to collect and analyse risk-relevant information.

This includes:

• Section 1: Observed narratives and behaviours indicating or disclosing family violence risk factors. Refer to Responsibility 2 for guidance on identifying beliefs, attitudes and behaviours linked to the use of family violence and any narratives indicating minimisation or justification. These narratives may support you to identify underlying aspects of the person’s intent or choice to use violence.
• Section 2: Presenting needs and circumstances that may contribute to risk behaviours, or function as a protective factor. Use the person in their context approach to understand and record any presenting needs and circumstances outlined under the areas of identity/relationships, community/social connections, systems interventions and practical/environmental supports.
• Section 3: Presence of risk factors identified by information sharing, observation or disclosure (person using violence, victim survivor, third party). Record the presence and detail of evidence-based risk factors, noting the source of information, including from other professionals and services working with the person using violence, or adult or child victim survivor. Information may be shared through professional collaboration and coordination processes. Record details of any risk factors requiring immediate response and seek secondary consultation to escalate the situation to Victoria Police and/or specialist family violence services.
• Section 4: Patterns of family violence behaviour and motivations. Patterns may be identified from understanding the types of behaviours used over time, including recency and frequency, and any links to situational circumstances or events. Patterns of behaviour may be different for each adult or child victim survivor. Motivation for the person’s engagement about presenting needs may indicate likely motivations and readiness to engage for the purpose of addressing family violence behaviour.
• Section 5: Determining level of risk to an adult or child victim survivor, self (person using violence) or community/professionals. Record if the tool was used to support a determination of the predominant aggressor (where misidentification is suspected), identified patterns of coercive control and rationale for the level of risk.

An intermediate risk assessment may be completed over a number of service engagements as you build rapport and a professional relationship with the person using violence.

3.5 Understanding the intermediate risk assessment process and risk levels

Assessing risk occurs from the point of first contact and throughout your ongoing engagement with the person using violence.

Ongoing risk assessment helps build your understanding of the person in their context. This includes their risk behaviours, narratives, presenting needs and circumstances, and the impact of this on victim survivors over time.

Intermediate risk assessment can be built into your existing organisational intake and assessment processes.

You may already collect information relevant to the evidence-based risk factors or use direct questioning, as appropriate, to explore the person’s life situation and behaviours.

3.5.1 Using your existing intake and engagement processes to inform risk assessment

Refer to Responsibility 1 for guidance on safe engagement to establish trust and rapport supporting your existing organisational intake and assessment processes.

Your conversation with the person using violence should outline a process that incorporates:

• taking notes and filling out the service’s intake and other relevant assessment forms^[7]
• talking about the wellbeing and safety of all family members, including the person using violence (this is not just family violence–specific but for addressing a range of presenting needs and circumstances)
• information sharing (including advising the person using violence of their limited confidentiality)
• discussing the need to ask some challenging or difficult questions, if required, to better understand the person’s needs and circumstances
• discussing what a safe environment looks like for the person using violence to discuss their needs
• discussing what a safe environment looks like for you as a worker.

Few people who use, or are suspected of using family violence, decline the process outlined above.

However, they may not disclose honestly or fully, and they are likely to provide a narrative that reflects their minimising, justifying or victim stance (discussed in Section 3.6).

If they refuse to participate, record this as a possible risk indicator. It highlights a level of resistance to address issues, including their use of family violence.

It may also indicate risk of disengagement.

You can seek support to navigate resistance or refusal through secondary consultation and supervision.

Your risk assessment process will be informed by:^[8]

3.5.2 Conversation prompts to support intermediate risk assessment

The Intermediate Assessment Tool should be used in conjunction with the Intermediate assessment conversation model (the Assessment conversation model) in Appendix 4.

This provides an example interview structure, including prompting questions to support your engagement with the person using violence.

The Assessment conversation model sets out how to use prompting questions to:

• engage in a dialogue with the person using violence, to uncover their understanding and narrative about themselves and their presenting needs
• build your understanding of how the person using violence views themselves in their context. For example, how they describe themselves as an individual, their relationships and family, and their environment (including social context and community)
• link presenting needs to the impact on relationships and identity, open a conversation about family violence behaviours^[11] and encourage disclosure of family violence perpetration (if present)
• support a conversation to uncover information about their underlying beliefs, attitudes and accepted norms that contribute to their intention or choice to use family violence behaviours (refer to Responsibility 2). It may also support early conversations about readiness and motivation to address presenting needs and/or use of family violence, and connect to specialist perpetrator intervention services (further explored inResponsibility4).

You can use the Assessment conversation model with the person using violence in one session or across a series of sessions.

You should apply Structured Professional Judgement to analyse information the person shares with you.

Every engagement, non-engagement, conversation or observation you have with or in relation to the person using violence will inform your decision making in risk assessment and risk management.

The Assessment conversation model provides prompts to help you build rapport with, and elicit responses from, the person using violence. The goal of this is to explore their behaviours, needs and circumstances, including those that may be related to the use of family violence.

It may not be safe or appropriate in the circumstances or at this stage to use the words ‘family violence’ when talking to a person using violence. You may instead describe the behaviour and the impact of the behaviour.

This is not minimising the use of family violence. Rather, this practice reflects a balanced approach to avoid confrontation.

Introducing behaviours and their impact is a step towards enhancing self-awareness. This aims to increase the person’s readiness and motivation to name, identify and address their use of family violence and seek help or referral for specialist interventions and support.

The Assessment conversation model is only a guide. You should use your engagement skills and experience to determine the best approach to your conversation with the person using violence, and navigate the conversation based on their responses and any immediate needs.

When preparing for conversations that can identify risk-relevant information, it is important that you consider the questions in the context of:

• your professional role and goals for engagement
• the person’s presenting needs leading to engagement with your service, and other needs (identified or not)
• the person’s identity, relationships and circumstances
• the nature of the person’s relationship to the victim survivor/s
• the person’s capacity and capability to participate in the conversation.

Planning for a session will be guided by the initial information you have about the person from previous contact, referral forms and information sharing.

You can seek secondary consultation from senior co-workers, your supervisor or team leader.

The prompts in the Assessment conversation model align with the areas of information collected in the Intermediate Assessment Tool at Appendix 3, and are signposted throughout.

3.5.3 Risk levels

The Intermediate Assessment Tool supports you to record and analyse information to assess the level or ‘seriousness’ of the risk presented by the person using violence to an adult or child victim survivor, to themselves and the community/professionals.

Before you undertake intermediate risk assessment, it is important to understand the levels of risk that the person using family violence may present to victim survivors, as outlined in the table below. The likely circumstances for risk level, below, are examples only. As each person’s situation is different, professionals must apply Structured Professional Judgement to determine the level of risk.

Table 1: Levels of family violence risk when working with the person using violence or victim survivor

Supporting your assessment

The above table helps you analyse the information you have gathered through your intermediate risk assessment process.

However, the Intermediate Assessment Tool is just one resource you can use to determine the level or seriousness of risk of the person using violence.

You should use your Structured Professional Judgement and your professional experience, skills and knowledge to support your decision-making processes on the level of risk and your risk management actions.

3.5.4 Determining seriousness or level of risk

The model of Structured Professional Judgement provides a framework for gathering and analysing information to assist you to determine the level or ‘seriousness’ of risk.

This includes information about victim survivor lived experience and self-assessed level of risk, the presence of evidence-based risk factors including patterns of behaviour and intention to use violence, and experiences of structural inequality that impact on the person’s risk and capacity for safety.

When working with a person using violence, determining the level of risk requires you to analyse all information related to:

• risk factors (static and dynamic)
• the perpetrator’s behaviours, presenting needs and the background to the circumstances that brought them to the service system
• the pattern, history and intention for using family violence.

These elements, combined with an understanding of the effect their behaviour has on adult and child victim survivors, will assist your decision-making processes throughout intermediate risk assessment and risk management.

Static and dynamic risk factors

Risk factors are recognised as static or dynamic. This reflects how much they are able to change (present/not present, frequency, escalation).

Some risk factors are ‘highly static’, such as history of violence and prior behaviours, as their presence does not change.

Some are ‘highly dynamic’, such as recent separation, impending court hearings and alcohol and drug use, as their presence can change risk rapidly.

Some dynamic risk factors are more stable in nature, in that they may take longer to change, such as beliefs and attitudes.

Both static and dynamic risk factors contribute to assessing and managing family violence risk.

They can also inform a discussion with the person using violence about safety planning, if appropriate (refer to Responsibility 4).

3.5.5 Reviewing risk assessment over time

The intermediate risk assessment process is ongoing and should occur throughout your ongoing contact or engagement with the person using violence.

When you decide on the level or seriousness of risk, this reflects risk at ‘a point in time’.

Your risk management strategy should be a direct response to the determined level of risk. It should address the risk factors, behaviours, needs and circumstances underpinning your rationale for risk level (developing a risk management strategy is outlined in Responsibility 4).

Risk is dynamic and can rapidly change or escalate over time.

Ongoing risk assessment requires you to assess and monitor the person using family violence’s presentation and engagement, and presenting needs or circumstances related to family violence risk.

Risk factors will change and may escalate or de-escalate depending on the circumstances of the person using family violence.

Where possible, ongoing engagement ensures you can identify change or escalation of risk and behaviours.

You should take every engagement (such as conversation or observation), non-engagement (where the person declines to engage), disengagement (where person discontinues engagement with your service), as well as historical and current information into consideration when assessing the risk presented by the person using violence.

You should regularly revisit and build upon the prompting questions outlined in the Assessment conversation model with the person using violence. This helps you to understand changes in presentation and risk, and to gain a deeper understanding of the person’s pattern and intent to use family violence.

You should also regularly and proactively seek and share information with others to inform and update your risk assessment.

If you identify changes in a person’s behaviours, needs or circumstances, or gain further information related to risk, apply Structured Professional Judgement to determine the ‘point in time’ level of risk.

You can record this information using the Intermediate Assessment Tool and compare with previous risk assessments to identify patterns and changes to risk over time.

The key to determining seriousness of risk is to understand how risk changes or escalates over time.

If you identify that no change has occurred, you can continue to observe and monitor narratives related to risk. This will allow you to identify patterns of coercive control and the person’s intent or choice to use violence.

Remember, no change or no reported change can also indicate risk.

Factors that impact the dynamic nature of risk presented by the person using violence can include:

• patterns of family violence behaviour
• family violence intervention orders and family violence safety notices, including when recently made, served, varied or expired
• events such as high-profile sports, religious or public holidays or school holidays (if applicable)
• court matters (generally) and Family Court matters pending, being resolved or remaining unresolved – particularly if related to divorce settlement, parenting orders/arrangements and change to arrangements
• emotional distress linked to relationship breakdown or parenting issues/changed arrangements (e.g. outside of court orders, above), particularly around holidays, birthdays or other significant events
• pregnancy/new birth for the adult victim survivor
• housing or homelessness, or change in accommodation or accommodation needs (such as related to family violence intervention order exclusion conditions)
• change in employment or financial situation/instability, disengagement with education
• alcohol or drug use, problematic gambling, and change in behaviour or access to these
• isolation or disconnection from family and/or friends, community
• isolation related or due to cultural or religious/faith-based beliefs.

Change in the relationship or power dynamics can be reflected in a change or escalation of the person’s use of family violence.

Change outside of their control, such as change in circumstances or system interventions, may relate to retaliation and co-occurring escalation of family violence risk and general violent behaviours.

3.6 Recognising invitations to collude

Collusion occurs when professionals, organisations and the service system act in ways that reinforce, support, excuse or minimise a person’s use of family violence and its impacts.

It reduces your own and the service system’s capacity to keep the person using violence engaged, in view and accountable for their behaviour, and to keep victim survivors safe.

All professionals have a responsibility to understand the drivers, contributing factors and presentations of family violence across different relationships and communities (refer to section 12 in Foundation Knowledge Guide).

This knowledge will help you recognise and respond to invitations to collude throughout your practice.

In your engagement with people using violence, you may hear statements that invite you to collude.

These are often identified in narratives, outlined in detail in Responsibility 2, including narratives:

• specific to the type of relationship the person using violence has with the victim survivor, such as narratives about intimate partners may vary to narratives about children, family members or people in their care
• that deny, minimise, justify or blame-shift use of coercive control and violence
• that position the person using violence as a victim (victim stance) to further minimise or justify their use of violence
• that the person is entitled to use coercive control or violent behaviour
• that represent myths and stereotypes about family violence, identity, culture, faith and age.

Some people who use violence seek collusion through their narrative and description of their needs or circumstances. This helps them to avoid responsibility for their family violence behaviour, and to deny, minimise or justify their use of violence and control. Some narratives can sound convincing.

The person using violence may be very confident in expressing their justifications, denial and/or minimisation about their behaviour, their rigid beliefs, or use of inflammatory remarks about victim survivors. They may believe these will go unnoticed or unchecked, particularly if they have not been responded to in the past.

Some invitations to collude may be deliberate, considered and calculated. The person using violence may attempt to manipulate you to get you on side or instil doubt in you. This is usually preceded by a set of tactics, where the person using violence seeks to enlist your support for their perspective over time. For example, they may first seek your agreement that their life situation is ‘challenging’, that they are acting ‘reasonably’ given the circumstances they face, and that any ‘disagreement’ with the victim survivor is understandable.

You may be colluding with a person using violence when you accept this narrative as true and respond using terms such as ‘relationship issues’.^[23] You may continue to collude when you base your professional decisions only on the perspective of the person using violence. This means you accept the person’s narrative on face value without considering the experience of the victim survivor.

You may adopt terms such as ‘mutual violence’ to describe the situation in case conference discussions. Your risk management actions and interventions may actually increase risk for the victim survivor. Refer to Section 3.9 for guidance on predominant aggressor and misidentification.

Be aware that:

• People who use violence are poor predictors of, or intentionally minimise, the level of risk they present to others.
• It is uncommon for a person using violence to be open and honest about their patterns of coercive controlling behaviours or violence in the initial stages of engagement.
• People who take little or no responsibility for their use of family violence may be heavily invested in inviting you to collude with them by agreeing or empathising with their story.
• People who use violence often make attempts to avoid acknowledging their use of violence. If they do, they often couch disclosures in narratives that seek to minimise the impact of their behaviour or blame something external for their actions (such as work stress, the behaviour of the victim survivor, or alcohol use).

There are two broad obstacles to a person using violence taking responsibility for their behaviour:

• feelings of shame about their actions
• using deliberate attempts to minimise, deny, shift blame or remove their own responsibility in order to maintain power and control over victim survivors.

Often, a combination of these two obstacles occur simultaneously for the person.

3.6.1 Recognising collusion based on a victim stance

People who use violence often present with a victim stance.

They may adopt a victim stance when they don’t recognise their behaviours as family violence. This is particularly the case if they believe physical violence is the only form of family violence and when their use of other behaviours has resulted in police or service intervention.

‘Victim stance’ is an emerging and complex concept, arising from descriptions of professionals in direct practice in specialist perpetrator interventions.

Responsibility 2 outlines narratives related to a victim stance.

The headings below provide more information on the contexts in which people using violence may adopt a victim stance.

The person has past or recent experiences of trauma

A person using violence may adopt a victim stance when presenting (legitimately) as a victim of violence, trauma, experiences or systems. They may do this without taking responsibility for, or even admitting to, the harm they have caused.

When questioned about their own use of violence or control, the person may respond with avoidance and redirection, shifting the focus of conversations to speak to their own experiences.

This may include their own experiences of family violence and abuse, particularly as a child.

It can be difficult for a person using violence to talk about their own behaviour or beliefs and attitudes that underpin their use of family violence.

For some, changing the conversation to their victim history and using statements such as, ‘I'm a victim, too’, shifts focus away from themselves and relieves any emotional discomfort.

When professionals accept this invitation to move the conversation away from the person’s use of violence, the person learns that strategies of avoidance and redirection work. They do not need to feel the discomfort or shame attached to their behaviour or take personal responsibility for their actions.

The person adopts a victim stance as learned behaviour to reduce responsibility

For some people using violence, adopting a victim stance may be a learned behaviour.

The person may have learned over time that diverting attention away from their behaviour by any means necessary works, and they continue to do so to purposefully avoid responsibility.

Taking a victim stance may be a motivated, purposeful way to hide their responsibility and deflect the conversation.

This is particularly the case where deflection allows them to blame the real victim survivor. They may accuse the victim survivor of being a perpetrator and create the conditions for misidentification.

The person perceives themselves as a victim of the system

This may arise from previous encounters with the justice, police or social services systems. This may be their own experience or that of people they know. This experience may be of real or perceived barriers, structural inequality or systemic and individual discrimination.

Experienced practitioners report that people who use family violence disclose trauma histories to strengthen their victim stance.

This allows them to push back on or avoid a professional’s attempts to initiate a difficult conversation about their own violent behaviour.

A victim stance may also arise as a response to the system itself.

When people are arrested or issued with court orders, they may feel as if they have been wronged.

One of the things people using violence do to maintain abusive patterns is normalise these behaviours. Therefore, when the system intervenes, they often perceive this as an unjust intervention.

If your service engages with mandated clients, this is likely to be familiar to you.

Autonomy is a basic psychological need^[24] – when autonomy is taken away, you should expect some sort of resistance. The victim stance is just one example of this.

3.6.2 Recognising collusion through systems abuse

People who use family violence may seek to manipulate services and systems and use them as a ‘weapon’ against victim survivors.

This is sometimes called ‘systems abuse’. Reflect on guidance in Section 11.1.2 and 12.1.18 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide. This is sometimes referred to as ‘systems abuse’

Systems abuse can include:

• vexatious applications to courts (which are particularly prevalent in family law proceedings)
• controlling victim survivor access to support services if the person using violence has caring responsibilities
• malicious reports to statutory bodies such as police, health services, family services and Child Protection.

Systems abuse occurs within the broader context of coercive control. It is a strategy to maintain control over a victim survivor or cause further harm.

Systems abuse can have extreme and long-term impacts on victim survivors. Section 12 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide includes a range of examples across relationships and communities.

Systems abuse can also lead to misidentification of people using family violence and victim survivors, particularly where the person using violence adopts a victim stance that goes unnoticed or unchallenged.

Women are more likely to be misidentified as the person using family violence than men,^[25] and evidence suggests this is a particular risk if victim survivors require interpreters, have a disability or a mental illness, or are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

Myths and stereotypes about the presentation of victim survivors and binary gender norms also contribute to misidentification within LGBTIQ relationships.

Systems abuse can occur when people who use violence target the victim survivor’s identity or experiences in their methods of coercive controlling behaviour. This may also increase the likelihood of misidentification of a perpetrator/predominant aggressor.

This has the effect of exacerbating or exploiting existing structural inequality, barriers and systemic and individual experiences of discrimination. In doing so, they further their own position, undermine the victim survivor and continue to perpetrate violence.

You should be aware that a person using violence may be intentionally manipulating you, your service or parts of the system to further harm or control a victim survivor.

This use of power and coercive control aims to invite you to collude with their position or intention for using violence against the victim survivor.

Remember

Accepting invitations to collude increases the risk to victim survivors and reduces your capacity to appropriately engage in risk assessment and risk management.

If you believe you are being invited to collude with a person using violence, you can seek both internal and external support by:

• talking with senior co-workers, your supervisor or team leader for support in your response
• seeking secondary consultation with a specialist perpetrator intervention service.

3.6.3 Key practices to minimise the risk of collusion

For professionals working with a person using family violence, it can be complex and challenging to balance a trusting, respectful working relationship with non-collusive and accountable practice.

When attempting to respond without colluding through agreement (compliant collusion), you must also be equally aware of the challenges of responding without colluding through argument and confrontation (oppositional confrontation).

In both response types, you risk acting in ways that reinforce the person’s position of not taking responsibility for their use of family violence.

You may be concerned that engaging proactively with people using family violence signals implicitly or explicitly that you endorse their behaviour.

However, staying engaged with a person using violence allows you to assess and manage risk.

If you feel your professional decision-making process is being compromised by collusion, you should seek secondary consultation with a specialist service working with people using violence.

You can also seek advice from other professionals, such as mental health or alcohol and drug services, who work with the person using violence to identify if they are also being invited to collude.

If the person using violence is Aboriginal or identifies as belonging to a diverse community, you can seek consultation with professionals working in targeted and specialist community services. This can help ensure you do not discount legitimate experiences of discrimination and trauma while taking a balanced approach to engagement.

Be curious and invitational – use professional curiosity

Ask questions and be open to hearing the narrative and understanding the behaviour of the person using violence.

It is important, as outlined in Responsibility 1, to build trust and rapport. This will enable a person using violence to continue to engage with your service.

Key practices to balance safe and respectful engagement while minimising the risk of collusion include:

• keeping the victim survivor’s experience and the effects of the violence as your central concern. You can do this by listening for information that could be relevant to risk and indicate the impacts on victim survivors
• being alert to the potential of implicitly or explicitly endorsing violence-supporting narratives or behaviours of the person using violence
• intentionally listening, taking an invitational but objectively analytical approach. This can help you to avoid the risk of inadvertently supporting minimising, justifying or blame-shifting narratives of a person using violence
• avoiding confrontation with the person using violence. This helps you to reinforce help-seeking behaviours and model non-confrontational problem solving.

You should be aware of the conditions that contribute to family violence perpetration as outlined in Responsibility 2 and hold these in mind throughout your engagement.

Applying intersectional analysis, outlined in Foundation Knowledge Guide and in Section 3.3 above, can enable you to understand the person’s multi-layered identity, circumstances and life experiences.

Using a balanced approach to engagement

The table below illustrates three styles of engagement professionals often use when working with people who use violence:

• compliant collusion
• a balanced approach
• oppositional confrontation

The style you adopt when engaging with people using violence can affect your capacity to build rapport and trust, keep them engaged with your service, and encourage responsibility-taking.

At times you may adopt a different style in response to invitations to collude.

• Compliant collusion occurs when you become invested in the person’s narrative as it is presented, which is likely to reinforce and validate the beliefs or attitudes of the person using violence.
• Using a balanced approach means you are aware of the purpose of their engagement with your service to address a need, you understand that they may disclose or share information with you that indicates they are using family violence, and you can hold these two narratives in mind when working with them in a way that is non-collusive.
• The oppositional confrontation approach is when you use your position, power and knowledge to argue with the person using violence or oppose their invitations to collude. This emulates the power and control of the person using violence, and it can both increase risk and reinforce the message that this type of behaviour is rewarded with more power. Oppositional confrontation occurs when your judgement, assumptions, beliefs or agenda override your risk and safety engagement practices, and you use an aggressive tone, presentation or behaviour that mirrors that used by the person using violence in their relationships. While your intent may be to ‘hold the person using violence to account’, it can increase risk to the victim survivor and push the person further away from personal accountability and change. Using an oppositional confrontation approach reinforces their behaviour as being appropriate and acceptable.

You should respond using a balanced approach to avoid reinforcing behaviour that rewards the use of power over people, while also avoiding validating the person’s violence-supporting narratives.

Table 2: How to respond to invitations to collude^[26]

3.7 Opportunities to engage and monitor risk over time

Family violence is rarely a single ‘incident’.

It is usually a pattern of coercive and controlling family violence behaviours over time.

However, any disclosure of family violence or an identified ‘incident’ is an opportunity to engage the person using violence in the service system.

There are key points in time^[28] following an ‘incident’ where a person using violence may come into contact with services.

These points in time present opportunities to assess risk and support people who use family violence to stabilise their needs and circumstances and enhance their capacity to change their behaviour.

Time-based opportunities can include:

• following first disclosures in the course of their initial engagement (such as alcohol and other drug use or related to a court order)
• over the course of your ongoing professional relationship with the person to address presenting needs.

An ‘incident’ may be police-attended (or not), be followed by a new intervention order and/or disclosed as part of the person’s engagement with you.

The table below provides an overview of opportunities for non-family violence specialist professionals to engage based on timeframes following an ‘incident’ or disclosure.

This is generalised information and should be used as a guide only.

This will inform your risk assessment of the person using violence and support you to tailor your responses to each individual presentation (refer to Responsibility 4 for further information about time-based risk management responses).

Table 3: Key timeframes for assessing and monitoring risk after disclosure or you become aware of a family violence incident

3.7.1 What to do if the person using family violence disengages

Disengagement enables the person using violence to be invisible to the service system (not in view) or not accountable, often leading to:

• change or escalation in frequency or severity of family violence. This may relate to changes in needs and circumstances related to risk, such as increased use of alcohol or drugs, housing instability, change in mental health
• increased risk for victim survivors and family members. The inability of services and systems to monitor for change or escalation in risk reduces the likelihood of timely and appropriate responses to new family violence ‘incidents’
• increased likelihood that the person using violence will not voluntarily seek help in the future. People using violence may feel abandoned by, or reject the usefulness of, the systems they sought help from or were directed to for help. This may lead to reluctance or rejection of engagement with service systems in future.

You should consider disengagement using a risk assessment lens, and whether it reflects a change or escalation of risk.

If you determine that risk is likely to escalate following disengagement, consider whether there are immediate risk management strategies you need to implement (refer to Responsibility 4 to 6).

This includes considering if you have direct contact with an adult or child victim survivor, or with another professional working with them including specialist family violence services.

3.7.2 Intermediate risk assessment without victim survivor contact

In your engagement with people using violence, you may not have any contact with adult or child victim survivors.

You should nonetheless hold the lived experience of the victim survivor at the centre of your intermediate risk assessment.

This is vital to maintain safe and non-collusive practice and to reduce risk for the victim survivor.

As a professional providing services to the person seeking help, it is easy to be drawn into their narrative as a ‘real’ or ‘true’ account. This is particularly the case when you are not able to ascertain a victim survivor’s self-assessment of risk.

If this is the case, you should:

• reflect on your knowledge of the impact of perpetration of violence on victim survivor/s (Foundation Knowledge Guide and the victim survivor–focused MARAM Practice Guides)
• assess, reflect and contextualise your observations of the person using violence’s presentation and narrative and how it may demonstrate coercive and controlling behaviours
• seek secondary consultation with a specialist family violence service
• reflect on and challenge your biases and assumptions
• request and share risk-relevant information
• apply your Structured Professional Judgement.

3.7.3 When you do have contact with the victim survivor, or a professional working with them

It is possible in your engagement with the person using violence that you will have contact with the victim survivor.

The victim survivor’s self-assessment of their own risk is a crucial component in assessing the level of risk presented by the person using family violence.

The victim survivor’s risk assessment should inform your assessment with the person using violence and risk management strategies including safety planning (discussed in Responsibility 4).

Contact with a victim survivor might occur when:

• the victim survivor independently seeks support from your service
• the victim survivor engages with you to share information about risk
• the victim survivor attends the appointments/service
  • remember, do not ask the victim survivor about family violence in the presence of the person using violence, or the person using violence about their behaviour in the presence of the victim survivor
  • refer to Responsibility 2 – your organisation should have policies and procedures for safely separating the victim survivor and the person using violence so you can have a private space for conversation.
• you provide an outreach service that includes engaging with family members
• the family is part of the treatment plan to support presenting needs of the person using violence
• the person using violence invites the victim survivor to be involved
• your intake and assessment process requires contact with family members
• information sharing from another professional working with the victim survivor.

A person using family violence may invite you to disclose if you have contact with the victim survivor.

In your response, state your organisation’s guidelines regarding information sharing and confidentiality.

3.8 Identifying motivations

People who use violence are likely to enter your service with a range of motivations, both conscious and unconscious, short and long-term.

Some motivations are extremely influential on day-to-day behaviours and others are never acted upon.

The strength of motivations can increase and decrease depending on internal and external interests and influences.

Motivation may arise in response to a need or reflect a person’s values and beliefs. For example, a person may be in crisis and have short-term, immediate needs to find stable accommodation. This same person may also hold a longer-term motivation related to parenting or caring roles, reflecting their values of family and relationships.

When working with a person using violence, you can work with them to identify their motivations for:

• engaging with you and accepting support for their presenting needs
• addressing their presenting needs and other circumstances that raise issues or challenges
• discussing their use of violence
• addressing their use of violence or working towards safety and change.

The latter two points are discussed in Responsibility 4.

The person using violence may speak about motivation in ways that are not inherently abusive. For example, they may want a relationship with their children following separation.

However, the person’s narrative should be approached with caution, as their actions may indicate a continued use of violent and controlling behaviours.

Where safe and appropriate to your role and relationship with the person using violence, you can discuss motivations with them to assess the person’s readiness to accept further support for behaviour change.

Refer to the Intermediate assessment conversation model (Appendix 4) and Intermediate safety planning conversation model (Appendix 9) for examples of prompting questions to explore motivation as part of intermediate risk assessment and management.

Responsibility 4 has further guidance on using motivators to increase readiness for behaviour change as part of risk management.

3.8.1 Parenting as a motivation for engagement and change

You should prioritise the safety, wellbeing and needs of children and young people and adult victim survivors.

Engaging and intervening with people who use family violence who are parents, or who have an ongoing parenting role, is an important part of this.^[29]

During your engagement and risk assessment process, you should identify if they have a parenting or caring ‘identity’ or role.

The person’s narratives that relate to their parenting or caring identity often indicate their beliefs and attitudes about parenting, including expectations about themselves and other parent/s.

This information can provide insight into their intention or choice for using coercive controlling behaviours and any targeting of behaviours.

For example, the person may express beliefs about parental ownership of children. Together with an expectation of being entitled to a parenting role regardless of their behaviour, this may result in the person continuing to harass, harm or intimidate the adult victim survivor after separation.

Responsibility 4 provides guidance on determining whether it is safe, appropriate and reasonable to use parenting or caring as a motivator.

Caution: parents using violence can also use children to further control and harm a non-violent parent/carer who may also be a victim survivor.

It is important to keep child and adult victim survivors at the centre of your practice when using conversation prompts during intermediate risk assessment.

Parenting can be a motivator for engagement and behaviour change. However, the person using violence may use their parenting responsibilities to mask violent behaviours towards adult and child victim survivors.

Additionally, the person using violence may associate the parent/carer identity or role with shame, hopelessness, and resentment. Each of these aspects is risk-relevant for your risk assessment.

You can also refer to Section 3.8.2 for further guidance on identifying change or escalation of risk related to the parenting role, and Section 3.10 for guidance on narratives and indicators of homicide–suicide risk.

Children and young people’s safety, needs and wellbeing must be kept at the centre of your decision making for exploring whether parenting can be a motivator for engagement or behaviour change.

Use your Structured Professional Judgement and training in working with people using violence to navigate these conversations in a curious way, while not colluding with their motivations related to their parenting if these are linked to their use of coercive control and violence.

You can seek secondary consultation support from a victim survivor specialist family violence service or specialist perpetrator intervention service to guide your consideration of parenting, understanding of the person’s intent or choice to use violence, and any behaviours directly targeting the non-violent parent/carer (refer to Responsibility 5).

Disclosures of family violence use

During your engagement, a person using violence may openly acknowledge their use of family violence.

This may include where they are attending your service related to a court order.

Be cautious of the motivations of a person who provides details of their behaviours and presents as ‘desperate’ to seek help.

If safe and appropriate, a further exploration of their narrative can unpack their level of actual motivation and willingness to stop their use of family violence and reduce risk to family members or engage in services to change their behaviour.

For the purposes of your risk assessment, be aware of how the person using violence expresses their motivations for engaging and disclosing family violence behaviours. Observe their narratives and behaviours to identify their underlying intent or choice to use violence (refer to Responsibility 2).

People who openly disclose details of their use of family violence typically do this to:

• minimise what is happening
• demonstrate to their ex/partner/family their willingness to change
• seek a letter for court appearances
• invite you to collude with their narrative to shift blame at a later time
• gain access to their children through increased or changed parenting arrangements/orders.

In applying your Structured Professional Judgement, where you believe the motivation to change is genuine, consider ways of engaging that maintain the person in your service and the system to support long-term involvement and behaviour change opportunities.

3.8.2 Serious risk escalation related to change in parenting role and relationships status

Threats by the person using violence to report the other parent/caregiver to authorities (systems abuse) are common. This often indicates a heightened level of control being exercised on the adult and children.

In cases of separation or changes to parenting arrangements related to court matters, the threat to report can become more frequent.

It is common for people using violence to contact services to find out the best ways to do this. They often support their allegations with material such as photos and statements from witnesses. They may invite service providers to collude with them in their reports against the adult victim survivor/parent.

At the point of separation, people who use violence can escalate their controlling behaviour to keep their partner in the relationship, particularly when children are involved.

This can trigger a new narrative that their relationship with their children is being destroyed by the other parent.

Indicators of serious and escalating risk that must be acted upon immediately include when the person using violence:

• expresses feelings of losing control of the relationship, in particular, observing obsessive and desperate behaviours and victim stance narratives
• presents with declining mental wellbeing and statements about inability to cope, expressions of feeling hopeless
• experiences a loss or reduction of protective factors, such as employment, connections with other family, friends or community supports
• expresses narratives that empathise with people who have killed partners or children, for example ‘I now understand what they went through when they killed their partner/child’.

You may identify risk factors related to escalation when discussing the person’s presenting needs, circumstances and relationships.

Each of the examples listed above can indicate suicide and homicide–suicide risk.

Refer to Appendix 6 for guidance on what you should keep in mind to identify suicide risk when observing or exploring family violence risk factors with a person using violence.

3.9 Misidentification of victim survivor and person using family violence (predominant aggressor)

Section 12.2.1 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide describes the issue of misidentification of the ‘predominant aggressor’ or perpetrator of family violence.

Complexity can arise where:

• the victim survivor uses self-defence or violent resistance in response to ongoing coercive and controlling family violence behaviours from the predominant aggressor/person using violence
• there are cross-accusations of violence
• the person using family violence uses systems abuse, seeking to manipulate professionals and services by overtly presenting themselves as the victim in the situation (victim stance)
• the predominant aggressor / person using family violence uses significant coercive and controlling behaviours to minimise, justify and deflect responsibility to undermine or confuse the ‘real’ victim survivor to believe themselves as the perpetrator.

These complexities can lead to the ‘real’ victim survivor being identified as the person using family violence.

You should be aware of this issue and alert to common family violence narratives and behaviours (as outlined in Section 1 of the Intermediate Assessment Tool and the Foundation Knowledge Guide).

Where complexity in presentation arises and you are uncertain about the identity of the person using violence, you should:

• identify any invitations to collude with a perpetrator’s victim stance, or narratives that minimise, justify, deny or shift blame. Acceptance of invitations to collude can unintentionally reinforce the person’s victim stance and can silence, minimise or justify violence used against a ‘real’ victim survivor
• document identified risk factors and observed narratives and behaviours in the Intermediate Assessment Tool
• proactively share risk-relevant information to identify further detail related to family violence risk factors and the person’s pattern and history of coercive control
• use Structured Professional Judgement to identify who may be using patterns of coercive controlling family violence behaviours.

You can document that you have used the Intermediate Assessment Tool to support your determination of the predominant aggressor in response to suspected misidentification or where complexity in presentation arises (in Section 5). Where a determination is made in response to suspected misidentification, ensure your records are corrected and proactively share information with appropriate organisations.

Where there is continued uncertainty about the identity of a person as either a victim survivor or person using family violence, document this in Section 5 of the Intermediate Assessment Tool, seek secondary consultation and share information with specialist family violence services.^[30]

Prior to and following determination of identity of the parties, each person should be supported to be safe in the relationship through comprehensive risk assessment, risk management and safety planning.

It is important that each person is provided with their own individual support to ensure their safety and dignity is upheld throughout any risk assessment, risk management and ongoing support offered.

In these circumstances, it is not appropriate to work with both parties as a couple, or for both parties to be supported by the same professional (except where this is not practicable – such as in some remote/rural settings).

Regardless of identifying a victim survivor and predominant aggressor / perpetrator, each person will likely present with their own risk, needs, trauma and use of violence/violent resistance. Each person can be better supported through a tailored and responsive approach.

Specialists will use the guidance on identifying the predominant aggressor (person using family violence) in Responsibility 7.

Practice guides for Responsibilities 5 and 6 will also help you to respond to this issue through information sharing, secondary consultation and referral to specialists.

3.10 Identifying ‘in common’ risk factors of suicide and use of family violence

Appendix 6 outlines the ‘in common’ or ‘shared’ risk factors for suicide and family violence risk, as well as:

• guidance on the context (such as presenting needs or circumstances) and
• importance of responding to key common risk factors.

Effective risk assessment for determining accurate levels of suicide risk are still emerging. The trajectories and contributing factors to suicide risk are complex.

For these reasons, this guidance is framed as practice considerations for what you should keep in mind to identify suicide risk when exploring family violence risk factors.

Combining established research with reflective practice provides an approach that takes account of contextual nuances. This is often called ‘evidence-informed practices’.^[31]

Consistent with family violence risk factors outlined in the Foundation Knowledge Guide, serious family violence risk factors — those that may indicate an increased risk of the victim being killed or almost killed — are highlighted with bold/ orange shading.

Guidance is intended to recognise the ‘in common’ risk factors for adults who use family violence.^[32]

There are additional suicide (only) risk factors, noted in a separate section, which are not ‘in common’ with family violence risk factors.

You may identify these additional suicide risk factors through your engagement when discussing presenting needs and circumstances.

Responsibility 4 has further guidance and questions to identify suicide risk with a person using violence as part of preparing a Safety Plan.

Call police on Triple Zero (000) if there is immediate risk.

If risk is not immediate, you can seek secondary consultation or refer to an appropriate suicide response service or appropriately trained clinician.

If an individual has let you know they are Aboriginal or identify as belonging to a diverse community, you can ask them if they would like to be referred to a specialist targeted community service.

3.10.1 Identifying narratives and indicators of homicide–suicide risk (imminent risk)

There are some in common narratives indicating suicide and homicide risk from the person using violence to adult and child victim survivors.

If these narratives are present in your family violence risk assessment, they indicate an assessment of ‘serious risk and requires an immediate intervention’ (imminent risk). These may include:

• narratives of sympathy with another person who has died by suicide and/or killed others, such as expressing empathy for a homicide case in the media
• narratives of revenge or the victim survivor ‘deserving consequences’ for their actions
• indications they believe the ultimate show of power and control over ex/partner would be by removing children from them, by any means possible
• indications of extreme fixation, rumination or focused hatred against the victim survivor or the system as having wronged them
• extreme hopelessness about the end of a relationship or lack of access to children/parenting arrangements combined with strong narratives of entitlement and possession.

If you hear these narratives, there is immediate risk, you should call police on Triple Zero (000).

If the person is attending your service, you can seek secondary consultation or refer to an appropriate suicide response service or appropriately trained clinician.

You should proactively share information with professionals working with adult or child victim survivors to enact risk management interventions.

3.11 What’s next

Once the level or ‘seriousness’ of risk is determined, refer to Responsibility 4 for guidance on developing a Risk Management Plan and Safety Plan, as required.

If the assessed level of risk is ‘serious risk’ or ‘serious risk and requires immediate intervention’ (imminent risk), call police on Triple Zero (000).

You can seek advice and information from specialist family violence services and specialist perpetrator intervention services:

• for support to determine level of risk, risk management and safety planning actions with the person using family violence
• to develop or update risk assessments, risk management and safety plans with victim survivors.

In some circumstances, it is appropriate to seek secondary consultation or referral to a specialist perpetrator intervention services for comprehensive risk management.

Secondary consultation or referral:

• must occur if the assessed level of risk is ‘serious risk’ or ‘serious risk and requires immediate intervention’
• may occur if the assessed level of risk is ‘elevated risk’.

These situations may also require police action. Consider referring the matter to Victoria Police for investigation, particularly where there is serious risk to the safety of any person.

You may still have a role if another professional, usually in a specialist perpetrator intervention service, takes a leadership role in coordinating risk management activities targeted towards the person using violence and creating a comprehensive safety plan.

This may include:

• collaborating to create the risk management plan
• agreeing to actions assigned to you or your service
• keeping the person using violence engaged with you
• regularly sharing information about their family violence narratives, behaviour, needs or circumstances, particularly as related to change or escalation of risk.

Guidance on:

• making referrals and seeking secondary consultation is outlined in Responsibility 5
• information sharing is outlined in Responsibility 6
• collaborative ongoing risk assessment and management is outlined in Responsibility 10.

3.11.1 Document in your organisation’s record management system

It is important that you document the following information in your service or organisation’s record management system:

• Limited confidentiality conversation
• intermediate risk assessment details, determined level of risk, identified patterns of coercive controlling family violence behaviours and rationale for risk level
• (if possible) contact details for the victim survivor (refer to victim survivor-focused MARAM Practice Guides)
• (if possible/applicable) children’s details
• if an interpreter was used in the assessment
• if a support person was present and relationship to the person using violence
• information related to direct disclosures made by the person using violence. This may include their general statements about their behaviour and any links to observable narratives and behaviour documented in the risk assessment. You should take care not to document in ways that collude with the person’s minimisation or justification of violence, and refrain from using mutualising language in your descriptions.
• identified motivations to seek help, case notes and any other relevant information about the person using family violence or circumstances of the victim survivor
• if misidentification was suspected or there is uncertainty about the identity of parties or their presentation and you used the Intermediate Assessment Tool to support your determination of the predominant aggressor
• actions taken to correct your records where misidentification previously occurred and steps to proactively share information about the predominant aggressor with other organisations
• any information sharing and secondary consultation actions you undertake to support your risk assessment, including for the purpose of seeking further assessment to determine the predominant aggressor

Footnotes

^[1] Refer to Sections 10-12 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide

^[2] Understanding the victim survivor’s self-assessed level of risk can either be identified from direct assessment (if your service also works with the victim survivor), information sharing from another service working with the victim survivor, or through applying your understanding of the impacts of family violence

^[3] You can find detail about applying intersectional analysis in Section 10.3 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide

^[4] It is likely that the person using violence’s ex/partner, child/ren or other family members identified as victim survivors are not involved with your service, or if they are, it is possible that you may not be alerted to this by the person using violence.

^[5] Reflective practice is outlined in Section 10.6 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide and in the Organisation Embedding Guidance and Resources.

^[6] Note, it may be safe and appropriate to discuss concerns if the person using violence is mandated to attend a service (such as an alcohol and drug service) and they are aware they have a family violence intervention order (FVIO).

^[7] If it is not safe to complete the Intermediate Assessment Tool in session, you may choose to do so outside of a session, e.g. using information gathered from the person using violence and other sources, and recording the information in the Intermediate Assessment Tool when the person using violence is not present.

^[8] This table provides examples only and is not a comprehensive list.

^[9] Engagement motivation at this point in time will relate to engagement with any support service. Over time you can continue to assess for motivation for referral to specialist perpetrator intervention services, addressed in Responsibility 4.

^[10] Court or corrections interventions at this point in time may or may not relate to family violence offences. Mandated interventions may arise by court order, part of corrections intervention or service, or parole conditions.

^[11] In general, the Assessment conversation model is asking about risk-relevant behaviours, needs and circumstances, without naming family violence directly, unless there is a disclosure that supports direct conversation and it is safe, appropriate and reasonable to continue the conversation.

^[12] Previous history of family violence is a strong risk indicator of future family violence. History is often indicated through past police incident records. However, be aware that some high-risk perpetrators, including those who commit homicide, will have had no prior involvement with police or the justice system. Lack of history of police involvement alone does not indicate lower level of risk.

^[13] Refer to Responsibility 4 for further information about stages of change.

^[14] The pattern of behaviour must be considered alongside the tactics of coercive control and impact on victim survivor/s.

^[15] This may be related to other presenting needs and circumstances impacting on risk, or level of readiness and motivation for engagement and change.

^[17] Refer to footnote 12 regarding police intervention and contact.

^[18] Refer to Responsibility 4 for further information about stages of change.

^[19] Dynamic risk must be considered alongside an understanding of the changing level and dynamics of coercive control. Understanding levels of coercive control is outlined further in Responsibility 7.

^[20] Consideration is required to identify tactics and levels of systems abuse.

^[21] Crime Statistics Agency reports that ‘Only 6.9% of alleged perpetrators had more than five family violence incidents recorded over the past ten years, but this group accounted for 30.7% of all family violence incidents.’ Crime Statistics Agency 2016, in fact, no. 2.

^[22] Characteristics linked to serious risk are outlined in Responsibility 7. This includes how to understand and assess patterns of coercive control.

^[23] This terminology implies that both parties are equally ‘responsible’ and minimises the actions of the person using violence. If there is uncertainty about the identity of the victim survivor or person using violence / predominant aggressor, refer to Section 12.2.1 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide.

^[24] Steindl C et al. 2015, ‘Understanding psychological reactance: new developments and findings’, Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, vol. 223, no. 4, pp. 205-214. doi:10.1027/2151-2604/a000222

^[25] Women’s Legal Service 2018, Policy Paper 1: ‘Officer she’s psychotic and I need protection’: Police misidentification of the ‘primary aggressor’ in family violence incidents in Victoria, p. 1.

^[26] Adapted from No to Violence nd, Tips for engaging men on their use of family violence, , and Geldschläger H 2019, ENGAGE Roadmap for frontline professionals interacting with male perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse to ensure a coordinated multi-agency response to perpetrators, site

^[27] If they express a high level of fear, you can consider if there has been misidentification of their use of violence. Refer to Section 12.2.1 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide.

^[28] RMIT Centre for Innovative Justice 2018, Bringing pathways towards accountability together: Perpetrator journeys and system roles and responsibilities

^[29] Adapted from No to Violence 2017, Position statement: fathering programs for men who use family violence.

^[30] Specialist services are Risk Assessment Entities (RAEs) under the FVISS, and where an ISE is uncertain of the identity of a person as either a victim survivor or person using violence, RAEs are responsible for undertaking assessment to determine the identity of the victim survivor and predominant aggressor / perpetrator.

^[31] Dodd S and Savage A 2016, 'Ethics and values, research and evidence-based practice', Social Work Profession, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.91.

^[32] Risk factors for suicide in common to adolescents who use family violence are outlined in the Adolescents who use family violence MARAM Practice Guides.

Download and print the PDF or read the accessible version:

Appendix 7 Intermediate Risk Management Plan

Appendix 8 Intermediate Safety Plan

Appendix 9: Intermediate safety planning conversation model

4.1. Overview

This guide supports you to undertake family violence risk management that responds to the person using violence, their presentation and level of family violence risk (seriousness), as identified through intermediate risk assessment(Responsibility 3).

Professionals should refer to the Foundation Knowledge Guide and perpetrator-focused Responsibilities 1 to 3 before commencing intermediate risk management with people who use family violence.

You should also understand the Structured Professional Judgement model and how to apply intersectional analysis (Responsibility 3 and Section 10.3 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide) to inform your risk management approaches.

When undertaking risk management, you need to consider:

• the actions the victim survivor has taken to protect themselves and (if applicable) their children (who are also victim survivors)
• the actions of other services already engaged, or that need to be engaged, to support risk management
• the actions you can take to develop a professional-facing Risk Management Plan (which is for you to work with other professionals and services, not directly with the person using violence)
• safety planning with the person using violence about their risk behaviours towards both victim survivors and themselves. This includes their presenting needs and any protective factors that keep them engaged and make it more likely risk management interventions will be successful.

You should use this guide:

• after an intermediate risk assessment (Responsibility 3) has been completed and family violence has been assessed as present
• (if safe to do so) to develop a Safety Plan with the person using violence
• to develop, review or update an existing Intermediate Risk Management Plan, particularly if patterns of behaviour have changed, or risk has changed and/or escalated
• to respond to immediate risk.

Intermediate risk management includes addressing the presenting needs and circumstances of the person using violence.

This helps the person to gain or retain stabilisation across aspects of their life linked to risk. It enhances protective factors for both people using violence and victim survivors. It also promotes readiness and motivation for behaviour change.

Responsibilities 5, 6, 9 and 10 provide guidance on other elements of risk management, including information sharing, referral and secondary consultation with other services.

Professionals and services can take a wide range of actions to manage risk. The actions you take depend on your role, your organisation and the resources available to you.

4.2. What is risk management?

Risk management is a coordinated set of strategies and actions to enhance the safety of the victim survivor (adult, child or young person) and reduce or remove the likelihood that the person using violence will commit further violence.

It also includes reducing the assessed level of risk the person using violence presents to themselves or any third parties, including professionals.

All risk management must involve developing and documenting the actions to be undertaken by professionals in a Risk Management Plan, and if safe to do so, developing a Safety Plan with the person using violence.

Risk management also focuses on direct engagement with the person using violence to support them to take responsibility for their behaviour.

Risk management does not make the adult victim survivor responsible for managing the risk of the person using violence to any adult or child victim survivor, or changing their behaviour.

4.2.1. Elements of intermediate risk management

Intermediate risk management includes responding to a range of risk behaviours from the person using violence. This includes addressing any associated needs and circumstances to reduce risk and improve the person’s capacity to take responsibility for the decisions they are making.

Key intermediate risk management actions you can take include:

• strategies to respond to the immediate risk presented by the person using violence to adult and child victim survivor/s, or others (such as identified third parties)
• responding to the immediate risk presented by the person using violence to themselves
• information sharing for the purpose of coordinating and managing risk with other professionals and services
• supporting the person using violence to address their presenting needs and circumstances, ensuring that responses support the goal of risk management
• developing a Safety Plan with the person using violence that encourages them to seek help, stabilises aspects of their life, interrupts their use of violence and reduces their risk
• talking to the person using violence about options that create safety, including accommodation options, and connections to relevant services, including referral to a specialist family violence service, targeted community or culturally specific services
• ongoing risk assessment and management, including updating their Risk Management Plan
• ongoing encouragement for further engagement with your own service or other services to increase opportunities to monitor risk over time and service connection.

Intermediate risk management requires you to engage with other professionals and services. Refer to:

• Responsibility 5 – seek consultation for comprehensive risk assessment, risk management and referral
• Responsibility 6 – contribute to information sharing with other services
• Responsibility 9 – contribute to coordinated risk management
• Responsibility 10 – collaborate for ongoing risk assessment and risk management.

Collaborative risk management processes increase the visibility of the person using violence, facilitate tailored responses and risk management actions, and can increase the capacity for timely responses to changes in the level of risk. These coordinated responses make victim survivors safer.

It is appropriate to proactively seek and share information with other relevant services the person using violence is engaged with, to establish whether a Risk Management Plan already exists.

If the person using violence is engaged with a specialist perpetrator intervention service, contact that service, including the Family Safety Contact Worker.

If an existing Risk Management Plan or Safety Plan exists (for the person using violence or an adult or child victim survivor), work collaboratively with other services to review and update the plan together to ensure consistency.

It is important to continually review your assessment of risk and update the Risk Management Plan and Safety Plan, as risk levels can change quickly and at any time.

Depending on your role, you may contribute to risk management in a short-term support or intervention or have an ongoing role.

An ongoing role includes supporting monitoring of risk and continued collaboration with specialist services to support and monitor the person using violence, centre victim survivor experience and safety, and share information.

Remember

Managing risk is a shared responsibility across services working with the person using violence and adult and child victim survivor/s.

Risk is dynamic and risk levels can change quickly and at any time.

Reviewing your assessment, Risk Management Plan and Safety Plan should be part of your normal practice.

All professionals must comply with existing legal obligations, such as:

• mandatory reporting to Child Protection
• the reporting of possible sexual abuse of children under 16 years of age to Victoria Police – noting that failure to report is a criminal offence and applies to all adults.

This guidance on risk management is consistent with these obligations.

4.3. Structured Professional Judgement in risk management

Structured Professional Judgement supports you to respond using risk management actions appropriate for the presentation and level of risk from the person using violence.

The risk management actions and interventions you undertake must keep the person using family violence in view of the system.

They should also contribute to coordinated support provided to the person using violence to stop their coercive controlling behaviour.

Risk management at an intermediate level comprises the following actions.

Keep the lived experience and safety of victim survivors at the centre of risk management.

Adult victim survivors are the best judges of the risks they face. It is likely they will have already taken many steps to manage the risk both to them and their children.

As such, victim survivor lived experience and safety should guide your actions and your response to the history of violence, patterns of behaviour and severity of violence experienced.

Where possible, appropriate to your role and safe to do so, you can engage directly with the adult victim survivor, other professionals or services, or the specialist family violence services working with them (if known), to identify and understand existing risk management plans and strategies.

If you cannot contact the victim survivor or the services they are engaged with, use Structured Professional Judgement to keep the adult and child victim survivor’s safety at the centre of your risk management.

You should respond to evidence-based risk factors, in particular, you should focus on:

• dynamic and serious risk factors
• risk factors that require immediate intervention
• those you determine to be most impactful to the victim survivor.

Presenting needs and circumstances are often linked to dynamic risk factors.

Addressing these with the person using violence can directly contribute to the stabilisation of their life situation and the safety of adult and child victim survivors.

This includes reducing the likelihood of change or escalation in use of family violence from related behaviours, such as those associated with their use of alcohol and drugs, or housing or financial insecurity.

You should determine whether it is safe, appropriate or reasonable to engage in any direct conversations about safety planning with the person using family violence.

You can tailor your safety planning conversation to match the level or depth of disclosure about behaviours linked to risk factors.

Share information with other professionals and services. Appropriate information sharing ensures your risk management responses are relevant.

It also keeps people using violence in view of the system.

You can seek secondary consultation with specialist family violence services that will support you to develop risk management strategies.

This will also increase your confidence and skill in safety planning with people using violence.

Continue to use information sharing to collaborate with other professionals and services to ensure your risk management responses remain current, reflect needs and risk of the victim survivor, and keep the person using violence in view across the service system.

Analysing the elements in the model of Structured Professional Judgement and applying your professional experience, skills and knowledge supports you to respond to the presentation and assessed level of risk of the person using family violence.

Use an intersectional analysis lens when determining level of risk that respond to structural inequalities, barriers and systemic, individual and collective discrimination the adult or child victim survivor and the person using violence may face.

Consider the information in relation to the identity, experiences or circumstances of the adult or child victim survivor and the person using violence.

For people using family violence, these and other experiences and circumstances, such as their own experience of violence and trauma, can hinder their capacity to take responsibility for their use of violence.

For people who use violence, these aspects can affect:

• the form and presentation of the violence they use
• their attitudes about their use of violence, including how they perceive and justify their use of violence
• their readiness and motivations to accept further support for behaviour change.

Professionals should consider and make efforts to address any additional barriers for the person.

Refer to Section 12 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide and Responsibilities 1 to 3 on reducing barriers to engagement for Aboriginal people and people from diverse communities or older people.

Refer to guidance on secondary consultation, referral and information sharing in Responsibilities 5 and 6.

4.4. Approach to risk management of the person using violence

Risk management of the person using violence can be achieved in multiple ways.

The table below outlines the level of direct engagement you may have with the person using violence and the approaches and example actions that support risk management.

The initial contact the person using violence has with your organisation may either be voluntary (self-referral, referral from another professional within or outside your organisation) or mandated (by court order, part of corrections intervention or service, parole conditions).

This information will guide you to consider the type and depth of your risk management conversations with the person using violence, and level of motivation the person using violence has to engage with your service or other services.

Note, however, that mandated service users can also be highly motivated to engage.

Table 1: Approach to risk management and level of direct engagement

4.5. Responding to serious and immediate risk

If you or any other professional or service identifies any person at serious risk and requires an immediate response from family violence, you or they should immediately:

• call police on Triple Zero (000)
• contact a local specialist family violence services, based on the victim survivor’s current place of residence, to share information and coordinate support for adult and child victim survivors.

When you call emergency services:

• You will be asked your name and where you are calling from.
• Clearly explain who you are and your role, and why you are calling – be as clear as possible about your concerns.
• Give the full name of the person using family violence and their whereabouts and known address and contact number.
• Give the full name and address of the adult and child victim survivor/s at serious risk, and any other family members or identified third parties. You may not have all the adult and child victim survivor’s details but can share as many details as possible from your conversations with the person using violence to assist police to locate them quickly.
• Provide details of other people you believe are at immediate risk and the rationale for your determination of risk. This may include a victim survivor’s new intimate partner, parents or extended family members, carers or other support people, or other residents with whom the victim survivor lives.
• Provide details about the situation, including:
  • any crime that may have been committed (or indicated they may commit)
  • history of the perpetrator having access to weapons
  • any history of the perpetrator using non-fatal strangulation
  • whether an intervention order is in place.
• Provide any other information requested by the operator.
• Report risk to children or young people to Child Protection as appropriate.

Crisis situations can include both immediate risk from the person using violence, as well as the immediate impacts from family violence, such as serious injury to an adult or child victim survivor, the person using violence to themselves or a third party.

This complexity will be triaged by the Triple Zero (000) operator.

Refer to guidance on identifying suicide risk factors in Section 4.15.

In cases of ‘serious risk and requires immediate protection/intervention’, the specialist service will respond to provide comprehensive risk management, often in coordination with Victoria Police and other justice responses.

If these responses are not successful, they may require a coordinated response by a referral to a Risk Assessment and Management Panel (RAMP).

A RAMP is a formally convened meeting, held at a local level, of key agencies and organisations that increases the collective capacity and effectiveness of the service system to identify and respond to perpetrators who are assessed as presenting a serious risk^[1], and to hold them responsible and accountable for their violence.

This contributes to the safety of adults and children at serious risk and allows a response with direct interventions to immediate threats from family violence.

4.5.1 Other options to respond to immediate risk

It is critical that a Risk Management Plan is in place to respond to the level and seriousness of risk identified as requiring an immediate response.

Other options to respond to risk include:

• making a referral to a specialist perpetrator intervention service and any services involved with the child, such as Child Protection, including for crisis response to the person using violence
• seeking secondary consultation from a specialist family violence service or the specialist family violence adviser for your area or organisation for comprehensive risk management planning or referral for the victim survivor to be contacted and offered immediate support
• if anyone discloses that the person using violence has sexually assaulted a child, you have a statutory obligation to report to the police^[2] –
  • it is best practice to inform the adult victim survivor/non-violent parent of your responsibility to report where possible. You can also reassure them that you can support them to ensure their own and any children’s safety from any increase in risk from the person using violence that may occur as a result of the report
  • if you have no contact or information about the victim survivor, Victoria Police may be best placed to inform them once the report has been made
  • you should also consider if you should inform the person using violence of the report, particularly determining whether it is likely to increase or reduce escalation of risk to a victim survivor. For example, this may be appropriate if the person using violence would otherwise assume an adult victim survivor made the report
• reporting the assessed risk presented by the person using violence to children or young people to Child Protection and schools/childcare centres (including sharing information regarding an intervention order if one is in place)
• referral or secondary consultation for the person using violence who may require support for mental health, alcohol and other drug use, housing or financial insecurity
• referral to Legal Help services for the person using violence, including where there is a new or varied family violence intervention order, child/parenting arrangements, or other court matters.

Engaging with a specialist family violence service to work with the adult victim survivor should occur where possible.

This can occur in several ways, including when:

• you know the victim survivor is engaged with a specialist family violence service – contact them immediately
• the person using family violence is engaged with a specialist perpetrator intervention service – contact them immediately. They will have the capacity to engage with the person to de-escalate the risk and contact the victim survivor through their family safety contact worker
• the victim survivor is not engaged with any services, but you have contact details – attempt to make contact
• the victim survivor is not engaged with any services, and you do not have their contact details –
  • contact a specialist family violence service or The Orange Door in your region and seek advice
  • contact the police.

4.6. Engaging with the person using violence for risk management

Engaging with a person using family violence provides an opportunity to identify and assess their use of violence and intervene in a timely manner to support reducing their level of risk.

Risk management directly with the person using violence will focus on developing a Safety Plan.

Your first contact should create a respectful, sensitive and safe environment for the person using violence to discuss their presenting needs or circumstances that:

• may influence their choice to use violence
• increase the likelihood or severity of risk
• act as barriers to change.

Refer to Responsibility 1 for guidance on safe and respectful engagement to build trust and rapport.

Where it is safe and appropriate, engaging in risk management conversations with the person using family violence helps to:

• address their presenting needs
• provide direct response strategies and actions to reduce the risk to current and previous adult or child victim survivors, even where they are not referred to as part of your risk management conversation
• reduce the risk to themselves and third parties.

Your risk management conversation should focus on developing a Safety Plan with the person using violence.

Safety planning is a chance to support the person using family violence to draw upon their own motivations (if safe to do so), skills and capabilities to lessen the risk associated with their family violence or related behaviours, and unaddressed needs and circumstances.

A Safety Plan can help them to stabilise their needs and circumstances, reflect on their behaviours to take responsibility for their use of violence, and change their risk behaviours.

It also refocuses the responsibility on the person using violence, rather than on the adult victim survivor to manage the risk presented to themselves or child victim survivors.

This includes incorrectly placing responsibility on adult victim survivors to ‘protect children’ or punishing adult victim survivors for not being ‘protective enough’ of child victim survivors.

As a professional, locating responsibility for use of violence with the person using violence reduces the risk of professional collusion and maintains the focus on their behaviours and the impact of harm on others.

The information you gather through your risk assessment and safety planning conversation will also inform your Intermediate Risk Management Plan.

Remember

Showing empathy towards a person using family violence is not collusive practice, but at times it may be misinterpreted as being collusive. You can acknowledge the person using violence’s feelings or emotions, but not affirm their actions.

Refer to Responsibility 3 for guidance on using safe and respectful engagement practices to minimise the risk of collusion.

Person-centred client–worker relationships can help the person change their attitudes and behaviour.[3]

Apply your professional judgement to reflect on your own biases, and manage these respectfully and safely.

Refer to Section 10.6 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide for more information on biases and reflective practice.

Engage with the service user proactively and offer them the support they need to increase safety, reduce risk and enable behaviour change.

4.7. How to use the Intermediate Risk Management Plan and Intermediate Safety Plan templates

The information you have gathered during the intermediate risk assessment process (Responsibility 3) should inform your risk management strategies and approach to developing a Safety Plan with the person using violence.

A Risk Management Plan is usually completed by professionals in collaboration with other services to determine and coordinate actions to reduce risk from the person using violence to adult and child victim survivors.

If safe to do so, you can work directly with the person using violence to develop a Safety Plan, which can also inform your Intermediate Risk Management Plan.

4.7.1. Key elements in intermediate risk management and safety planning

Risk management and safety planning are separate activities when working with people using family violence.

• A stand-alone template for the Intermediate Risk Management Plan is in Appendix 7. It is for professionals only and is not to be accessed by the person using violence.
• A stand-alone template for the Intermediate Safety Plan is in Appendix 8. It can be developed with and given to the person using violence so they can refer to it.

You should keep a copy of each document (the Risk Management Plan and Safety Plan) for your records.

Only provide the Safety Plan to the service user

You should ensure you have a copy of any Risk Management Plan and Safety Plan developed by other organisations that relate to the person using violence or the victim survivor/s to avoid any contradicting or conflicting management strategies.

Risk Management Plans and Safety Plans should be developed and documented separately. However, where possible, they should be linked together/aligned with any victim survivor Safety Plans held by your organisation, or copies from other organisations.

Many organisations will have risk management strategies, including victim survivor–focused Safety Plans and worker Safety Plans, built into their existing practices.

Consider linking perpetrator-focused family violence safety planning documents into these practices.^[4]

Your role might include a combination of:

• supporting development of risk management strategies and a Safety Plan
• implementing an existing Safety Plan
• proactively sharing information with another professional working with the person using violence or a victim survivor about change or escalation in the person using violence’s narratives, behaviours, needs or circumstances linked to family violence risk.

In some organisations, when family violence is identified or disclosed, it is your role to seek secondary consultation or refer to a specialist family violence service.

For example, if there is uncertainty, specialist services can support correct identification of the perpetrator (predominant aggressor) or the victim survivor, or in developing and implementing risk management plans, particularly for response to serious risk or complex cases.

4.7.2. Using the Intermediate Risk Management Plan template

It is not safe, appropriate or reasonable for the person using violence to know you are developing a Risk Management Plan to share with other professionals.

The Risk Management Plan template can be used to record strategies already in place and actions required to manage risk.

It can also be used to record presenting needs and circumstances that require stabilisation and any protective factors requiring strengthening.

The Risk Management Plan can be developed using information gathered through your conversations with the person using violence, often through a safety planning conversation.

You should also use details about risk, patterns of behaviour, and needs and circumstances identified in your risk assessment process, as well as information sharing and secondary consultation.

The Risk Management Plan provides a structure for determining and documenting actions related to the person using violence, including across the following areas requiring risk management:

• emergency and crisis support access and contacts –document these for your service records, consistent with the Safety Plan template in Appendix 8
• supports and adjustments – document disability, medical, communication, literacy, community/culture connections and other requirements, including any interventions or measures put in place to manage risk
• contact with victim survivor and immediate accommodation needs – document actions required to respond to immediate risks related to contact and accommodation, and actions the person using violence has identified will support them to interrupt escalation associated with serious risk
• presenting needs and circumstances linked to risk factors or dynamic risk – document planning for events likely to increase risk, monitoring for change in presenting needs and circumstances related to dynamic risk factors and immediate risk, and action planning and information sharing with relevant services
• system interventions – document interventions currently in place, pending interventions and Legal Help support
• risk factors and pattern of coercive control – document any other interventions, actions and strategies targeted at addressing specific risk factors or the person’s pattern of coercive controlling behaviour.

Consider proactively requesting or sharing information with other relevant services to verify information you have received from the person using violence. This includes information about the person’s family violence risk behaviours, and any needs and/or circumstances that may affect their choice to use violence, or how their behaviour creates risk to each victim survivor.

You should review and update your risk assessment and revise your Risk Management Plan as you gather more information. Use your professional judgement to guide you through this process.

4.7.3. Using the Safety Plan template

The Intermediate Safety Plan template can be used directly with the person using violence where family violence is identified through a self-disclosure or identified through your risk assessment.

The Safety Plan template should be used in conjunction with the Intermediate Safety Planning Conversation Model (described below) at Appendix 9.

This provides an example interview structure, including prompting questions to support your safety planning conversation with the person using violence.

The Safety Plan template does not use direct language about the person’s use of family violence. However, it is designed to outline strategies the person using violence can implement to lessen the risk associated with their behaviours, unaddressed needs and circumstances and enhance emotional and behaviour regulation.

The Safety Plan also focuses on stabilising the person and strengthening their protective factors, managing events which may increase risk, and safety for self if suicide or mental health responses are needed.

TheSafety Plan is designed for the person using violence to take home/refer back to and includes:

• emergency and crisis contacts: reminder to call Triple Zero (000) in an emergency, and details of emergency and crisis support contacts
• personal, practical and wellbeing support contacts: to address presenting needs and circumstances with space to detail agreed referral information
• personal responsibility to manage behaviour – managing behaviour and emotional regulation, planning for specific events and situations where behaviour may escalate or risk to family members may increase
• support planning for self – mental health, suicide and self-harm risk-related questions and documenting support information
• useful phone numbers – referral options if they are feeling unsafe to themselves and others or require additional support.

The Safety Plan actions should be practical, clear and easy to implement.

Setting unrealistic actions or goals will set the person using violence up to fail, increase risk to victim survivors and potentially contribute to the person disengaging from your service.

The Safety Plan should be reviewed and updated regularly in collaboration with the person using violence, if it remains safe and appropriate to do so.

This includes updates to reflect changes in needs, circumstances and risk levels and to adjust and refine where strategies have not worked. You might do this directly in the session by updating existing documents, or after the session based on your conversation with the person using violence.

All referrals made, or secondary consultations undertaken as part of risk management, should be incorporated and documented (refer to Section 4.16).

4.8. Safety planning with a person using violence

4.8.1. Conversation prompts to support intermediate safety planning

The Intermediate Safety Planning Conversation Model is in Appendix 9.

This model continues from the Intermediate Assessment Conversation Model in Appendix 4.

The Safety Plan template should be used in conjunction with the Intermediate Safety Planning Conversation Model.

The Intermediate Safety Planning Conversation Model is to be used as a guide only.

It sets out how to use prompting questions to:

• introduce the concept of safety planning
• establish readiness and motivation for addressing presenting needs and/or use of violence
• identifying strategies for seeking help for presenting need/s, crisis situations, and use of violence, including acceptance of referrals to other supports for presenting needs and use of family violence
• identifying activities, strategies and interventions to support safe accommodation decisions
• explore ways to notice and regulate emotions, including identifying warning signs for using disclosed behaviours and strategies to maintain safety for victim survivors
• explore ways to manage challenging situations or events to maintain safety for victim survivors
• explore risk of suicide and complete relevant sections of the Safety Plan
• seek agreement for reviewing and sharing the Safety Plan with others.

When planning a safety planning conversation, consider:

• your professional relationship with the person using violence, including the level of trust and rapport developed
• their motivations for addressing their presenting need/s and/or use of violence
• their level of readiness to take responsibility for their use of violence
• your personal views and biases about the person using violence and seek supervision to support your reflective practice
• seeking secondary consultation with a specialist family violence service to support you to navigate the conversations with the person using violence.

4.8.2. Applying an intersectional lens

When undertaking a safety planning conversation, you can acknowledge the identity, experiences, concerns and circumstances of the person using violence and provide tailored and inclusive responses.

You can acknowledge your limitations, biases and understandings as a professional when engaging through an intersectional lens.

You can also:

• provide choice to access community-specific or mainstream service options. If accessing mainstream services, you can address barriers by engaging in secondary consultation and collaborating with community services to manage concerns and provide shared support and cultural safety (refer to Responsibilities 5 and 6)
• provide adjustments that might be needed to overcome any limited/reduced capacity or capability due to illness or cognitive disability, including acquired brain injury (refer to Responsibility 3)
• utilise secondary consultation with targeted services for support on ensuring you provide culturally safe and accessible services.

4.9. Safe closure of conversations about family violence

Safe closure of conversations about family violence is essential.

Closing the session safely can be done in a number of ways, including:

• checking in with how the person is feeling about the conversation
• acknowledging the difficulty of having this type of conversation
• reflecting on the person’s contributions to the conversation, including any responsibility taken for behaviour or goals set
• agreeing on actions the person can take after the session and ways to review progress, including Safety Plans
• discussing plans for the next appointment and how to seek help in the interim.

If at any time throughout your engagement you are concerned that the person using violence may escalate their risk, you should close the session safely and take the appropriate risk management action required to minimise risk, including any de-escalation strategies.

This may be required where during the session you notice the person using violence becoming increasingly agitated, angry and/or distressed, or if they make threats to harm the victim survivor(s), other family members, themselves or you.

Refer to Section 4.5 for ‘Responding to serious and immediate risk’.

You should seek support from your supervisor or senior colleagues to de-brief, and consult your organisation’s policies and procedures for managing immediate risk.

4.10. Understanding readiness and motivation to engage for risk management

For the person using violence, readiness to engage with programs to address their use of family violence will not likely be a priority.

With this in mind, preparing a person to discuss and address their use of family violence can be woven into discussing their presenting needs or circumstances and other safety planning conversations (refer to Intermediate Safety Planning Conversation Model).

The approach and timing of using motivations to engage in a conversation about family violence is critical to achieving the long-term goal of behaviour change.

Many people using family violence will delay, avoid or refuse the conversation about their use of family violence and will redirect conversations to focus on the presenting need and other issues.

Guiding them to seek support from a specialist perpetrator intervention service may or may not be an achievable goal.

Moving a person using violence from resistance to readiness takes time, patience and skill.

While at times you may find this frustrating, understanding the challenges and barriers the person faces will help you to provide a safe, non-collusive approach to developing a Safety Plan with the person and tailoring your risk management interventions.

Refer to the Foundational Knowledge Guide and Responsibilities 1 and 2 for information on responding to barriers and safe engagement.

4.10.1. Motivations to engage

A person using violence’s motivation to engage with you or other professionals can be understood in the context of internal and external motivators. These can drive or hinder engagement as well as longer-term behaviour change:

• Internal factors include a person's values, emotions, goals, wants, desires and their skills and capabilities to achieve outcomes, including self-efficacy.^[5]
• External factors include police and courts, referral pathways (mandated or voluntary), physical location such as prison or community, capacity to attend and engage with services, support from others, skills and capabilities of professionals offering a service.

4.10.2. Motivations for behaviour change

Behaviour change work relies on actively using internal motivators to increase a person’s readiness to engage with specialist services and preparedness to change their behaviours.

Working with a person using violence on their internal motivators encourages disclosure responsibility taking and preparedness to address their behaviours.

Initial readiness to engage with services or explore behaviour change, however, is often driven by external motivators.

You can use external motivators to prompt an initial referral and provide access to services or programs the person has previously not sought help from.

They are also critical as a system-level accountability mechanism that supports professionals to respond through time-based opportunities (refer to Responsibility 3 and Section 4.16, below) and increase likelihood of ongoing engagement and monitoring.

External motivators may encourage the person to seek help at a time of crisis, such as for housing or financial crisis, losing contact with children, a relationship breakdown, or rapidly deteriorating mental health.

The person may be motivated to address that immediate crisis but not their use of family violence, and when the crisis is addressed, may view the situation as ‘fixed’.

External motivators are not on their own considered the key driver of behaviour change. This also requires an internal motivator.

You can support the person using violence to think about the situation beyond the initial crisis or need that brought them to your service, and to look at the factors that continue to influence the decisions they make and the way they behave.

Providing information and interventions that may support change in attitudes can lead to increased readiness to accept a referral to specialist perpetrator intervention services.

4.10.3. Barriers impacting motivations for behaviour change

People using family violence, particularly men, can face additional barriers to help seeking and accessing services because of their beliefs around gender roles and expectations of masculinity.

Individual and community/cultural conceptions of ‘shame’ may also create a barrier for any person to access services and support, but it plays a particular role as a barrier for Aboriginal men and people from culturally, linguistically and faith diverse communities (refer to Section 12.1.14 in Foundation Knowledge Guide).

Readiness to move beyond the barriers that impede behaviour change requires an internal motivation to accept responsibility. Until people who use family violence can accept a level of responsibility, they will continually present narratives that support their position.

Common narratives that are barriers to taking responsibility are in the Identification and Intermediate Assessment Tools.

These narratives reflect the barriers to taking responsibility and include minimising, denying, blaming others and justifying their use of family violence.

4.11. Understanding readiness to change ^[6]

You are not required to undertake direct family violence behaviour change practice; however, you can support people who use violence to increase their internal motivation, readiness and capacity to seek assistance and engage positively in behaviour change programs.

The Stages of Change model can support your understanding of the person using violence’s readiness to change. Change is not always linear and is influenced by changes in the person’s needs, circumstances, and motivations over time.^[7]

This model outlines the process by which a person’s readiness and motivation transform into behaviour change, following five cognitive and behavioural stages.

These stages progress from:

• an unawareness of a problem (precontemplation)
• feelings of ambiguity about a problem behaviour (contemplation)
• making plans to change (preparation)
• undertaking change (action)
• preventing relapse (maintenance).

The action stage is (hopefully) followed by a maintenance stage, during which a person engages in active self-monitoring and maintenance of the behavioural changes that they have made during the intervention.

Motivation should not be mistaken for change.

A person having motivation or a goal to do something can be meaningful, but it is not necessarily in itself, going to lead to change.

In the context of a person’s use of family violence, the presence of motivation or a goal for behaviour change will also not fully represent where the person may be located in the Stages of Change model.

Through your engagement you may identify that the person is at varying stages of change to address different parts of their behaviour, as well as their use of family violence as a whole.

This may require you to provide a range of interventions or focus on the aspects of risk that have the greatest chance of supporting their actions towards change and safety.

Adopting the wrong approach or focusing on behaviours they are not ready or willing to take responsibility for carries the risk of a person using violence disengaging, increasing risk and leaving the professional frustrated and confused.

A proportion of people using family violence and accessing non-family violence services will be reluctant to accept a referral to a specialist family violence service, particularly in the early stages of engagement with you.

As you build rapport and trust with the person using violence, opportunities may arise to support a referral.

4.11.1. Using direct disclosures to explore readiness and motivation to be referred to a service for behaviour change

A disclosure of violence might be the person’s first step towards taking responsibility for their use of family violence.

This can include facing the reality of the impact of their behaviour on adult and child victim survivors and others.

A direct disclosure, rather than an objective identification of their use of violence, provides an opportunity and invitation to explore the level of responsibility they are willing to take, and their readiness and motivation to engage in behaviour change.

The Intermediate Safety Planning Conversation Model provides guidance on exploring the person’s level of responsibility, readiness to change their behaviour, interest in committing to the safety of victim survivors and motivation to engage and change.

In the course of your work with the person using violence, you may explore what is meaningful to them in their life (for example, their values), which may provide some insight into their potential internal motivators.

You can support them to strengthen their internal motivators and establish both short-term and long-term goals that support the person to move towards change.

While a person using violence may disclose certain behaviours to you, this may occur with minimising or justifying narratives.

In this case, careful consideration is required in your response to maintain engagement while also addressing risk and safety issues. Their readiness to engage with specialist services will likely be limited at this time.

You may seek secondary consultation with a specialist perpetrator intervention service about the person’s disclosures to identify appropriate next steps.

This can include support to guide you in the development of strategies to maintain engagement with the person using violence and increase readiness and motivation to support ongoing work until they are ready to accept a referral to attend a specialist perpetrator intervention service.

You should continue to work with the person using violence to address their presenting needs while also exploring the barriers to addressing their use of violence, if safe to do so (refer to section 12 in Foundation Knowledge Guide for more information on barriers across the community).

Disclosure can also cause the person using violence to feel overwhelming shame and guilt, often heightened by separation anxiety.

This does not excuse family violence risk behaviours, but it provides a context you should be alert to, and it should inform how you respond.

Achieving change in the context of the person’s presenting needs, particularly where they have overcome barriers, may increase their capacity and confidence to change their family violence behaviours.

4.12. Talking to the person using violence about their options, including help seeking

In the early stages of engagement, your safety planning conversations should focus on the practical interventions required to stabilise the person’s situation, address their presenting need/s and circumstances, and strengthen their protective factors, for the purpose of managing and reducing the further likelihood or escalation of risk.

In your safety planning conversations with the person using violence, you will get a sense of the person's context, including:

• if there are any system interventions (for example, family violence intervention orders)
• the status of the family unit (for example, separated, living together, children living across households)
• strategies already in place to support stabilisation (for example, services addressing other needs such as alcohol and drug use).

You can support the person using violence to identify and consider their options for addressing their presenting needs, whether or not it is part of your professional role to name the direct link to family violence risk.

You should take a strengths-based approach when identifying options for support, ensuring that any plans made reflect the capacity, readiness and motivation of the person using violence. Refer to Responsibilities 1 and 5 on exploring barriers impacting readiness and motivation to engage.

You should also take care to identify supports in place for family members/victim survivors, to ensure that current supports for the person using violence or potential referral options do not unintentionally undermine the safety and wellbeing of victim survivors.

The Intermediate Safety Planning Conversation Model will support you to discuss:

• actions taken before to address presenting needs and/or use of family violence
• attempts at previous help seeking (generally) from formal supports and informal social supports
• motivation for engagement and setting goals for support from your service
• barriers to service access and help seeking
• engaging with appropriate legal services
• engaging with other services to address needs, including referrals
• strategies for self-managing their behaviour
• mental health needs and suicide safety planning.

A focus on accommodation options is outlined below due to the common circumstances of family violence intervention orders including exclusion conditions and the serious risk time of recent separation.

Making a range of connections for the person using violence to relevant supports and services includes seeking secondary consultation and sharing information.

You should seek consent from the person for a referral, and continue to engage with them, where appropriate to your role, until they are connected.

Refer to Responsibility 5 for guidance on making (or reducing barriers to) referrals and seeking secondary consultation.

Refer to Responsibility 6, and the Family Violence Information Scheme Guidelines or Child Information Sharing Scheme Guidelines, for guidance on information sharing.

4.12.1. Discussing accommodation options

Talking to the person using violence about accommodation options is essential to understand the status of the family unit and any risks associated with arranging alternative accommodation for the person using violence to increase safety for the adult and child victim survivors.

You should determine whether there is a family violence intervention order or other court orders in place with conditions that exclude the person using violence from the family home. This will inform your discussion and suggestions for safe accommodation options.

If the person using violence is living with the victim survivors, discuss their willingness to use strategies to de-escalate at the times they have identified as early signs for using violence.

Refer to the Intermediate Safety Planning Conversation Model in Appendix 9 for further guidance about managing behaviour and emotions for the purpose of the safety of others.

You can use the Safety Plan template to document agreed upon strategies, including calling support services.

Accommodation options may be a sensitive topic that could potentially escalate risk if the person using violence perceives themselves to be losing control through the process of leaving or being excluded from the family home.

If this discussion is met with reluctance, you can explore this, if safe to do so, to identify underlying beliefs or attitudes that serve as barriers to the conversation.

For example, they may make statements such as ‘I paid for the house, it’s mine and I’m not going to be told to leave’. This indicates a level of entitlement and expectation based on their perceived role or rights within the family.

This information will be useful when developing strategies to support the person stay away from the home if forced to leave.

If the person using violence has returned to the home of the victim survivors or other family members due to experiencing housing, employment or financial stress, discuss support services that are available to connect them to alternative accommodation as well as provide support for those co-occurring needs.

If the person using violence is a parent and children and/or young people reside in the family home, you can discuss the impact of the violence on their children, if you consider it is safe, appropriate and reasonable to use parenting as a motivator (refer to Section 4.13, below).

This can be an opportunity to encourage the person using violence to reflect on how their violent behaviours impact the children and young people in their life.

You can frame discussions about alternative accommodation options as a positive parenting choice, which can support their children to feel safe.

4.13. Risk management for a child or young person

You may not have direct contact with a non-violent parent/carer, children or young people in the family through your work with the person using violence.

If you do have direct contact, refer to practice guidance for working with non-violent parent/carer, child/ren and young people in the victim survivor–focused Responsibility 3 to 4.

Wherever possible, collaborate with adult victim survivors/non-violent parent/carers to better understand the level of risk presented by people using violence.

Risk-relevant information is best obtained from non-violent parent/carers, older children or young people, or objective sources of information, such as legal, statutory, medical, or health sources.

Consult with other professionals who are working with children or young people to gain a greater understanding of their risk and needs in the risk management process.

When engaging with a person using family violence, you may hear the narrative that ‘the children were not affected because they weren’t present’. This is an invitation to collude and may minimise recognition of the trauma the children have experienced.

You must consider how you keep the children’s lived experience as a victim survivor of family violence central to your risk management planning and decision-making process.

Identifying general circumstances related to children and young people, for example, where they are living and any parenting or contact arrangements, will inform the development of a Safety Plan with the person using violence.

4.13.1 Importance of determining whether parenting is a safe motivation for change

Determining whether it is safe, appropriate and reasonable to use parenting as a motivator will inform your risk management strategies with the person using violence.

If it is safe, appropriate and reasonable, you can work with the person using violence who is a parent/carer about their use of family violence and their role as a parent.

This can include understanding their goals, motivations and strengths in working towards positive and safe relationships with children, and safe relationships with co-parents.

Contact with children is a potential stabilisation factor, insofar as it may serve to motivate people using violence^[8] to engage with specialist perpetrator intervention services or other services to improve their parenting capacity.

The person’s role as parent can function as a source of internal motivation, linked to the desire to become a ‘better father’ or ‘better parent’.^[9]

Keeping a focus on the needs of the children and connecting this to being a ‘better parent’ can in turn reduce the level of risk presented to the adult victim survivor/parent.

You should continuously monitor for change or escalation of risk throughout your engagement when using parenting as a motivator.

This includes assessing whether it is safe, appropriate and reasonable to use parenting as a motivator at a particular point in time, and over time.

If it is not safe, appropriate and reasonable, you can explore other motivators when working directly with the person using violence, such as around other presenting needs, and identify other appropriate risk management strategies.

4.13.2 How to determine if it is safe, appropriate and reasonable to use parenting as a motivator

Consider if it is central to your professional service to engage with the person using violence about their parenting role.

When determining if it is safe, appropriate and reasonable to use parenting as a motivator, you should first consider whether the person using violence has a parenting/caring role or identity, and the level to which they accept their parenting/caring role or identity.

In your conversations with the person using violence, you may observe narratives about their beliefs and attitudes about parenting, their relationship to their children and other children in their life, and their co-parent/s.

Determining if it is safe, appropriate and reasonable to use parenting as a motivator is considered through a two-step process of identifying:

• the person’s parenting role and the level of acceptance of the parenting role or identity
• aspects of risk and the person’s context, including the level of family violence risk, status of family unit/relationships, system interventions and internal motivations and readiness, or other external motivations.

A person’s parenting role or identity includes:

• parent
• step-parent/long-term relationship with parent of child/ren – ongoing contact and relationship with child/ren
• caregiver.

Other relationships are not parenting roles or identity, such as:

• dating/in a short-term relationship with a parent of child/ren:
  • there may be no contact or minimal relationship with child/ren at this point in time, or
  • the person using violence may have significant contact with the new partner’s children, following a short and often intense period of dating prior to moving in together.

People in dating/short-term relationships may express strong identity as a parent/carer. However, this may be an invitation to collude with an entitlement or ‘right’ to the role or identity and be a reflection of coercive and controlling behaviours.

The table below provides guidance for assessing if it may be appropriate to use parenting as a motivator, based on the presence of a parenting role or identity and level of acceptance.

Table 2: Determining if there is a parenting role, acceptance and appropriateness of motivator

If the baseline threshold is met (there a parenting role and it is accepted), refer the table below for detail of the elements that support your professional judgement to determine if it is a safe, appropriate and reasonable motivator.

At all times you should prioritise safety when making your determination.

Table 2: Determining if there is a parenting role, acceptance and appropriateness of motivator

If the baseline threshold is met (there is a parenting role and it is accepted), refer the table below for detail of the elements that support your professional judgement to determine if it is a safe, appropriate and reasonable motivator.

At all times you should prioritise safety when making your determination.

Table 3: Considerations for using parenting as a safe, appropriate or reasonable motivator.

Use your professional judgement to determine if the parenting role is a safe, appropriate or reasonable motivator. If you remain unsure, seek support from your supervisor and secondary consultation with specialist family violence services.

4.13.3. Risk management related to parenting role

If parenting is determined to be a safe, appropriate or reasonable motivator, it should be used as part of risk management or safety planning conversations with the person using violence.

You can:

• use parenting motivation to reinforce safety expectations, including working towards safe parenting as appropriate to your role
• clearly discuss your role to support the person using violence to develop safe parenting or more respectful and healthy co-parenting relationships, as appropriate to your role, without making promises to support or advocating to systems for increased access to child/ren
• dispel myths related to parenting, including the notion of ‘rights’ to children, and explain legal processes
• continue to monitor for change or escalation of risk, or respond to any immediate risk
• continue to share risk-relevant information with other services working with the person using violence, or adult or child victim survivors
• seek secondary consultation on how to engage about the parenting role and motivation for behaviour change referral.

You should document your actions related to using parenting as a motivator in the Presenting needs and circumstances requiring stabilisation section of the Intermediate Risk Management Plan.

4.14. Mandatory reporting to Child Protection and referral to Child FIRST

Reflect on your reporting obligations that are an existing part of your professional role.

You may make relevant reports if you have concerns, even if you are not mandated to do so.

You must consider the safety of victim survivors when responding to mandatory reporting concerns. Refer to the victim survivor–focused MARAM Practice Guides for more information on working with adult victim survivors/non-violent parents.

Where possible, it is important to involve and partner with the adult victim survivor/non-violent parent in the reporting process. Where this is not possible, seek secondary consultation with a specialist family violence service regarding the safest way to proceed that best enables the victim survivors continued engagement with the service system and how to best support them in the process.

When working with the person using violence and undertaking mandatory reporting, it is important to consider the potential for change or escalation of risk from the person using violence to each adult or child victim survivor and their risk to themselves.

If you are working with a person using violence who discloses risk to a child’s safety or wellbeing and a Child Protection notification or report is warranted, you are not required to inform them before making a report.

However, it is important to consider informing the person using violence of the report, if you hold a reasonable concern that they may escalate their risk to adult or child victim survivors or another family member, if the person using violence holds a belief that the victim survivors/family member made the report.

For risk management guidance to respond to family violence risk for adult or child victim survivors, refer to the victim survivor–focused MARAM Practice Guides.

Reporting to Child Protection or child and family services

Always make a report to Child Protection if you have a significant concern that a child needs protection. Professionals should consult their organisation’s policies on making reports to Child Protection for guidance on circumstances and factors to consider.

Medical practitioners, nurses, midwives, teachers (including early childhood teachers) and school principals, out-of-home care workers, early childhood workers, social workers, school counsellors, registered psychologists, youth justice workers and police are mandatory reporters under the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (CYFA) (section 182).

Mandated reporters must make a report to Child Protection if they form a belief on reasonable grounds that a child is in need of protection from physical injury or sexual abuse, and that the child’s parents are unable or unwilling to protect the child from that abuse.

If the child is Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, ensure this information is contained in the report from your service to Child Protection.

This ensures that the Aboriginal Child Specialist Advice and Support Service (ACSASS) is notified and that cultural supports are put in place.

Make a referral to child and family services, such as Child FIRST, if you have significant concerns for the wellbeing of a child or an unborn child after their birth. Consider making a referral if wellbeing or needs issues are identified AND the child’s safety is not compromised (which would require a report to Child Protection).

4.15. Suicide risk management and safety planning

Reflect on guidance in the Foundation Knowledge Guide and Responsibility 3 Appendix 6 on recognising suicide risk in the context of adult people using family violence.

Responding to suicide risk should consider the risk of the person using violence to themselves, their family and community.

There is strong evidence of high representation of people using family violence in annual reporting of people who die by suicide.

Every person using family violence should receive support for responses to potential or diagnosed mental health issues and to manage the situational stressors that also increase their suicide risk. These include employment, financial and housing issues and drug and alcohol use.

Support for addressing these needs must be informed by and done alongside interventions to address family violence risk to increase safety for victim survivors.

This includes where there is a threat to suicide or self-harm, or not. By providing a universal mental health response, this will have the benefit of:

• reducing the real or potential risk the person using violence presents to themselves
• reducing the real risk the person using violence presents to the victim survivor/s from the increased risk of homicide and combined homicide-suicide^[10]
• more effectively identifying and responding to threats to suicide as a coercive controlling behaviour, and therefore reducing the impact of these controlling behaviours on victim survivors.

The Intermediate Safety Plan in Appendix 8 and Intermediate Safety Planning Conversation Model in Appendix 9 include prompting questions about self-management of mental health and suicide risk and provide referral options for support.

Remember, any narratives identified under Responsibility 3 related to homicide–suicide risk should be considered immediate risk, and immediate risk management strategies should be enacted, refer to Safety Plan template at Appendix 8.

4.16. Ongoing risk assessment and management

Guidance on collaborative ongoing risk assessment and management is outlined in Responsibility 10.

Family violence risk can change and escalate quickly (refer to Responsibility 3). You should continue to monitor risk to review and update your risk management approaches and actions.

During service engagement, you will identify risk factors that may escalate the level of risk posed by the person using violence.

These may include alcohol or drug use, homelessness, loss of employment, pending/recent parenting matters/outcomes in the family court, recent or anticipated relationship breakdown or mental health issues.

Record and refer to these risk factors regularly when responding to and managing risk.

While the immediate risk may not be present at a point in time, you can quickly activate your strategies to manage risk associated with these factors when they change.

Having a shared risk management strategy with other services supporting the person using violence, or adult or child victim survivor, means you can continue to share risk-relevant information and actions as part of a system-wide, coordinated response to a change or escalation in risk.

Your actions in response to the identified immediate risk presented by the person using violence may also be determined by court orders.

For example, if the person breaches an intervention order, parenting order, Children’s Court order or a community-based order, you may need to report this to the appropriate authority (remember this is likely to escalate risk and require a management response for the victim survivor/s).

You may also be required to speak with Child Protection or Child FIRST.

4.16.1. Opportunities to respond with time-based interventions and manage risk over time

Refer also to Section 3.7 in Responsibility 3 for guidance on key timeframes for assessing and monitoring risk after disclosure or you become aware of a family violence incident.

There are key times^[11] following an ‘incident’ where a person using violence may come into contact with services. The table below provides an overview of opportunities for you to support people who use family violence to stabilise their needs and circumstances, establish or contribute to system accountability mechanisms and enhance their capacity to change their behaviour.

Table 4: Key timeframes for managing risk after disclosure or you become aware of a family violence incident

You should record any time-based responses, actions and interventions in the Intermediate Risk Management Plan at Appendix 7.

4.16.2. Monitoring change over time by keeping the person using violence ‘in view’

The longer you are engaged with the person to address their presenting needs or circumstances, the more insight you will gain into the risk behaviours and patterns present.

This will allow you to monitor change over time, including whether the barriers to service access have changed.

Keeping the person using violence ‘in view’ means that professionals across the service system are maintaining a proactive and active awareness of their family violence risk and behaviour.

This includes any change or escalation of family violence risk, as well as the presence of or need to reinforce protective or stabilising factors related to their presenting needs and other circumstances.

Being proactive and active means:

• reaching out through secondary consultation to other professionals who may hold risk-relevant information so you can respond to change or escalation of risk, or to access specialist expertise to support your understanding and management of risk and safety
• proactively sharing risk-relevant information with other services who are prescribed and supporting the person using violence or the victim survivor/s
• identifying ways that other professionals in the service system may contribute to safety, risk management, accountability and change

• understanding which interventions, at what time, are the most appropriate for the person using family violence, and their affected family members – prioritising coordinated management of escalated or imminent risk.

If the barriers remain the same:

• continue to work with the person to respond to their presenting needs or circumstances
• work collaboratively with other specialist or targeted services to develop risk management plans that identify actions across services involved
• proactively share information if direct intervention is required to respond to change or escalation of risk

If your service is no longer providing a service to the person using violence, consider developing a risk management exit plan with specialist family violence services for the victim survivor or person using violence.

Services must proactively continue to have oversight of the risk of the person using violence and continue monitoring this risk over time.

4.16.3. Contact with the victim survivor as part of your ongoing risk assessment and risk management

Consider the options for direct and indirect contact you or your service has with the victim survivor to ensure they are supported to address their risk and enhance their safety.

This includes being provided with information related to identified changes or escalation of risk:

• If you or your organisation is supporting the victim survivor, you should share information with them to update their risk assessment and management strategies, including safety planning.
• If your organisation is not directly involved with the victim survivor, where safe, reasonable and appropriate, you should share information with services supporting the victim survivor, such as therapeutic, support or counselling, or specialist family violence services.
• If the victim survivor is not engaged with the service system, secondary consultation with a specialist family violence service will support your risk management interventions. This may be where any interaction with a victim survivor is a one-off occurrence, including in court settings, and intervention needs to include proactive reaching out to the victim survivor to offer support.

4.16.4. Risk management when a person using family violence is not engaged or has disengaged

In the course of your service delivery, situations may arise where you have been unable to engage or had minimal contact with the person using violence (non-engagement) or the service commenced, but the person does not continue or withdraws from the service (disengagement).

Where the person has disengaged from your service, and you have not already completed an Intermediate Risk Management Plan, you should make attempts to do so.

This should be based on your intermediate risk assessment, information sought from other services involved, and reflect any changes to family violence presentation and risk at the time of disengagement.

You should determine if you or another professional needs to act to lessen or prevent risk and complete any actions required.

You can contact the service supporting the victim survivor to share risk-relevant information and your Risk Management Plan.

Where there is non-engagement, you may still be indirectly involved and be required to contribute to collaborative and coordinated risk management responses (refer to Section 4.4, ‘no visible service intervention guidance’ in the table above).

Your expertise in your service area may be called upon to contribute to:

• information sharing for comprehensive risk assessment
• planning strategies that increase opportunities for engagement
• determining the most appropriate intervention for the person’s needs, circumstances, history and context.

Where you are continuing to support the person using violence and they have not engaged with a service you have referred them to, you should explore any barriers, issues, or changes to readiness or motivation.

Maintaining the person’s engagement with you at this time is critical for ongoing monitoring.

Non-engagement may be risk-relevant if it relates to presenting needs or circumstances that require stabilising to manage dynamic risk and prevent or reduce escalation of family violence.

4.17. What’s next

You may seek advice and information from specialist family violence services to develop Risk Management Plans and Safety Plans with people who use violence.

After hours, professionals may contact the Men’s Referral Service for information and advice.

In some circumstances, it is appropriate to seek secondary consultation or referral to a specialist family violence service for comprehensive risk management, particularly where leadership for coordination is required. Secondary consultation or referral:

• must occur if the assessed level of risk is ‘serious risk’ or ‘requires immediate protection/intervention’
• may occur if the assessed level of risk is ‘elevated risk’.

You may still have a role if a comprehensive Risk Management Plan and Safety Plan is developed by a specialist service. This may include implementing actions, monitoring risk and safety and information sharing.

Guidance on:

• making referrals and seeking secondary consultation is outlined in Responsibility 5
• information sharing is outlined in Responsibility 6
• collaborative ongoing risk assessment and management is outlined in Responsibility 10.

4.17.1. Document in your organisation’s record management system

It is important that you document the following information in your service or organisation’s record management system:

• all Risk Management Plans and Safety Plans you develop for the person using violence, and each adult and child victim survivor (if part of your service/role)
• case notes and any other relevant information about the person using violence’s presenting needs or circumstances, readiness and motivation. You should keep any relevant information related to protective factors or needs of victim survivors that must be considered for your direct engagement separately to the person using violence’s file.
• any emails, text or other communication sent to or from the person using violence.
• any comments or disclosures of information that give you concern about the immediate or short-term safety and wellbeing of the victim survivor, children or other people. You should document these using quotation marks, where possible, and any actions you took in response to your concerns.
• any reports to police or statutory authorities you have made responding to serious and immediate risk, or if you have a significant concern for a child and young person
• any referral and secondary consultation actions you undertake
• any information you share with other services or professionals
• any risk management actions assigned to you or other professionals.

Footnotes

^[1] For further details about RAMP, refer to Responsibility 9.

^[2] Refer to State of Victoria 2018, Children, youth and families, Criminal offences to improve responses to sex abuse, available online.

^[3] Adapted from Reimer EC 2020, “Growing to be a better person”: exploring the client-worker relationship in men’s behaviour change program, research report no. 15/2020, ANROWS, Sydney.

^[4] Consider if service user files can identify where family violence is present to link information, such as by using a flag, to ensure perpetrators are known in systems and cannot get access to information about victim survivors.

^[5] Chambers J, Eccleston L, Day A, Ward T, Howells K 2008, ‘Treatment readiness in violent offenders: the influence of cognitive factors on engagement in violence programs’, Aggression and Violent Behavior, vol. 13, pp. 276-284, doi:10.1016/j.avb.2008.04.003

^[6] Adapted from Prochaska JO and DiClemente CC 2005, ‘The transtheoretical approach’, in Norcross JC and Goldfried MR (eds.), Oxford series in clinical psychology: Handbook of psychotherapy integration, Oxford University Press, pp. 147-171.

^[7] Some professionals will be aware of the Transtheoretical model of change (also known as the Stages of Change model), originally developed for behavioural interventions for problems with alcohol and other drugs. Adapted from Prochaska JO and DiClemente CC 1983, ‘Stages and processes of self-change of smoking: toward an integrative model of change’, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, vol. 51, no. 3, p. 390.

^[8] Broady TR, Gray R, Gaffnet I and Lewis P 2017, ‘“I miss my little one a lot”: how father love motivates change in men who have used violence’, Child Abuse Review, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 328-338; State of Victoria 2016, Royal Commission Family Violence: Summary and recommendations, vol. 2, Parliamentary Paper No. 132 (pp. 2014-2106).

^[9] Stanley N, Graham-Kevan N and Borthwick R 2012, ‘Fathers and domestic violence: building motivation for change through perpetrator programmes’, Child Abuse Review, vol. 21, doi:10.1002/car.2222

^[10] Note, in these guides the use of the term ‘homicide’ includes the killing of children, known as ‘filicide’.

^[11] RMIT Centre for Innovative Justice 2018, Bringing pathways towards accountability together: Perpetrator journeys and system roles and responsibilities.

^[12] Timeframe may relate to a family violence incident, or be in proximity to a significant event/anniversary, such as public holidays, festive season events and relationship anniversaries. It may also relate to a disclosure of violence.

Download and print the PDF or read the accessible version:

5.1. Overview

This guide is for all professionals to use when family violence is suspected or assessed as present, and you determine that information, guidance, support or collaboration from another professional or service is required.

It includes guidance on secondary consultation and referral. These are crucial aspects of your practice that enable you to undertake risk assessment and management, respond to presenting needs or circumstances, or support client engagement and safety for victim survivors and people using violence.

The outcome of risk identification (Responsibility 2), assessment (Responsibility 3 or 7) or management (Responsibility 4 or 8) will inform the approach to the kinds of secondary consultation and referral you should undertake.

5.2. Purpose of secondary consultation and referral

Seeking secondary consultation and referral, including by sharing information, are essential aspects of Structured Professional Judgement.

These assist professionals to determine seriousness of risk, inform ongoing risk assessment and approaches to risk management and safety planning.

Secondary consultation is also a key aspect of building a shared understanding of family violence and to develop system-wide consistent and collaborative practice (Pillar 2 of the MARAM Framework).

Secondary consultation and referral necessarily involve a degree of information sharing.

Secondary consultation can take place for a range of reasons, including using the skills and knowledge of specialist family violence services to help you gain a further understanding of family violence risk and possible referral options.

Secondary consultation can also occur with mainstream and other specialist services that have expertise or resources to address wide-ranging presenting needs and circumstances of the person using violence.

This can include providing culturally safe, violence and trauma-informed, practical, targeted or therapeutic support when working with Aboriginal people, people who identify as belonging to diverse communities and older people.^[1]

Using secondary consultation can help you build your own knowledge, establish working relationships across organisations and assist in applying an intersectional analysis within Structured Professional Judgement (refer to Section 10.1 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide). It can also ensure culturally safe assessment and management responses when working directly with people using family violence.

Secondary consultation may lead to referral, or you may refer someone directly as a result of your risk assessment, risk management or safety planning.

To determine which is the appropriate course of action, you will need to identify:

• risk factors and presenting needs of the person using violence that require direct and/or immediate response, and how these interact with the safety and needs of adult and child victim survivors
• the priorities (for example, immediate and/or ongoing, risk and/or presenting needs) related to increasing safety for adult and child victim survivors and opportunities presented through direct engagement with the person using violence
• the actions or interventions (by whom, within what timeframe) that would make a difference to an individual’s safety or needs
• your role and the extent to which you and your organisation can directly address the risk behaviours, presenting needs or circumstances of the person using violence
• other professionals and/or organisations who are responsible for providing resources, skills and practice expertise to respond to each adult or child victim survivor and the person using violence
• mechanisms for collaborative decision making about, and allocation of, actions and responsibilities for professionals across the system, where it may or may not be your role to address these needs directly.

In the context of risk assessment and management, the rationale for secondary consultation when working with the person using violence includes:

• keeping victim survivor safety at the centre of practice
• addressing risk factors associated with a person’s use of violence
• addressing needs and circumstances to stabilise and engage a person using violence to improve opportunities and effectiveness of risk management
• keeping the assessed level of risk presented by the person using violence visible to the service system, enhancing the system’s capacity to monitor change or escalation of risk behaviours
• building and supporting confidence and capability of professionals to engage with people using violence and to establish working relationships across organisations to do so.

Risk assessment and management (such as safety planning, secondary consultation and referral) will help you identify and address risks and related needs and circumstances for the person using violence. Your actions should be victim survivor–centred and responsive to the overarching safety, wellbeing and needs of adult and child victim survivors.

Secondary consultation or referral can involve a range of services, such as specialist family violence services (victim survivor and perpetrator interventions), Victoria Police, Child Protection, Child FIRST, or other advocacy, targeted community services, universal and general professional or therapeutic services.

There are many reasons for secondary consultation or referral. You should consider seeking secondary consultation with:

• specialist family violence services to establish the presence or analyse the level of risk, such as if there is uncertainty based on the available information
• specialist family violence services if there is uncertainty about the identity of a perpetrator or victim survivor (for example, misidentification of predominant aggressor, or personal identifying details to support contact and offer of support or intervention) (refer to Responsibility 6)
• specialist family violence services on the development and/or actioning of risk management and safety plans and responses
• specialist family violence services with expert knowledge on working with people using violence or adult or child victim survivors from Aboriginal or diverse community or older people and the responses required to address unique needs and barriers. Targeted services may also include community-specific services, such as ethno-specific, LGBTIQ and disability services that focus on primary prevention or early intervention
• services that provide targeted, culturally safe services or liaison support, such as a cultural safety adviser for victim survivors who identify as Aboriginal or belonging to a diverse community
• services that provide specialist support to children and young people
• services that provide specialist support to older people
• legal services
• any service or professional where their involvement in collaborative responses would benefit a victim survivor or person using violence, such as co-case management arrangements.

You may seek to refer a matter to:

• Victoria Police where a crime may have been committed, or is likely to be committed
• Child Protection or Child FIRST or other statutory services, as required
• a specialist family violence service for a comprehensive risk assessment or management response, including consideration for a RAMP response
• other professionals with expertise or skill in supporting a person using violence’s presenting needs and circumstances
• other professionals who may be able to provide support to victim survivors, particularly if your service has no direct contact with the victim survivor.

Note, you can contact a service working with the victim survivor following referral to understand if their level of risk has changed or escalated. As part of this, you can continue to engage in information sharing to ensure you are aware of any need to adjust risk management interventions or safety plans to ensure they are aligned, as required.

5.3. You need to consider your legal permissions to share information for secondary consultation and referral

Secondary consultations should be considered in line with your authorisations to share information.

Consent is not required to share information as part of secondary consultation about a person using violence, nor for any other assessment or management purpose, as long as it is shared appropriately under the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme, or in accordance with another legislative authorisation (Responsibility6).

You should seek consent for referral of a person using violence to any other service, to support safe engagement with the receiving service.

Secondary consultation can occur without any identifying information being provided regarding the victim survivor (that is, providing de-identified information) to seek guidance on possible next steps.

If you think the secondary consultation may lead to a referral for a victim survivor and require you to disclose relevant identifying or personal information, you must do so according to your legal permissions and responsibilities.

In these circumstances, prior to undertaking the secondary consultation, you should seek consent from an adult victim survivor, or the views of an adult, child or young person, if a child or young person is at risk of family violence.

5.4. Responding to barriers

There may be a number of reasons that make it more difficult, in some cases impossible, for people using family violence to access and engage with services.

Real or perceived barriers affect the likelihood that the person using violence will engage with the service they have been referred to.

These can minimise the ability of the service system to monitor the person’s movements and behaviours as well as manage family violence risk.

There are many perceived and real barriers relating to a person’s engagement, including:

• distrust, fear or scepticism about what services can offer, and the feeling that the service system is ‘against’ them
• inability to attend services due to scheduling difficulties, including work or educational commitments and care for children
• situational constraints such as geographical isolation from services, lack of access or affordable transport to attend appointments
• financial constraints
• concern about privacy and confidentiality in accessing services
• concern about feeling judged, shamed or being ‘exposed’ during engagement with services.

People who are Aboriginal or identify as belonging to a diverse community and older people might be less likely to engage with receiving services for many reasons, including:

• actual discrimination and negative treatment, or fear of discrimination from professionals and services, which could be based on recent and past experience/s
• language and cultural safety barriers

• physical and communication access barriers including for people with specialised needs or disability
• lack of available services, including for people with specialised needs, such as disability services, LGBTIQ people, and culturally safe services. Culturally safe services include services for Aboriginal people and services for culturally, linguistic and faith-diverse communities. Mainstream services may not be, or perceived to be, as inclusive or be able to provide meaningful support for a person using violence’s specific needs.

Refer to guidance in Section 12 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide for further understanding of barriers to engagement and service access in different relationships and communities.

Responsibility 1 has practical guidance on resolving or mitigating these barriers.

People who use violence should be offered choices where possible in being referred to an organisation that specialises in working with their community.

Aboriginal people who use violence, or people who have family members who are Aboriginal, may choose to use an Aboriginal or mainstream organisation.

People from culturally, linguistically and faith-diverse communities and LGBTIQ communities may also choose to access a specialist organisation.

If there is no specialist service in your local area, you can support a receiving service to connect with a specialist service by secondary consultation to continue to facilitate safe engagement and service delivery.

Consider whether referrals may lead to non-engagement or disengagement of the person using violence. You should also think about how to facilitate referral in a more supportive way.

Reflect on guidance in Responsibility 1 to support safe engagement.

5.5. Seeking secondary consultation and making referrals

5.5.1. Victim survivor safety is the priority

When you have identified a person using family violence, you will almost always have identified at least one adult or child victim survivor.

You are unlikely to know the level of risk the person using violence presents to other family members with only the information held by your service.

Consulting with other services can contribute to finding a safe way to share information to support victim survivors to be engaged with a service and offered support.

If the victim survivor is a client of your service, follow your organisation’s policies and procedures to assess their level of risk and undertake risk management and safety planning.

If they are not a client of your service, you may share information, if authorised, with a relevant specialist family violence service to have their level of risk assessed.

Refer to Responsibility 6 for guidance on information sharing.

5.5.2. Referring or reporting to Victoria Police, Child Protection or Child FIRST

Professionals have obligations to report matters to Child Protection or Child FIRST.

If you believe a child or children need protection, or you have significant concerns for the wellbeing of a child/ren or unborn child (after their birth), you are obliged to report to Child Protection or make a referral to Child FIRST, as applicable (further detailed in Responsibility 4).

Responsibility 4 provides further guidance on whether you should inform the person using violence of a report or make a report without informing them.

Victoria Police

Call Triple Zero (000) in an emergency or if police assistance is required.

You may also be subject to specific professional responsibilities in your role, including to report crimes and refer people using violence to Victoria Police for further investigation, assistance and intervention.

As outlined in previous chapters, any agency, organisation or professional identifying that a person using violence presents a serious risk to an adult or child victim survivor, including if there is an identified serious threat (refer to Responsibility 3), should immediately notify Victoria Police.

You should also consider what other risk management actions are required, such as engaging with services working with victim survivors to ensure safety planning is in place, if reporting to Victoria Police may result in escalation of risk from a person using violence.

This is also required even when the victim survivor is not otherwise willing to receive assistance.

You should also consider what other risk management actions are required in each circumstance, such as safety planning with the person using violence if reporting to Victoria Police may result in escalation of risk from a person using violence to a victim survivor.

If a crime has been committed, and there is no immediate danger, you should consider sharing information with professionals working with victim survivors to support them to report to Victoria Police, or seek their views on your making a referral or report on their behalf.

You can consult with specialist family violence services if you identify that risk is escalating. If you have made a report, continue to provide your support and monitor the situation.

If you are aware that a victim survivor is receiving support, share the information about the report to the supporting services.

Child Protection and Child FIRST

Professionals have a range of obligations to report matters to Child Protection or Child FIRST.

If you believe a child or children need protection, or you have significant concerns for the wellbeing of a child/ren or unborn child (after their birth), you must follow your obligations to report to Child Protection or make a referral to Child FIRST, as applicable.

Remember, even though you might not work directly with a child or young person, all professionals should be proactive in promoting the safety and wellbeing of a child or group of children.

Some professionals are also prescribed and authorised to share information under Child Information Sharing Scheme, refer to Responsibility 6.

Refer to Responsibility 4 for guidance on whether you should inform the person using violence of a referral or report or make a report without informing them. For example, you should assess whether it is safe and appropriate to inform them where it may increase risk to a victim survivor if a person using violence incorrectly assumes the victim survivor made the report.

Consider the safety and wellbeing of adult and child victim survivors and ensure you share relevant information with services working with them to update any risk assessment and management plans.

5.5.3. Secondary consultation and referral for a person using violence related to their risk to child/ren or young people

If children are at risk from a person using violence, such as if a child or young person is named on a family violence intervention order, appropriate referral options for the person using violence may include legal services, specialist perpetrator intervention services such as fathering/parenting programs or Child FIRST.

Consider if you should also seek secondary consultation or make a report or referral to Child Protection or Child FIRST (as above).

When making any referrals for the person using family violence, consider the safety of adult and child victim survivors.

If necessary, seek secondary consultation or share relevant information with services working with adult and child victim survivors to update any risk assessment and management plans.

5.5.4. Secondary consultation with specialist family violence services (victim survivor and perpetrator interventions)

Seek secondary consultation with perpetrator intervention or victim survivor specialist family violence services when you know family violence is present. For example, there has been a disclosure or you have observed narratives or behaviours indicating the presence of family violence risk.

This will help you gather further advice on practical, timely and effective engagement strategies and interventions.

The purpose of secondary consultation with specialist family violence services is to seek support in:

• understanding the level of risk and intersectional needs
• determining actions in line with the assessed level of risk
• determining whether a referral is required for a specialist family violence response (for adult or child victim survivors or a person using violence, where safe, appropriate and reasonable to do so).

Secondary consultation may result in a specialist practitioner supporting and working collaboratively with you to undertake intermediate assessment and management. It may also mean you refer a person using violence to a specialist perpetrator intervention service for them to complete comprehensive risk assessment and management.

Secondary consultation with both specialist perpetrator intervention and victim survivor family violence services can also assist with:

• supporting effective and safe engagement with people using violence
• gaining further understanding of strategies for working with people who use violence
• building a shared understanding of family violence risk, undertaking risk assessment and determining the level of risk present
• information sharing to understand level of risk for the victim survivor/s
• supporting your practice to develop safety plans and risk management plans
• joint monitoring of family violence risk (including keeping the person using violence ‘in view’ of the service system) and the opportunity to explore or monitor escalation/changes in the risk level
• coordination of connections between programs, appropriate sequencing of interventions, program eligibility and suitability, and referral pathways
• convening coordinated or collaborative risk assessment or management support, as outlined in Responsibility 9, such as multi-agency meetings
• active referrals when the level of risk has been assessed as elevated/serious risk.

When assessing family violence risk of a person using family violence, it is essential to identify services working with victim survivor/s or specialist family violence services (victim advocate services) so you increase safety through information sharing.

Further information on keeping the person using violence ‘in view’ is covered in Responsibility 6.

5.5.5. Seeking consultation with The Orange Door and enhanced intake services

The Orange Door

If The Orange Door^[2] operates in your local area, this is often the best point of first contact for secondary consultation.

Alternatively, you can identify your local specialist perpetrator intervention services or victim survivor specialist family violence service by accessing The Lookout website^[3] .

The Orange Door can support a coordinated and integrated intake, assessment and referral system for people using and/or experiencing family violence.

This includes to assess and manage risk and to make referrals to address the presenting needs of a person using violence.

Enhanced intake

For regions where The Orange Door has not been established, enhanced intake services provide intake, risk assessment and referral for people using family violence.

People who use violence can contact the enhanced intake service in their region directly, or they will be referred by Victoria Police through the L17 process.

Enhanced intake services liaise with specialist family violence services working with victim survivors and other agencies to establish risk and plan risk management strategies.

Enhanced intake services may or may not provide additional perpetrator interventions through their service and will refer people using violence to other providers within their region.

You can provide options for a referral to local Aboriginal family violence services if any family member identifies as Aboriginal.

The Rainbow Door provides statewide LGBTIQ intake and referral for LGBTIQ specialist family violence services.

5.5.6. Seeking consultation with mainstream, universal and other specialist services

A person using violence may engage with an organisation or service for a range of reasons for support for their wellbeing, needs, circumstances or risk.

They may have self-initiated engagement with your service or been referred to you by another service to address a specific need or risk factor. They may have been referred by prescribed justice or statutory authorities, such as Victoria Police, Child Protection or Corrections.

You can seek secondary consultation or make referrals for a range of presenting needs or circumstances to reduce the likelihood of change or escalation of risk (where they are protective factors), or otherwise support stabilisation of the person using family violence.

Effective and targeted support for people using violence is likely to lead to better and longer engagement with the service. This improves opportunities for risk monitoring and management and increases safety for victim survivors.

Secondary consultation can provide a professional already engaged with the person using violence with information to inform risk assessment or management planning.

This may relate to an individual’s circumstances, age or identity such as to assist in safe engagement or to address barriers, structural inequality or discrimination an individual may have experienced (refer to Section 10.3 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide).

Secondary consultation can also support:

• collaborative risk assessment, risk management or co-case management
• culturally safe engagement and supports for Aboriginal people or people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities
• engagement with people who identify as belonging to culturally, linguistically or faith-diverse community, identify as a person with disability, are from LGBTIQ communities or experience mental illness (refer to Foundation Knowledge Guide for detail and definitions for diverse communities)
• appropriate responses for older people that address barriers to their engagement with services or support.

Professionals who can assist with secondary consultation might include advocacy, universal and general professional or therapeutic practitioners, including but not limited to teachers, general practitioners, drug and alcohol workers, mental health professionals, social workers, maternal and child health nurses, and childcare workers.

5.5.7. Receiving requests for secondary consultations

If you are a professional who receives a secondary consultation request to provide targeted expertise or specialist family violence knowledge for risk assessment or management response, it is an opportunity to share knowledge and expertise and play a vital role in enabling a collaborative and coordinated service system.

Consider:

• connecting with key organisations and services that you regularly seek and provide secondary consultations with and address any gaps in service provision available
• ways to strengthen relationships in local areas to enable effective secondary consultations and referrals
• establishing guidance on how and when local victim survivor support services and specialist perpetrator intervention services work together to enable collaborative risk assessment and management
• applying good record keeping practices in line with your organisational guidelines, refer to Section 5.8 and Responsibility 6.

5.6. Making referrals

5.6.1. Referral

Referral is an important part of the risk management process.

Through referral, you connect a person using violence to information or services that are outside your organisation’s practice area. This includes for presenting needs or circumstances that may be related to their use of violence.

You can make a referral for early intervention when family violence first occurs or becomes known. This will help to reduce the likelihood of change or escalation of risk or respond to escalation or crisis.

Referral can support stabilisation and enhance protective factors. It can also reduce or prevent the use of family violence in future.

You may refer someone directly as a result of your risk assessment or management planning. Referral may also result from a secondary consultation with another professional.

In the context of risk assessment and risk management, the primary purposes of referral for people using family violence are:

• to address presenting needs or circumstances, particularly if they are contributing to change or escalation of risk
• to reduce or remove a barrier to the person using violence engaging in services or supports
• to support a family violence risk assessment directly with a specialist perpetrator intervention service
• to manage (and reduce) the assessed level of risk of a person using violence by sharing risk management responsibilities with other professionals who have complementary roles, responsibilities and expertise to yours, including safety planning, or increasing risk management interventions

Refer to Responsibility 4 and Appendix 9 Intermediate safety planning conversation model for information on prompting questions that support having conversations about referral options with people using violence.

Specialist family violence services triage responses to referrals. They give priority to ‘serious risk’ and ‘serious risk and requires immediate protection’ cases.

If you have an ongoing service engagement with a person using violence and you have referred them to a specialist perpetrator intervention services, you should continue to engage with them about their presenting needs and provide support as needed. This will allow you to monitor for change or escalation in use of violence.

Effective referrals can support a person’s readiness to engage in behaviour change.

Addressing presenting needs can lead to more targeted and effective interventions to support them to address their use of violence. This serves as an indirect way to manage family violence risk.

It is essential that people using family violence are referred to appropriate support services.

An inappropriate referral may result in continued, and in some cases, escalated risk for victim survivors.

Refer to considerations for a safe referral below.

5.6.2. Enabling successful referral

Responding to the risk, needs or circumstances of a person using violence includes a discussion with them about their priorities, concerns or barriers to engagement with other services.

Barriers should be identified and any approach or options for referral should continue to keep the victim survivor’s safety and wellbeing as a priority.

To assist successful referral, consider:

• how stable the person’s health, mental health or needs are
• how engaged they are and the level of trust you have built with them
• the range of presenting needs or circumstances, and how to prioritise support for these
• identifying the services they are already, or have previously been, engaged with that the person using violence could reconnect to
• providing options and choice in services, and providing appropriate information about options and recommendations, including prioritisation of options based on their risk, needs and circumstances
• completing referral forms together
• seeking consent/views on the referral.

Monitoring the success of referrals is a part of risk management and keeping the person using violence ‘in view’.

You can follow up on the referral outcome with other services (without consent from the person using violence), as authorised under the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme.

For the service response to be safe, targeted and effective, it is essential that all services engaged with the person using violence have a shared understanding of risk that is present.

For safe referrals, it is also important to:

• make sure the person using violence is aware and consents to a referral prior to receiving contact from the service
• ensure the referral being made is safe and appropriate for the person using violence, considering their level of risk, needs or circumstances
• in situations where it may increase risk, develop or update risk management plans for adult or child victim survivors where possible, and proactively share information with a service working with a victim survivor (or directly with the victim survivor if appropriate) to make them aware of the referral.

The steps for the referral process include the following.

Contact the agency receiving the referral to:

• ensure it is appropriate
• ascertain any waiting times
• advocate for your client to receive service
• provide relevant information to ensure the receiving service can meaningfully connect with the person using violence, if appropriate
• discuss roles and responsibilities
• develop a case management protocol, including about information sharing if risk changes or escalates, and updating risk management plans, if appropriate.

You do not need to make the person using violence aware of these steps when making the referral.

• Manage the expectations of the person using violence regarding the options available and support they can expect to receive from each service, and maintain contact during waiting periods.
• Share relevant information with other professionals and services to ensure safety and minimise the need for the person using violence to repeat information they have previously disclosed (any risk assessments, risk management or safety plans undertaken should form part of the referral).
• Where possible, engage the support of specialist family violence case management services (working with victim survivors, or coordinated responses to people using violence).
• Discuss with the person using violence the information you are sharing for the purpose of referral to ensure it is accurate. This is strictly limited to information that it is safe, appropriate and reasonable for them to know you are sharing, such as their identity, experience, presenting needs and circumstances that will help receiving services to provide safe engagement support
• Follow up with the person using violence for feedback about the referral to ensure it was effective. This can include continuing to support their engagement with other services and ensuring any issues that arise are addressed to reduce likelihood of non-engagement or future disengagement.
• Use feedback processes with the receiving service or professional to support or respond to any engagement issues that may arise and to prevent disengagement.

Referral processes can occur by telephone, in face-to-face settings, by written communication (including email), or a combination of these channels.

A referral may combine aspects of each of these processes. For example, referrals may be warm/active or facilitated and informal (information only).

Considerations in choosing which process to use include the person’s:

• interpersonal style and ability to negotiate complex social interactions
• views on the proposed service options, including whether a specialist or targeted community service or mainstream service is preferred
• past experiences of trauma and disengagement due to structural inequality, barriers or discrimination that may need to be actively addressed
• ability to provide and receive information (consider if this is relating to communication barriers or emotional or physical health, wellbeing, or permanent or situational factors)
• ability to tolerate delays in service responses.

Table 1: Processes for making a referral

5.6.3. Addressing barriers at the point of referral

Work with the person using violence to reduce or remove barriers to engaging. Consider any barriers that may result in non-engagement or disengagement with the service being referred to.

These might include:

• impacts from experiences of trauma
• physical, practical and communication access barriers
• previous negative experiences of services and forms of structural inequality and discrimination.

You should follow up with the person using violence to confirm they have taken up referrals.

Non-engagement or disengagement following referral may be risk relevant if it relates to change or escalation of presenting needs, circumstances or family violence behaviours.

Effectively addressing barriers at the point of making a referral can be supported by:

• being curious about the experiences of the person using violence, including their history and experience of service engagement to avoid duplicating referrals

• listening to what they tell you and assessing which presenting needs they are ready and able to address
• providing information to the person using violence so they understand how a referral can support them. For example, the person using violence might be willing to address their financial or housing needs, and doing so would keep them engaged in the service system and keep their risk and safety concerns known to service providers
• ensuring referral options that are given support their continued engagement in the service system.

An ‘information gap’ between service providers during the referral process may lead to disengagement.

For example:

• if you make a cold referral to another service and do not confirm the person has accepted the referral and is engaging, both services may be unaware that the person using violence has disengaged from the service system completely
• if you make a referral for a person using violence to address a presenting need, but the timing and sequencing of the referral is not appropriate, then the opportunity to engage them with support may be lost.

If you make a referral to an agency, you need to confirm there is an appropriate service in an appropriate location that can meet the needs of a client.

When making a referral, consider how you want to make the referral and what information you choose to share with the receiving agency to enhance their engagement with the person using violence. This includes keeping the person’s risk and safety concerns front of mind in your intervention approach.

Make sure the person using violence meets the eligibility requirements for the service you are referring them to. You can also consider how to respond if the referral is rejected for another reason.

5.6.4. Information to include in the referral

Work with the person using violence on completing the referral forms or letter.

You can discuss with them some information you intend to share with the receiving service, limited to information you determine to be safe, appropriate and reasonable for the person using violence to be aware of. You are not required to seek their consent on any information you share that is risk relevant.

When referring to:

• specialist perpetrator intervention services – this will include the completed risk assessment and risk management and safety plans
• other professionals and services – relevant information from risk assessments or circumstances impacting family violence risk behaviours or needs.

Consider including all relevant information for the purpose of the engagement, as well as information that will support safe engagement.

Information should include the level of risk, pattern of behaviour and known examples of invitations to collude. This should include any information that helps the receiving service understand the person in their context, such as their identity, experiences, needs or circumstances.

You may also share information related to addressing barriers to service engagement.

Refer to Responsibility 6 for information on determining what is relevant to be shared through information sharing.

5.6.5. Which organisations to refer to

Referral pathways may need to be wide-ranging but staged to accommodate the needs or circumstances of the person using violence.

In the first instance, referrals should focus on addressing immediate risk, or responding to acute needs or circumstances that relate to change or escalation of family violence risk behaviours or safety for any person.

Examples include:

• referral to a specialist perpetrator intervention service, targeted specialist service or other specialist family violence service such as The Orange Door or The Rainbow Door. You can also refer to these services if a service user is suspected of using family violence, and these services can complete a comprehensive risk assessment to determine if this person is using family violence
• referral to therapeutic or practical support to address presenting needs, if it is deemed safe and appropriate to do so
• referral to a legal service or to a court if the person using violence needs advice to understand an intervention order, or to seek legal advice
• referral to a targeted specialist community service, such as services specialised in supporting Aboriginal people or people from diverse communities, or older people in relation to their use of family violence, or for other services responding to needs or circumstances, such as tailored therapeutic and community supports
• universal or mainstream professional supports, including advocacy or therapeutic responses to provide supports for needs or circumstances, or to promote or strengthen protective factors.

Note that some organisations require that the person using family violence contacts the service independently in order to access the service.

Organisations typically have different referral pathways. As such, you and your organisation need to be proactive in establishing agreed-upon referral pathways in your local area.

5.6.6. Responding to complex or multiple needs

People who use family violence can address multiple needs when this is planned, coordinated and supported.

For example, attending a mental health service and a family violence behaviour change program at the same time is reasonable if it is undertaken in a coordinated way by the services involved.

However, you should be careful not to overload the person using violence with too many referrals at once, or make referrals that are not appropriate. This might include, for example, referring them to a service they are unable to access because of their geographical location.

Use Structured Professional Judgement to guide your assessment of their capacity and capability to engage with multiple services.

You should also be aware that a person using family violence can use their perceived lack of ability to engage with multiple services as an excuse for not addressing their use of family violence, or minimising, denying or justifying lack of engagement.

This may present as non-engagement to the service receiving the referral. Using safe approaches to engagement, coordination, referral and ongoing support for the person will be crucial to minimise the risk of the system being used to avoid responsibility.

5.6.7. Collaborative relationships to support effective referrals

You can build collaborative relationships with organisations in your local area and beyond to respond to barriers in effective referrals.

These collaborative relationships will help professionals understand which services are offered where and can support targeted and effective referrals.

For example, building relationships with Aboriginal community-controlled organisations in local areas can enable referrals to specialised support for people from Aboriginal communities.

Other strategies for building collaborative relationships include:

• maintaining a list of professionals or services that you or your organisation has good working relationships or memorandums of understanding with, and their roles and responsibilities
• understanding eligibility and intake processes of other organisations and services
• establishing memorandums of understanding between services and organisations for referral protocols and pathways
• developing and using common referral forms with key agencies that include agreed information, minimising the need to ask the same questions
• regularly reviewing and updating referral pathways and processes and identifying areas for improvement
• linking with Regional Integration Committees and Principal Strategic Advisers to understand local governance and strengthen networks between mainstream, universal and specialist family violence services.

These actions can be part of your organisation's approach to alignment with the MARAM Framework, and are further explored in the Organisational Embedding Guidance and Resources.

This requires a whole of organisation approach so that professionals are supported to assume these responsibilities.

5.7. Consent or views on secondary consultation and referral

In the course of seeking secondary consultation or making a referral, you are not required to seek consent from the person using family violence to share their information under the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme, Child Information Sharing Scheme (if applicable), or as otherwise authorised.

It is best practice to seek consent for the referral to be made and work collaboratively with a person who is using family violence to establish appropriate referrals and complete the referral process.

You should outline and clearly explain the service referral options.

When working with a person using family violence, you should seek and respect their views, preferences and choice on engaging with a specialist Aboriginal service or service that responds to diverse communities.

Similarly, working collaboratively with a person using family violence, where appropriate to your role and responsibilities, supports targeted and effective referrals that respond to the person’s risk, presenting needs and access barriers.

5.8. Record keeping and referrals

You should record information you share with other professionals and services, and details of referrals, in line with your organisational policy and requirements under applicable information sharing laws.

Refer to Responsibility 6 for safe record keeping practice.

Referral information about needs and circumstances being addressed by other services can be kept on the record of the person using violence.

Any information about their risk behaviours, assessments or risk management plans should be ‘flagged’ in your records.

You are not required to share this information with the person using violence if it will increase risk to the victim survivor to do so.

Further information on record keeping is outlined in Chapter 10 of the Family Violence Information Sharing Guidelines, and Chapter 5 of the Child Information Sharing Scheme Guidelines.

Footnotes

^[1] Support for working with adolescents using family violence is outlined in the victim survivor–focused MARAM Practice Guides (2019) and adolescent family violence MARAM Practice Guide (anticipated release late 2021).

^[2]The Orange Door website provides a service finder tool.

^[3]The Lookout website also provides a service finder tool.

Download and print the PDF or read the accessible version:

6.1. Overview

This guide is for all professionals to use when family violence is suspected, or you have identified or assessed risk to be present, and you determine that information, guidance, support or collaboration from another professional or service is required.

It includes guidance on:

• information sharing as part of Structured Professional Judgement
• legal authorisations for information sharing including the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme (FVIS Scheme) and Child Information Sharing Scheme (CIS Scheme)
• understanding risk-relevant information in the context of working with people who use family violence.

If you are also authorised to share information under existing privacy laws or another law, you can continue to do so.

In situations involving children or young people experiencing family violence, authorised professionals can use:

• the FVIS Scheme to request and share information in order to assess and manage family violence risk
• the CIS Scheme for broader safety and wellbeing issues.

Consent from a person using or suspected to be using violence is not required to share risk-relevant information between prescribed professionals and organisations.

Information sharing is a key practice that enables all services to contribute to assessing and collaboratively managing family violence risk, which includes responding to presenting needs and circumstances that may impact a person’s use of violence.

Key capabilities

Professionals required to have knowledge of Responsibility 6 should be able to:

• proactively share information and make requests seeking relevant to the assessment and management of family violence risk, including under the FVIS Scheme, privacy law or other authorisation at law
• proactively share information relevant to broader safety and wellbeing issues for children using the CIS Scheme
• respond to requests to share information from other services.

The outcome of risk identification (Responsibility 2), assessment (Responsibility 3 or 7) or management (Responsibility 4 or 8), will inform the purpose and type of information relevant for you to share.

Guidance that refers to a perpetrator or person using violence in this guide is relevant to situations where an adolescent is using family violence.

6.2. Purpose of information sharing

Effective information sharing is crucial to keeping adult and child victim survivors safe, support safety for people using violence and also support people using violence to take responsibility for and end their use of violence.

Information can also be shared to promote the broader wellbeing and safety of children, which may or may not relate to their experience of family violence.

The FVIS and CIS Schemes aim to create a significant cultural shift in information sharing practice. These schemes are underpinned by the MARAM Framework, as well as relevant best interests and developmental frameworks.

Professionals in prescribed organisations all have a role in information sharing to improve risk assessment and management practice.

Many organisations, especially those with ongoing service engagement with people using violence or victim survivors, hold information relevant to assessing and managing family violence risk, or to promote the safety or wellbeing of a child.

Effective information sharing between professionals supports ongoing risk assessment and management by bringing together information that would otherwise be unknown.

This information can be used by relevant professionals to remove or reduce risk (as far as possible) or prevent escalation.

Risk is dynamic and can change over time. Professionals with responsibilities for ongoing risk assessment should continue to share information to support updating risk management and safety plans for the person using violence, as well as safety planning undertaken with victim survivors.

This is particularly important for people using violence or victim survivors:

• who are not directly engaged with specialist family violence services in an ongoing way, but only at points of crisis or escalation
• are working with universal or targeted community services to address other needs or circumstances.^[1]

Information sharing supports a detailed understanding of the person suspected or known to be using family violence, including their pattern of behaviour, beliefs and attitudes, static and dynamic risk factors, and known protective factors or supports needed to stabilise their circumstances.

This includes barriers to personal accountability, safety and behaviour change, as well as developing an understanding of the ‘person in their context’ through the application of intersectional analysis.

6.3. Information sharing in Structured Professional Judgement

Information sharing is a key enabler of the model of Structured Professional Judgement as it supports professionals to share information to inform risk assessment and management, including to stabilise the needs or circumstances of the person using violence.

Information sharing may be authorised under a range of laws such as the FVIS Scheme, the CIS Scheme, the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 or other relevant Australian privacy laws.

Sharing information assists professionals to identify additional risk factors or provide more information about known risk factors.

This information can inform the assessment of the level or seriousness of risk, and implementation of risk management responses for each individual, as well as to promote the safety and wellbeing of children.

Consider information sharing in each risk assessment or management activity you undertake. This includes when you identify services that may have information that would assist in the assessment or management process.

When working with people who use family violence, information sharing allows you to develop a more accurate and complete understanding of risk that goes beyond what the person has disclosed to you.

As people who use violence commonly minimise or deny their use of violent, coercive and controlling behaviours, their answers to questions and reflections on their behaviour cannot be relied upon as a predictor of the level of risk they present to others.

Within the model of Structured Professional Judgement, information sharing allows professionals to gather and share risk-relevant information with other prescribed organisations.

This includes risk factors present or observed, patterns of behaviour, beliefs and attitudes, static and dynamic risks, protective factors and information that supports stabilisation of risk.

Gathering information from other services supports you to contextualise and analyse what a person using violence discloses and your observations of narratives and/or behaviours they use.

It also supports you to identify opportunities to monitor change and escalation of their risk and pattern of behaviour. This includes working collaboratively with the other services engaged with the person using violence or adult or child victim survivors or other family members.

You may identify key sources of information and other services that are responding to presenting needs or circumstances for the purpose of promoting stabilisation or enhancing protective factors. This can be assisted by using the genogram or ecomap exercises outlined in Responsibilities 7 and 8.

You can also proactively share information with other services, even if it is not your role to conduct risk assessment, when you are authorised to share under privacy or other information sharing laws.

Refer to the Family Violence Information Sharing Guidelines (the Ministerial Guidelines) for more information.

Ongoing engagement with the person using violence will support you to observe changes in dynamic risk factors, informed by the understanding of patterns of coercive and controlling behaviour of the person using violence.

Sharing this information supports collaborative practice and ensures services collectively hold risk and work together to provide the right interventions at the right time. Professionals should prioritise sharing information about dynamic risk factors that are present.

6.4. Reflecting on safe engagement, including information sharing practice

Each person using violence should be considered individually for the services or supports they may need to address the risk they present to others or themselves.

This may be the first time a person has had their family violence risk identified or noticed, or their needs assessed.

You should enquire about this to identify if there are any barriers to engagement, or opportunities to reconnect to previously supportive services, for example, from previous attempts at help-seeking (Responsibility 4).

Safe engagement in the context of information sharing involves discussing options with a person using violence on the approach to referrals.

If the service user knows you are aware they are using family violence, you may choose to discuss co-case management in limited contexts, considering what is safe, appropriate or reasonable.

This may include discussing past or recent experiences of service barriers or discrimination that you respond to and address through your agreed information sharing to support safe engagement. Refer to Responsibility 5 for more information.

You can use this guide together with practice guidance on responding to immediate risk, outlined in Responsibilities 2 and 4, to help you plan risk management responses and take action.

In considering each service engagement, you should be guided by the person’s identity and experience and tailor your approach to referral, secondary consultation or information sharing accordingly.

For example, if the person using violence has let you know they are Aboriginal, identify as belonging to a diverse community, or have a cognitive impairment, consider if your service engagement would benefit from specialist advice or support.

Ask if the person using violence would like to be directly connected to a service that specialises in working with individuals from their community group, or if they are comfortable with you sharing information with or connecting to that service for secondary consultation.

In this case, consider how you can work with these services to address the person’s use of violence in a safe and respectful way.

Consider also ongoing information sharing to identify change or escalation of risk, needs or deterioration of circumstances that may impact on risk.

Responsibility 1 and 5 assist with these aspects of practice.

Areas to consider include:

• specialist perpetrator intervention services have found that few people using violence raise concerns about information sharing when it is discussed in a respectful and transparent manner
• sensitive, clear and transparent engagement is important to maintain the person using violence in your service and within the broader service system
• if safe to do so, be clear with the person using violence about reasons for information sharing
• refusal or reluctance from a person using violence to agree to information sharing may indicate current or future risk and must be recorded (refer to Responsibilities 2, 3 and 7).

6.5. Legal authorisations to share relevant information

The FVIS Scheme authorises organisations and services, prescribed through regulations, to share relevant information to assess and manage family violence risk.

Details of this scheme are outlined below and in the Ministerial Guidelines.

There are a number of ways the information of the person using violence can be shared without consent, such as to assess or manage family violence risk under the FVIS Scheme.

Organisations may also have other authorisation to share information to inform risk assessment and support coordinated and collaborative responses.

The CIS Scheme also allows organisations and services prescribed under that scheme to share information with each other to promote children’s wellbeing and safety.

This includes to promote the broader wellbeing and safety of children who experience family violence. Refer to the guidelines for the CIS Scheme for further information.

The CIS Scheme complements the FVIS Scheme.

Services should consider updating general consent forms at the point of engagement commencement to allow risk-relevant information to be shared about any person using family violence, when necessary.

When engaging with a service user, you should discuss their privacy, including how you will protect, use and share their information, as authorised under law.

If you know or suspect a service user is using family violence, your service should have a clear limited confidentiality statement covering the ways their information can be shared without consent. This includes to assess or manage family violence risk under the FVIS Scheme, or otherwise able or required under law to share information without their consent where there is a risk to themselves or others.

You should have a limited confidentiality conversation with them at service commencement, if safe to do so.

Sharing risk-relevant information about a person using violence does not require their consent.

In your initial conversations with a person you know or suspect may be using violence, be clear that their information may be shared without their consent if required by law or if there is a risk to themselves or others.

You do not need to re-confirm this statement before, or after, making a request or sharing information under the FVIS Scheme or the CIS Scheme.

You are not required to inform them what information you shared, with whom you shared it, or when you shared it.

Consider if it may increase risk to a victim survivor by informing the person using violence about information sharing. Conversely, you may inform them if it could increase risk to a victim survivor if you do not do so.

For example, the person using violence may assume you received the information from the victim survivor. They may retaliate and escalate their use of violence. If the person suspects this, you can tell them you received the information from another source (such as another service they are engaged with) to attempt to mitigate any escalation of risk.

Refer to the Ministerial Guidelines for more information.

Remember

Under the FVIS Scheme, you are not required to seek consent of the perpetrator or alleged perpetrator to share their risk-relevant information.

If there is a serious threat to the life, health, safety or welfare of a person (such as serious risk of family violence), under the FVIS Scheme and privacy laws, you can share information to lessen or prevent that threat without consent of any person.

Refer to Office of Victorian Information Commissioner and the FVIS Scheme Ministerial Guidelines for further information.

As outlined in Responsibilities 3 and 7:

• if ‘serious risk’ has been identified, this is considered to be an equivalent determination of ‘serious threat’ for the purposes of sharing information to lessen or prevent a serious threat under these Acts.
• the levels of risk ‘serious risk and requires immediate protection’ (of the victim survivor) or ‘serious threat and requires immediate intervention’ (of the perpetrator) are equivalent.

In Responsibilities 4 and 8, ‘immediate intervention’ with the person using violence is equivalent to ‘immediate protection’ of the victim survivor for a risk management ‘Protection Purpose’ under the FVIS Scheme.

6.6. The Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme

This section outlines key elements of the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme (FVIS Scheme).

Detailed guidance on the operation and use of the scheme is available in the Ministerial Guidelines.

Organisations and services that are prescribed under the FVIS Scheme are known as Information Sharing Entities (ISEs). ISEs are authorised to share relevant information to assess and manage family violence risk.^[3]

There is a subset of ISEs, known as Risk Assessment Entities (RAEs).

RAEs have additional responsibilities to establish whether risk of family violence is present, assess the level of risk and correctly identify the parties as the perpetrator or victim survivor through a comprehensive risk assessment.

The FVIS Scheme improves professionals’ and services’ ability to keep victim survivors safe and hold people who use violence in view and accountable for their actions and behaviours.

While consent is not necessary for sharing information about a perpetrator or alleged perpetrator, guidelines and safety measures still apply around:

• determining risk-relevant information
• storing information appropriately
• informing service users of their rights before they begin engaging with the service.

Some relevant sections of the Ministerial Guidelines are outlined below, however, you should refer to the full guidelines for further information.

6.6.1. When you can share information under the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme

There are two purposes for which ISEs can share information with other ISEs under the FVIS Scheme: a family violence assessment purpose and family violence protection purpose.

A family violence assessment purpose (to establish and assess risk)

A family violence assessment establishes whether a risk of family violence is present, assesses the level of risk the alleged or known perpetrator presents to the victim survivor/s, and correctly identifies the parties as the perpetrator or victim survivor.

If, in your role as an ISE, you identify the presence of risk due to the information available, such as through disclosure, observation or assessment,^[4] you have formed a reasonable belief in the circumstances that the person is a perpetrator.

In this situation, you can share risk-relevant information about the perpetrator without their consent to assess and manage risk.

If you have not been able to establish a person is using family violence, that is, they are an ‘alleged perpetrator’, but it is not established following use of the Identification Tool (Responsibility 2) or Intermediate Assessment Tool (Responsibility 3), you can share information with RAEs to support them in establishing whether the alleged perpetrator is in fact a perpetrator.

A significant feature of the FVIS Scheme is that, if there is uncertainty or a concern about misidentification, ISEs should consider proactively sharing information^[5] with a RAE about an alleged perpetrator and can do so without the person’s consent. The purpose of this is to seek assistance to establish whether a risk of family violence is present, assess the level of risk and correctly identify the parties as the perpetrator or victim survivor.

If the RAE can confirm the person is a predominant aggressor/perpetrator^[6], you can share information with any ISE for the purpose of risk assessment and risk management.

If both services are RAEs, they can work collaboratively to assess risk and determine the predominant aggressor/perpetrator.

RAEs may disagree on the identity of the perpetrator or the victim survivor, such as in circumstances where each party has identified themselves as a victim survivor.

In this case, RAEs must share risk-relevant information and work collaboratively to undertake comprehensive risk assessment to correctly identify the parties as victim survivor and perpetrator.

A family violence protection purpose (to manage the risk, including through ongoing risk assessment)

The family violence protection purpose means information can be shared when there is a reasonable belief that it is necessary to manage the risk of the perpetrator committing family violence, or the risk of the victim survivor being subjected to family violence.

Managing risk involves removing, reducing or preventing the escalation of risk. As risk is dynamic and can change over time, information can be shared under this purpose for ongoing risk assessment to monitor risk and escalation.

If the perpetrator and victim survivor have been identified, an ISE can request and share information with another ISE for risk management purposes.

If you work in an ISE, you are also permitted to proactively share (sometimes referred to as ‘voluntarily share’) information with another ISE without a request for a family violence protection purpose, provided that the information meets the requirements of the FVIS Scheme (that is, it is risk relevant and the information is not excluded).

When working with a person using violence, proactive sharing is a way for all services who are engaged with the person and any victim survivors to have a shared understanding of risk and safety and supports services to work collaboratively.

Sharing perpetrator information with victim survivors

ISEs are able to share information about a perpetrator without their consent in order to manage their family violence risk (refer to victim survivor–focused Responsibility 6). This includes sharing information:

• with a victim survivor
• or, where the victim survivor is a child, and where it is safe, appropriate and reasonable to do so –
  • with the child or young person, considering their age or developmental stage and/or
  • with the non-violent parent.

If you choose to share information about a perpetrator with a victim survivor to manage risk and increase safety, you must exercise caution so as not to inadvertently increase their risk.

This includes if your service:

• has an existing relationship with the victim survivor – refer to your organisational policy on information sharing and consider how to do so in a safe way
• does not have an existing relationship with the victim survivor – consult with a specialist family violence service that works with victim survivors to seek advice on how to do so safely.

As sharing information with a victim survivor about the perpetrator could inadvertently increase risk, for example in situations where the person using violence believes they are being monitored and could feel a loss of control, this must be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Practitioners with Responsibilities 2 or 3 should seek secondary consultation with specialist family violence services in determining a safe approach. Refer to Responsibility 5 for more information on secondary consultations.

Excluded information may not be shared, such as information that might prejudice the investigation of a crime or sharing information would contravene another law.

Refer to the Ministerial Guides for further information on excluded information.

6.7. Seeking information through the Central Information Point

Some services can seek consolidated information about a perpetrator or alleged perpetrator through the Central Information Point (CIP).^[6]

The CIP is a service that consolidates critical risk-relevant information about a perpetrator or alleged perpetrator of family violence into a single report for frontline workers within The Orange Door. This report assists with family violence risk assessment and management.

The consolidated information available through the CIP is provided from Victoria Police, the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria, Corrections Victoria, and the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (Child Protection).

Having comprehensive and timely information about a perpetrator’s circumstances, history and pattern of family violence behaviour allows practitioners to identify risk and implement service responses earlier.

Information from CIP reports also contributes to building an understanding of the coercive and controlling behaviours a perpetrator is using. Responses to risk can be tailored to support the perpetrator to take responsibility for their behaviour and enhance the safety of victim survivors and families.

At the time of publication, access to the CIP is available to The Orange Door Network and Risk Assessment and Management Panels (RAMPs).

Practitioners can share risk-relevant information contained within the CIP report on the same basis as other information they hold.

6.8. Consolidating risk-relevant information about risk, needs and circumstances

Services should seek information from a range of services that can support decision making about the risk, needs and circumstances of the person using violence.

Details about risk factors, needs and circumstances are risk-relevant information and can inform your understanding of the family violence risk present at a point in time.

6.8.1. Risk-relevant information

Understanding what information is ‘risk relevant’ is central to family violence risk assessment and management practice.

Information that is relevant for a family violence assessment or protection purpose can be shared under the FVIS Scheme.

Risk-relevant information will:

• be determined on a case-by-case basis, depending on the family violence behaviours (risk factors) the person is using against each adult or child victim survivor, or any risk to themselves
• be information that supports your assessment of past, current or future risk, which can include past behaviour of the person using violence that informs your understanding of patterns of coercive and controlling behaviour. Information about a victim survivor’s past behaviour is less likely to be relevant, unless it is induced by a person using violence (such as coercion to engage in criminal activity, alcohol or drug use etc.^[7] )
• include the experiences, presenting needs or circumstances of each adult or child victim survivor or person using family violence that, when addressed as part of risk management may reduce risk or minimise likelihood of change or escalation of risk (that is, are protective or stabilising factors), or where unaddressed could relate to an increased likelihood of change or escalation of risk to self and risk to others
• depend on the purpose for which you are sharing the information, such as an assessment or protection purpose (refer to Section 6.6.1 of this guide and the Ministerial Guidelines)
• depend on your role and the role of the professional/service you are seeking information from or sharing information with
• depend on what action you want to take:
  • why are you seeking the information— how will this inform your family violence risk assessment or management role? (for example, risk assessment, risk management and stabilisation of needs or circumstances related to risk)
  • what action do you want the receiving professional/service to take from you sharing the information? (for example, creating a shared understanding of risk factors present, make services aware of change/escalation of risk and enable services to update safety plans).

Risk-relevant information may be information about a perpetrator (their risk behaviour, presenting needs, circumstances or experiences) or a victim survivor (the risk they are experiencing and their circumstances) or another person.

The information should be relevant to assessing or managing family violence risk, including stabilisation and recovery.

Information is risk-relevant if it relates to any of the family violence risk factors described in detail in the Foundation Knowledge Guide, and within the guidance on risk assessment in Responsibilities 3 and 7.

Any information about a perpetrator’s family violence or other behaviour, presenting needs, circumstances or experiences that supports risk management is also risk relevant.

Risk management is defined broadly to include actions to reduce or remove the risk the person using violence presents to adult or child victim survivors, to themselves, or any identified third parties, and their stabilisation and recovery (Responsibilities 4 and 8).

Identifying information about the behaviour of the person using violence is an important first point of reference for understanding what information is risk-relevant. This includes violence used against an adult or child, the presence, pattern and presentation of risk factors, or the presenting needs or circumstances of the person using violence.

Under the FVIS Scheme, this means risk-relevant information for a person using family violence includes information that relates to presenting needs, circumstances or experiences that affect their capacity or capability to engage in any services, including behaviour change interventions, and take actions that would reduce the risk they present to others and themselves.

Visual, audio and other identifying information

Some services may hold identifying information, including photos, video and other footage of the person using violence.

This information may be risk-relevant, such as where it is needed to support services identifying if a person using violence attends an organisation’s premises, or information about their behaviour at a certain place and time.

For example, where an intervention order is in place preventing contact between a person using violence and a child victim survivor, a school (or other prescribed service) may request a photo from another service to support staff to be aware of what the perpetrator looks like.

6.8.2. Identifying risk-relevant information when working with a person using violence

Identifying risk-relevant family violence behaviours

Risk-relevant information includes information about family violence risk behaviour (risk factors).

You might identify information including, but not limited to:

• patterns of risk behaviour that have changed or escalated in frequency or severity, such as stopping verbal abuse and starting or escalating controlling behaviours
• the methods the person using violence uses to contact, monitor or stalk adult or child victim survivors in their home, place of work or places they frequent
• the methods of use of violence by proxy, including use of services, systems or third parties to undermine the victim survivor’s access to services, or to contact, monitor, harass or stalk the victim survivor on behalf of the person using violence.

Behaviours that are also related to risk (refer also to risk-relevant information about presenting needs) can include drug and alcohol use, problem gambling, behaviours related to mental illness, trauma or disorganised or chaotic management of other aspects of their lives.

Risk-relevant behaviours associated with these issues include, but are not limited to:

• the source, frequency and type of drug and alcohol use and outcomes of use (escalation in frequency or severity of violence)
• the known situations or contexts that are likely to increase the person’s use of alcohol or drugs
• the source of funds for use to gamble and/or purchase alcohol or drugs and what changes or escalates in relation to their family violence behaviours if they do not have sufficient money for these behaviours
• the behaviours or other factors contributing to mental illness, risk of self-harm or suicide.

Identifying risk behaviours (risk factors) supports your identification and analysis of patterns of behaviour (that is, coercive control) over time.

Being aware of this pattern of coercive control can support your identification of change or escalation of risk behaviours, particularly in response to interventions for adult and child victim survivors and the person using violence. This includes changes to the way the person using violence describes their interactions with adult and child victim survivors.

This, alongside information about presenting needs and circumstances over time, can enable you to identify likely escalation and plan for risk management responses with specialist family violence services.

Refer to Responsibilities 4 and 8 for more information on responding to patterns of coercive control.

Identifying risk-relevant presenting needs

The person using violence may have needs that may not present direct risk to family members, but may contribute indirectly to the risk.

For example, unstable or insecure housing, access to healthcare or services, and unstable employment or education can all destabilise a person using violence’s life. This can make it less likely for them to maintain engagement in your service, or to be ready to recognise and address the impacts of their use of family violence, including stopping violence.

Some needs may also present a direct risk to family members. For example, if a person using violence has unstable housing, there is a risk they will return to or present at the victim survivor’s house, reporting they have nowhere else to stay. This narrative may be used as a justification for seeking to return to the relationship or continue their use of violence.

It is important to remember that needs are dynamic and must be considered objectively, and on an ongoing basis.

Sharing this information with other services may be relevant to support suitable and effective interventions with the person using violence.

More information on identifying presenting needs is addressed in Responsibility 2 and 3.

Identifying risk-relevant circumstances

The circumstances and experiences of the person using violence can contribute to current and future risk to adult and child victim survivors and risk to themselves.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• changes to relationship status, including assumed/new relationships and recent separations of each person. Changes in the relationship status is linked to an increase in family violence risk, including times when an adult victim survivor is contemplating or deciding to leave^[8]
• pregnancy, new birth or a new child in the family
• pending court matters/dates
• changes to or new parenting arrangements. Risk can increase at the time of commencing negotiations for parenting arrangements, as well as during and after legal proceedings
• birthdays, school events, significant family events, community events, school events, holiday periods or sporting celebrations likely to be related to increased risk behaviour
• changes to levels of employment and dis/engagement in education
• changes to social and economic status.

Some of these circumstances may be identified through direct risk assessment discussions with a person using violence, or you may gather the information through requesting information from other services.

Refer to the Intermediate Safety Planning Conversation Model in Appendix 9 for further guidance on identifying situations or events where the person is likely to use or escalate use of violence.

Further guidance on identifying relevant information about a perpetrator’s circumstances is outlined in using ecomaps in Responsibilities 7 and 8.

Acute or dynamic risk factors can vary significantly and lead to sudden increases in the level and imminence of risk presented by a person using violence. Such risks may not come to the attention of professionals engaging with a person using violence unless it is directly related to their service. For example, a healthcare professional may not be aware that a person using violence has recently separated, or an adult child has assumed financial management of their parent’s assets.

Engaging in information sharing can help you to gain insight into the person using violence’s circumstances that are relevant to risk, enabling you to monitor risk and contribute to collaborative risk management.

If you are uncertain about what information is relevant to share, seek secondary consultation internally (within your organisation or service), or externally with a specialist family violence service.

Identifying risk-relevant narratives

The narratives you observe through your engagement with the person using violence may demonstrate a range of beliefs and attitudes.

This includes the person’s sense of entitlement, minimisation, deflection or justification of their violence, or a lack of empathy or care about the impact of their behaviours on others.

Hearing these narratives is a prompt for you to seek secondary consultation, share information with another service, and, where appropriate, make a referral.

These actions help inform both yours and the system’s understanding of the level or seriousness of risk the person presents to family members.

You can consult with a specialist perpetrator intervention service for support on what to look for as risk-relevant narratives, and refer to Identification Tool (Appendix 2) or Intermediate Assessment Tool (Appendix 3).

People using family violence do not present in the same way across all services. A person using violence may present as overly charming but insincere, or may be considered a well-liked and respected figure in their community.

These presentations can make it harder for you to identify risk.

It is vital you have the skills to listen for risk-relevant information beyond the risk assessment tools, and build knowledge of the links between narratives and risk to feel an increased capacity to respond.

6.8.3. When to share risk-relevant information about people using violence

Monitoring risk occurs throughout your engagement with a person using violence.

As risk is dynamic, it is important to be aware of the range of information sharing options, including when and with whom to share information. Regular and continuous information sharing will contribute to a coordinated understanding of the assessed level of risk of the person using violence and the safety of victim survivors across the service system.

If the level of risk associated with a person using violence changes, consider whether immediate intervention is required for the safety of family members, the person using violence, or staff in your organisation.

As you monitor changes to risk, at a minimum you should consider:

• seeking secondary consultation from a relevant service (for example a specialist perpetrator intervention service, targeted community service or a mental health service) to discuss your engagement and referral options
• seeking secondary consultation with specialist family violence services for victim survivors on whether or what information can be shared, and by which service, with family members
• voluntarily sharing information to The Orange Door or specialist family violence service that works with victim survivors to support increasing their safety
• updating risk assessment and risk management plans, in line with your MARAM responsibilities.

If changes to the person’s narratives, behaviours, needs or circumstances indicate an escalation of risk in terms of frequency and/or severity, you should consider:

• seeking secondary consultation, and/or requesting or sharing information relevant to the person using violence’s risk level, needs and circumstances to inform your risk assessment and management plan
• proactively sharing information regarding revised risk assessment and management plans to other ISEs who are also engaged with the person using violence
• making appropriate referrals for the person using violence, including to a specialist perpetrator intervention service
• proactively sharing information with specialist family violence services working with both victim survivors and people using violence.

If changes to the person’s narratives, behaviours, needs or circumstances indicate serious risk and needing immediate intervention, you should consider:

• reporting to or notifying police, Child Protection and other statutory bodies, as required
• collaborating with victim survivor services to assess eligibility for RAMP
• proactively sharing information with other ISEs who are engaged with the person using violence, and where possible with victim survivors, to enact immediate risk management strategies.

If a person using family violence disengages from your service

When working with a person using violence, you may observe that they disengage from your service through missed appointments, less frequent attendance or stopping attendance completely.

This may be for a range of reasons unrelated to their use of violence towards family members. However, the implication is that they are no longer in view of your service.

Where you have identified that the person continues to present a risk to family members, you should consider the options outlined above, according to your risk assessment and risk management responsibilities, in addition to your services requirements.

The actions you take will depend on the type of service you provide and the extent to which a person using violence needs your service over time.

For example, the seriousness of missing an appointment at a primary care health service may differ from missing an appointment with a mental health professional who provides ongoing therapeutic support to a person using violence so they can maintain stability in their life.

A missed appointment in each case may have a different meaning and consequently different implications for the risk the person using violence presents.

Similarly, where a victim survivor is a person with a disability or an older person, and they rely on family members for transport and they are not attending appointments, this can indicate increasing coercive control and violent behaviours towards the victim survivor by the person using violence.

You should consider:

• voluntarily sharing information with other authorities and services known to be engaged with the person using violence to advise of their disengagement from your service to inform your view of any change to risk. Where relevant, this should include specialist family violence services working with victim survivors and/or the person using violence, The Orange Door or other case management functions as required. For people using violence who are higher risk, this will include notifying police or other authorities
• requesting information from other services that are ISEs and engaged with the person using violence to find out if their disengagement is limited to your service or has occurred with multiple/all services – and where they are a high-risk person using violence, request notification when they reappear/re-engage
• seeking secondary consultation to inform your engagement with them if and when they do re-engage with your service
• connecting with other services involved for a coordinated risk assessment and management strategy.

6.8.4. Sharing information relating to family violence risk for a child or young person

Children should have their risk and needs individually assessed as outlined in victim survivor–focused MARAM Practice Guide for Responsibility 3.

Under the FVIS Scheme, information about any person that is relevant to assessing or managing family violence risk for a child can be shared by an ISE without the consent of that person.

However, where it is safe, appropriate and reasonable, you should seek the views of the child or young person, and non-violent parent/carer on how their information is shared.

These views should be considered when deciding what information should be shared, including what services you should voluntarily share this information with, or how information might be shared when you are obliged to share.

If you have safety concerns about how, when and with whom information is shared, including where doing so may increase risk, this should be reflected in risk management and safety plans (refer to Responsibilities 4 and 8).

If you share information despite the views of the non-violent parent/carer, you should make it clear to them this is to assess or manage risk to a child, including for safety planning.

Information relevant to promoting a child’s wellbeing or safety can also be shared under the CIS Scheme, including outside of the context of family violence.

Information can be shared under the CIS Scheme if an ISE reasonably believes that sharing the information may assist another ISE to:

• make a decision, an assessment or a plan relating to a child
• initiate or conduct an investigation relating to a child
• provide a service relating to a child
• manage any risk to a child.

Information may be sourced from:

• disclosure and/or risk assessment with a person using violence
• discussion from related third parties such as friends or family members
• Victoria Police family violence incident information (your service may receive L17 referrals)
• court records (that are not excluded)
• other records from professional or therapeutic service and relevant databases.

The range of sources of direct disclosure will vary depending on your professional role.

Other information can be requested through the schemes or other applicable authorisations.

If you are uncertain about what information is relevant to share, seek secondary consultation internally (within your organisation or service), or externally with a specialist family violence service. If you are concerned or unsure whether information is relevant, you can share information with a specialist family violence service through secondary consultation in a de-identified way.

6.8.5. Sharing information relating to a person using violence who is a parent or has a parenting or caring responsibilities

If working with a person using violence who is a parent or has parenting or caring responsibilities, consider proactively sharing information with professionals working with the child or young person to enable coordinated responses to risk and needs of children.

Sharing information between local Child Protection, Child FIRST services and specialist perpetrator intervention services will support coordinated responses for case planning, and ensure perpetrator interventions are informed by the safety and wellbeing of children and young people.

If you have ongoing engagement with a person using violence who is a parent, you should proactively seek information about the adult victim survivor’s and child and/or young person’s views about continuing a relationship with the person using violence.

This information will contribute to your assessment as to whether it is safe, appropriate and reasonable to work with the parenting motivations of the person using violence. Refer to Responsibility 4 for more guidance on determining if parenting motivation is an appropriate engagement approach to support risk management.

Remember, it is critical that this practice is informed by and supports the views and safety of adult and child victim survivors.

6.8.6. Method of information sharing

The FVIS and CIS Schemes do not dictate that information has to be shared in a specific way.

It is common for information to be shared with another professional by a range of methods, including verbally (face-to-face), email and phone.

This may depend on the policies of your organisation or the urgency of the request or sharing, and on whether there is an existing professional relationship, or this is the first time you have contacted a service or professional.

When the information sharing request is time critical, you can phone a professional or service in the first instance.

You could then then choose to follow up by making the request or sharing the information in writing to enable you to document the request of sharing of information as part of your organisation's good record-keeping processes.

When sharing and storing information, organisations should follow their obligations for data security under privacy law, if applicable.

You should refer to your organisational policies on information sharing methods to guide you, including your authorisation to share under applicable information sharing laws and how to keep records of any information shared.

If you are uncertain, prior to sharing information, confirm by following your internal processes, such as consulting with a senior practitioner or team leader, or by secondary consultation, to determine if the information you are sharing is relevant to the purpose (for an assessment or protection purpose for the FVIS Scheme, or to promote the wellbeing of a child under the CIS Scheme).

This will assist in the request process if the responding ISE raises questions about the relevance of information requested.

6.8.7. Collecting, recording and correcting information

You should refer to your organisation’s policies and procedures on record keeping in relation to information sharing.

The FVIS Scheme and the CIS Scheme have specific record-keeping requirements that are aligned.

Chapter 10 of the Ministerial Guidelines provide advice on what is required.

Chapter 5 of the Child Information Sharing Scheme Guidelines also include information on record keeping and information management.

As specified in the Ministerial Guidelines, ISEs should take reasonable steps to correct information recorded or shared about any person if an ISE becomes aware that the information is incorrect. This applies if the information is about a victim, perpetrator or third party.

Professionals should refer to their organisation’s policies and procedures to assist with correcting information.

Inaccurate information should be corrected as soon as possible after you become aware the information is inaccurate and you should give prominence to any correction on the client’s file.

This is particularly important if the information may put a victim survivor at risk, or a victim survivor has been or may be misidentified as the person using violence a perpetrator.

6.9. Next steps

Information sharing can continue to inform your actions for risk assessment and practice, depending on your role, under Responsibilities 3 to 4 or 7 to 8.

In some situations, it may be necessary to convene a coordinated response to family violence risk, or safety and wellbeing for children.

If this is the case, refer to Responsibility 9 for further information.

Ongoing risk assessment and management is also a part of practice. You should regularly review the appropriateness of referrals and follow up with services on the success of the referral and how you can continue sharing information to inform your risk assessment or management approaches. For more information about ongoing risk management practice, refer to Responsibility 10.

6.9.1. Document in your organisation’s record management system

In addition to Section 6.8.7, it is important to document the following information in your service or organisation’s record management system:

• copy of any risk assessment, risk management or safety plan you share with other services
• under what permission you requested or shared information, for example, Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme, Mandatory Reporting, other privacy law
• the organisation or service contacted for secondary consultation and whom you spoke to
• method of request (email, fax, telephone)
• the information requested and the date of request
• whether and what information was shared, the date, and whom the information was shared with
• actions taken to correct your records where misidentification previously occurred and steps to proactively share information about the predominant aggressor with other organisations
• if a referral was made — to whom and the purpose
• whether the person using violence was made aware of the secondary consultation, information sharing or referral
• outcomes of secondary consultation and referral.

At all times, you must also take care to ensure that disclosure of documentation pertaining to the person using violence or victim survivor does not increase the risk to a victim survivor.

Information about freedom of information requests and information sharing under the FVIS Scheme can be found in the Ministerial Guidelines.

Footnotes

^[1] For a list of service types, refer to Section 7 of the Foundation Knowledge Guide.

^[2] Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005, Part 6A.

^[3] Part 5A of the Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (the Act). This information sharing scheme was introduced pursuant to recommendation 5 of the Royal Commission into Family Violence, which acknowledged that organisations that work with victims and perpetrators of family violence collect a wide variety of information in order to keep victims safe and hold perpetrators to account. The Commission also identified barriers that prevent information from being shared as effectively as it could be and found that the failure to share crucial information with frontline workers can have catastrophic consequences.

^[4] Chapter 3 of the FVISS Ministerial Guidelines provide information on forming a reasonable belief.

^[5] The FVIS Scheme authorises ISEs to share with a RAE for this purpose. This is not a requirement under the legislation, it is best practice that is promoted when working with people using family violence.

^[6] This may be a RAE working with either a victim survivor or person suspected of using family violence. They may use any level of assessment, as appropriate in the circumstances. It is the level of skill of professionals that work in RAEs that support them in applying Structured Professional Judgement and determining if risk is present and the identities of the parties.

^[7] Refer to the Central Information Point website for more information.

^[8] This is risk-relevant information only to the extent that it demonstrates the impact of coercive controlling behaviours of the perpetrator on the victim survivor. It should not be used as risk-relevant information for the purpose of decision making that may further negatively impact the victim survivor.

^[9] Even if this has not yet been communicated to the person using violence.

^[10] Family Violence Information Sharing Guidelines, p. 115.

^[11] Ibid., p. 112.

Download and print the PDF or read the accessible version:

9.1. Overview

This guide supports you to understand the role of coordinated risk management, and its linkages to ongoing collaborative risk assessment and management (covered under Responsibility 10) as an integral part of family violence responses.

It will support you to identify the processes required for effective multi-agency collaboration and risk management, and contributions specific to professionals working directly with perpetrators.

Multi-agency collaboration supports a shared and consistent understanding of family violence risk and enables proactive and timely interventions.

Collaboration should include keeping the pattern of behaviour and whereabouts of the person using violence in view and actively monitoring the risks they present.

Professionals may have direct interaction with a person using violence or may have access to information about them.

Information sharing (Responsibilities 5 and 6) is central to proactive monitoring, risk management and collaborative responses to family violence.

Key capabilities

All professionals should have knowledge of Responsibilities 9 and 10, and be able to:

• contribute to coordinated risk management as part of a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency approach. This includes proactively requesting and sharing relevant information to facilitate coordinated risk management (refer also to Responsibility 6)
• have an ongoing role in collaboratively monitoring, assessing and managing risk over time including identifying any changes in the assessed level of risk. This includes ensuring the Risk Management and Safety Plan for the person using violence responds to escalation of risk and changed circumstances
• participate in joint action planning, coordination of responses and collaborative action including enacting and monitoring the Risk Management and Safety Plan of the person using violence. This includes proactive engagement with the person using violence across organisations and practitioners in order to work towards sustained risk reduction over time.

Where engaged, specialist perpetrator practitioners will work together with specialist victim survivor practitioners to provide leadership of coordinated risk management, monitoring of risk and collaborative action planning.

A specialist perpetrator practitioner may be located within a Men’s Behaviour Change Program, perpetrator case management response, Caring Dads, The Orange Door or other enhanced intake service, or any other specialist perpetrator intervention service, including targeted community services.

Non-specialist family violence practitioners and organisations who work directly with people using violence will work collaboratively with others to contribute to coordinated processes, decision making, and actions to address risk.

9.2. Coordinated risk management and ongoing risk assessment in Structured Professional Judgement

You should continue to use Structured Professional Judgement to inform your approach to determining seriousness of risk, including through coordinated and collaborative management and ongoing risk assessment.

Each element of Structured Professional Judgement can be considered collaboratively with other professionals who contribute their knowledge and expertise to the assessment process.

This includes secondary consultation and sharing information (when authorised to do so) under the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme, the Child Information Sharing Scheme or other legislation.

Responsibility 6 has guidance about sharing information with other services or professionals, including consent thresholds when sharing information about the person using violence or the victim survivor and guidance on risk-relevant information.

Identify key professionals and services you may seek to engage in coordinated and collaborative risk assessment and management through consideration of the protective factors and circumstances of the person using violence. Consider using the genogram or ecomap exercises outlined in Responsibilities 7 and 8 to assist in this process.

You should monitor subtle and overt changes to the person’s presentation, including their narratives and behaviours, and presenting needs and changing circumstances.

This information assists you to monitor dynamic risks, and identify opportunities to increase readiness and motivation of the person using violence to engage in supports, including to address needs or circumstances requiring stabilisation and stop their use of family violence.

You should consider the person’s experience of services and barriers, both perceived and real, when communicating potential referral options. Consider what the person using violence has discussed with you about any past or recent experiences of structural inequality, barriers or discrimination. This information should inform the approach and/or options you choose and the professionals or services you seek to engage with.

To respond to the dynamic nature of family violence, risk assessment should be integrated into the ongoing risk management processes, including in coordinated processes.

This is particularly relevant when considering guidance in Responsibility 10.

Regularly check in with the person, and proactively seek and share information (as authorised) with organisations involved in risk assessment and management, such as specialist family violence services, the police, Corrections, and community-based organisations.

9.2.1. Contributing to accountable systems through your contact with a perpetrator

Reflect on information about perpetrator accountability in Sections 5.4 and 6.1 in the Foundation Knowledge Guide.

In many situations, it is inappropriate and unsafe to tell the person using violence that you are involved with collaborative and coordinated risk assessment and management processes.

The person may:

• interpret this information as ‘evidence’ that the ‘system is against’ them, and use it as justification to mistrust or disengage from services, and reinforce their victim-stance positioning
• blame the service provider or victim survivor for calling attention to them and their behaviour
• disengage from services
• increase methods of coercive control over the victim survivor, increasing risk and isolation.

However, there may be times where it will be appropriate to inform the person using violence that you work within a collaborative and coordinated service system response, where information is shared between yourself and other professionals and organisations who are providing interventions or support.

Appropriate circumstances include where coordination is obvious to the person using violence as a result of known referrals or joint support provided by you and other professionals/organisations.

Depending on your responsibility, depth of engagement and professional role in responding to or addressing the person’s use of family violence, it may also be appropriate to inform them of your assessment of risk and actions you are required to take to address the safety of their family members and reinforce accountability mechanisms.

This can include:

• advising you will be reporting to Child Protection or referral to Child FIRST
• contacting police to notify of breaches
• contacting the Magistrates’ Court or Community Corrections to notify of compliance issues.

9.2.2. Working directly with a person using violence about their risk, needs and circumstances

If you are working directly with a person using violence, you may need to review a Safety Plan that you put in place to ensure consistency with an overarching Risk Management Plan separately developed in coordination with other professionals and services.

When making a Safety Plan with the person using violence, you will identify situations where risk is likely to change or escalate, including about change in presenting needs and circumstances. You can share this information with other professionals involved with the person using violence.

In limited circumstances, it may be safe and appropriate to inform the person using violence of risk management actions, including of coordinated and collaborative processes, consider:

• the level of personal accountability demonstrated by the person
• the level of active engagement with a behaviour change process
• strengths or protective factors supporting the person’s engagement with services and stabilisation of needs
• overall level of risk they present to victim survivors, themselves and professionals
• whether informing the person using violence may lessen or prevent risk to a victim survivor.

9.3. What is coordinated risk management?

Coordinated risk management is when multiple professionals and organisations act together to assess risk and plan and enact strategies to mitigate the risk the person using violence presents to victim survivors (adults, children and young people) as well as the risk they present to themselves.

This includes maintaining visibility and a shared understanding of the person using violence’s behaviours, tactics and whereabouts, in particular identifying and addressing dynamic risk factors and identifying and monitoring patterns of coercive control.

Risk assessment should be undertaken as part of any coordinated risk management approach. This involves collating and analysing information from various services or sources.

Each coordination meeting should include sharing relevant information to assess the level of risk.

This includes:

• information about the assessed level of risk of the person using violence
• any specific threats or issues
• emerging or changed patterns of coercive and controlling behaviour
• changes to the person using violence’s needs or circumstances
• change in risk to themselves
• change in description of the impact to victim survivors’ safety, wellbeing and functioning.

The outcome of the risk assessment will inform the risk management strategies that are developed and actioned.

Professionals involved will have a specific risk management role and actions to take.

Depending on your role, this may range from information sharing only, to specific targeted actions to support a victim survivor’s safety and/or providing a service or intervention with the person using violence.

The table below describes four key risk management components that are part of a coordinated response.^[1]

Table 1: Key risk management components in a coordinated response

Approaches to collaboration and coordination will vary depending on the circumstances and risk of each case.

You may use formalised networks and agreements between organisations as a starting point for facilitating one-off meetings to conduct joint risk assessment or management, regular case conferences, or ongoing coordination panels to assess and manage serious risk cases.

Across all approaches, specialist family violence services working with the victim survivor or person using violence should provide leadership to other non-specialist professionals and services.

This includes advice on the required intensity of collaboration and coordination activities based on risk, facilitation of multi-agency assessment processes and leading the development of risk management actions to allocate across services.

9.4. Contributing to collaborative risk management

Key services can be identified in the process of developing an ecomap to identify the needs and circumstances of a person using violence and through sharing information with specialist family violence services for victim survivors and people using violence. Further information is outlined in Section 9.2 above.

In collaborative approaches^[2] to risk management, professionals and services agree to:

• work together for the common goal of victim survivor safety
• use open and frequent communication, including information sharing and secondary consultation
• approach partnerships across the system with good will and some level of mutual understanding.

Collaborative approaches are useful to support the ongoing engagement of people using violence with the broader system and encourage referrals to specialist perpetrator intervention services.

As coordinated approaches^[3] are structured and planned forms of risk management, it requires professionals and services agreeing to:

• a central plan for sequencing activities between the separate professionals and services
• draw together resources to minimise duplication. Clearly allocating tasks across professionals assists to reduce the likelihood ‘doubling up’ or working at cross purposes
• a shared understanding of set actions or plans
• the appointment of a lead practitioner (case manager) to coordinate efforts and maintain a register of alerts for increasing risk, bringing individuals together to update strategies as actions are implemented successfully or fail
• the sharing and collective analysis of risk-relevant information for ongoing risk assessment
• regular reports on progress against risk management strategies and actions.

Specialist victim survivor and perpetrator practitioners have a lead role in collaborative and coordinated risk management approaches.

These practitioners routinely orchestrate ongoing clear communications between professionals or services providing support to the victim survivor, and to the person using violence.

This may include establishing communication protocols to facilitate information sharing and timely notification of changes in risk.

It is critical that services working directly with a person using violence are aware of their capacity for action and their responsibilities for contributing to coordinated risk management.

Each professional or service should ensure they are authorised before sharing relevant information about victim survivors and perpetrators for risk management (protection) purposes (Responsibility 6).

You should review your organisation’s policies to ensure you have authorisation to contribute to coordinated risk management, and that your actions can be resourced appropriately.

Table 2: Approach to coordinated risk management when working with or targeting the person using violence

9.4.1. Document in your organisation’s record management system

It is important that you document the following information in your service or organisation’s record management system:

• services involved in the collaboration of risk management and safety planning, including specialist victim survivor or perpetrator intervention services
• actions required of each professional or service
• additional or new information surfacing from collaboration
• when case coordination meetings are held
• the responsibility of ongoing risk assessment
• whether the person using violence has been informed of risk management activities
• whether the victim survivor/s are engaged in or have been informed of risk management activities.

9.5. Coordination of risk management

9.5.1. Case coordination

Specialist family violence practitioners who work with people using violence have a role in leading and conducting case coordination.

Case coordination may include meetings to review risk develop and coordinate risk management actions. In other instances, specialist perpetrator practitioners may participate in case coordination led by other professionals or services.

These processes are important for building trust, clarifying roles and responsibilities, developing mutual understanding and knowledge of effective risk management strategies, developing creative action plans, and strengthening mutual accountability.

Case coordination draws on the collective wisdom of multiple professionals and services.

It can include opinions and professional judgement, in addition to information which is shared between professionals and services.

This collaborative process increases knowledge about the whereabouts and level of risk presented by the person using violence, facilitates more creative risk management strategies, and responds to changes in the level of risk.

Case coordination can provide opportunities for a person using violence to get a service they need from another organisation or part of your own agency.

Coordinating services, responses and referrals is an active process and, where relevant to the intervention, the person must be willing to engage with the other service.

Case coordination means working with other professionals to ensure a shared understanding of the risks, needs and circumstances of the person using violence, and assessment of whether these are being met or addressed.

Professionals taking part in a multi-agency coordinated approach to risk management should:^[4]

• contribute knowledge, expertise and actions to jointly develop a Risk Management Plan for the person using violence
• try to reach consensus in decision making about risk and management responses
• enable proactive outreach and risk management directed towards the person using violence’s behaviours. For example, professionals and services should have a plan to reduce or remove risk and for specialist perpetrator practitioners to engage with the person about their violent, coercive and controlling behaviour, while keeping them connected and in view of systems
• assign service or professional responsibility for working directly with victim survivors on risk and safety, as well as other needs that may strengthen protective factors
• focus on reducing the likelihood and severity of further violence and interrupting patterns of behaviour by providing interventions and support directly to the person using violence
• ensure that meeting minutes are taken of case conferences and that safety plans are documented
• record all follow-up actions such as timeframes, responsibility for tasks, monitoring and reviewing case, risk management and safety plans and give a copy to coordination team members, as relevant.

9.5.2. Risk Assessment and Management Panels (RAMP)

The Risk Assessment and Management Panel (RAMP) program is a multi-agency coordinated response to family violence that increases the collective capacity and effectiveness of the service system to identify and respond to people using violence, and to hold them responsible and accountable for their violence and abuse.

RAMP is a victim survivor and child-centred approach that focuses on ensuring that the person using violence is held solely responsible and accountable for their abusive and violent behaviour.

RAMP is a key initiative to improve responses of serious threats to victim survivors of family violence.

The primary aims of the RAMP program are to:

• increase the safety of victim survivors of family violence who are experiencing a serious threat
• reduce serious threat of people who use violence and increase their accountability
• increase agency accountability and strengthen the capacity of the service system to achieve the above two aims.

A RAMP is a formally convened meeting, held at a local area level, of key agencies and organisations that contribute to the safety of victim survivors (usually women) experiencing serious threat from family violence and where the normal service cannot mitigate the risk from the person using violence.

RAMPs provide a common approach for cases assessed as at highest risk and are convened regularly to:

• share relevant information about the risk presented by the person using violence in order to undertake comprehensive risk assessments that identify the impact of family violence on a victim survivor, including children, as well as behaviours and attitudes of the person using violence that contribute to serious risk, and likelihood to re-offend
• develop coordinated action plans across participating agencies to lessen or prevent serious threat/serious risk caused by the person using violence to a victim survivor’s life, health, safety or welfare.

9.5.3. RAMP structure

There are 18 RAMPs operating across Victoria.

The RAMP structure includes two chairs, a coordinator, core members and associate members.

Each RAMP is jointly chaired by a senior staff member of Victoria Police and a senior manager from a specialist victim survivor family violence service.

RAMP members are essential to the effective operation of the RAMP and are required to attend all meetings.

Core members of RAMPs include one representative from each of the following:

• Victoria Police (co-chair plus a senior police member form Family Violence Investigation Unit)
• specialist family violence service (for victim survivors – coordinator, co-chair plus a representative senior family violence practitioner)
• specialist family violence services (for people using violence – enhanced intake, case management or Men’s Behaviour Change Program)
• Local Area Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, and Child Protection
• Local Area Department of Families, Fairness and Housing
• Child FIRST/Family Support Agency/The Orange Door (Support and Safety Hub)
• mental health
• drug and alcohol services
• community corrections.

In addition, an associate member can be invited to attend RAMP for a specific case. For example, Centrelink or a school principal.

Special associate member status is given to all Aboriginal community-controlled organisations (ACCOs) to ensure that RAMP employs a culturally safe and appropriate decision-making process for all cases involving people that identify as Aboriginal.

Victim survivors and people using violence do not attend RAMP meetings, as this has the potential to compromise the victim survivor’s safety.

Individual cases are presented at RAMPs by an advocate, generally a case worker representing the interests of the victim survivor and their children under threat.

This person may be the victim survivor’s case manager (for example, from a family violence service or a mental health service) or a representative of the referring organisation (for example, Victoria Police).

Where the adult or child victim survivor identifies as being Aboriginal or from a diverse cultural background, consideration must be given for attendance by an agency or organisation that is able to represent their cultural needs.

The role of the specialist perpetrator intervention service representative is to support professionals to pivot their thinking about risk and focus on developing a shared understanding of the pattern of behaviours and dynamic risk factors of the person using violence.

While many people who present the level of risk requiring a referral to RAMP are unlikely to engage in a change intervention, specialist perpetrator intervention services can lead case coordination efforts to design and implement a range of strategies to intervene and reduce immediate risk.

The role of non-specialist services working directly with the person using violence is to contribute risk-relevant information to aid in the assessment and decision-making process.

Non-specialist services have a unique and important role within the system. As non-specialist services’ involvement with the perpetrator as service user is not precipitated by a disclosure of family violence, these agencies are well positioned to assist with visibility and monitoring (keeping in view).

9.5.4. How to make a referral to a RAMP

Cases referred to a RAMP must involve an adult or child victim survivor of family violence experiencing a serious threat / serious risk of being killed or seriously injury.

A person using violence can only be referred to a RAMP in the context of a ‘case’, where there is a serious threat/risk to a victim survivor of family violence.

It is important to remember that:

• referral to a RAMP is not a first or sole response to serious threat
• any agency, organisation or professional who identifies an adult and children at immediate risk of serious threat of harm from family violence should immediately notify Victoria Police and contact the local specialist family violence service based on the victim survivor’s current place of residence
• a RAMP referral does not substitute any agency’s usual functions or responsibilities
• information sharing of relevant information may also occur prior to a RAMP to assess or manage serious threat. A RAMP referral is made when it is considered that the development of a coordinated multi-agency plan is required, in addition to the ‘normal’ service system response a victim survivor requires to reduce or remove the threat caused by the person using violence and to support monitoring to keep them in view.

Typically, the three major referrers to RAMP are:

• victim survivor specialist family violence services
• The Orange Door
• Victoria Police.

Cases are identified as serious risk via a MARAM-based assessment and the Victoria Police Family Violence Report (L17), respectively. The MARAM assessment may be a victim survivor or perpetrator-focused assessment tool.

However, any practitioner working with a service user (whether victim survivor, person using violence, or person using violence who identifies as a victim survivor) at serious risk from a serious threat of being killed or seriously injured can contact their local specialist family violence service to provide information to support a RAMP referral.

Footnotes

^[1] Adapted from Albuquerque M, Basinskaite D, Martins MM, Mira R, Pautasso E, Polzin I, … Wiemann S 2013, European manual for risk assessment, E-Maria Partnership, Göttingen, Germany.

^[2] Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse 2010, Understanding domestic violence and integration in the NSW context: a literature review for NSW Department of Community Services, <http://www.adfvc.unsw.edu.au/PDF%20files/Integration_lit_review_J078249…;, accessed 13 March 2015.

^[3] Ibid.

[4] Adapted from Ministry of Justice 2017, Family Violence Risk Assessment and Management Framework, New Zealand Government, p. 41.

Download and print the PDF or read the accessible version:

10.1 Overview

Due to the dynamic nature of family violence, family violence risk assessment and management is a continuous process. The aim of professionals, services and organisations working together is to understand family violence risk and undertake joint risk management strategies.

The safety of victim survivors (adults, children and young people), safety of the person using violence (risk to themselves) and monitoring (keeping in view) and accountability of people using violence is the primary aim of family violence multi-agency collaborative practices.

Key capabilities

All professionals should have knowledge of Responsibility 10, and should be able to:

work collaboratively with other professionals and services to ongoing monitoring, assessment and management of risk over time to identify changes in patterns of coercive controlling behaviour and assessed level of risk and ensure risk management and safety plans are responsive to changed circumstances, including escalation.

Good practice in multi-agency responses involves:^[1]

• a focus on victim survivor safety and perpetrator accountability
• inclusion of all family violence–related services at all levels (service delivery, policy, problem solving)
• shared missions, aims, values, and approaches to family violence and protocols
• a collaborative approach to policy development and memorandums of understanding
• willingness to change organisational practice to meet the aims of the response and develop operating procedures to achieve this
• practices and protocols that ensure cultural safety and inclusivity to address access and equity issues
• information sharing (proactive and in response to requests)
• adequately trained and professional staff
• senior-level commitment and coordination
• workable governance structure, with coordination, steering, troubleshooting and monitoring functions
• transparency, particularly in regard to outcomes, including criminal justice system outcomes, and evaluation processes
• commitment to continual self-auditing, enabled through data collection and monitoring processes
• regular and frequent coordinated case management meetings
• identification of service gaps (such as children’s counselling) and development of new services and other strategies to address them.

Responsibility for monitoring, assessing and managing risk, and tailoring intervention responses to directly target and address the assessed level of risk of the person using violence, must be held across the service system.

This shared responsibility allows for all services and professionals to have a consistent understanding of family violence. It ensures the person using violence receives consistent and reinforcing messaging about responsibility and accountability.^[2]

Ongoing risk assessment and management includes collaborating to develop, monitor and action safety plans and risk management plans to ensure consistency between responses for victim survivors and people using violence.

Ongoing collaborative practice can include formal (such as justice and statutory responses) and informal (such as health and social services engaging with the perpetrator) system accountability mechanisms that work together to support people who use violence to take personal responsibility for their actions, and work at the behaviour change process.

10.2 System-level collaboration and development

Collaboration at an individual professional level must be supported by organisations’ policies and procedures, including agreements for working in collaborative, multi-agency processes.

Professionals and services should understand their role in responding to family violence and how their service/organisation participates in and contributes to a broader network of services responding to family violence.

Services and organisations have a responsibility to work jointly to address family violence risk and undertake family violence risk assessment, risk management, planning and review.

Services should have the following:^[3]

• established strategies for working collaboratively with key partners within their local area to increase opportunities for engagement of perpetrators and improve outcomes for victim survivors
• strong links with local youth services, multicultural services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services, services that specialise in working with people with disability, as well as LGBTIQ specialist services
• formal partnerships built on a mutual understanding of roles and responsibilities and the shared goal of increased safety of victim survivors and families through working directly with perpetrators
• established mechanisms that delineate referral processes and pathways
• services regularly meet to discuss how to best engage and support people using violence and appropriately share information, including with services supporting victim survivors, to enable comprehensive risk assessment and consideration of matters relating to changing narratives, patterns of behaviour, and any needs or circumstances that contribute to the risk of the person using violence to victim survivors and/or themselves
• regular participation in interagency and network meetings and are part of community networks and partnerships.

Further information on organisational responsibilities can be found in the Organisational Embedding Guidance and Resources.

Having a range of professionals working collaboratively allows for interpretation and discussion. More informed decisions can then be made on appropriate family violence risk assessment and management responses.

Multi-agency collaboration is the key to building a collaborative and coordinated community response to family violence.

The functions of multi-agency collaboration include:^[4]

• improving communication between individuals and organisations
• improving each participant’s understanding of family violence by exposing them to a variety of perspectives
• improving joint decision making on risk management strategies and individual cases based on more complete information
• facilitating consistent and philosophically coherent policy development across services
• improving the accountability of each network participant to victim survivors, including where the organisation or professional is working directly with the person using violence
• facilitating evaluation of the collective response
• facilitating broader cultural change, as well as targeted culture change for services or systems new to their role in responding to family violence risk.^[5]

Multi-agency collaboration supports all points of the service system (across services and sectors) to take responsibility for addressing family violence.

Each agency’s actions and responses should be accountable to the lived experiences of victim survivors and reinforce consistent messaging that family violence is not tolerated or accepted in any way.

This includes through direct engagement and intervention with the person using violence, using formal accountability mechanisms (including policing, justice responses and statutory interventions), as well as social and health supports and interventions.

Although non-justice and statutory systems have no authority to impose consequences for the behaviour of the person using violence, they can provide informal sources of accountability, serving to reinforce the expectation that the person will take personal responsibility for their actions.

10.3 The role of specialist family violence services

Specialist victim survivor family violence services lead family violence system development.

Their role includes strengthening the identification of family violence, referral pathways from multiple organisations and workforces, bringing professionals and services together, and promoting a shared understanding and commitment to family violence risk assessment and management.

Specialist victim survivor family violence services may also:

• identify gaps and barriers in the family violence service system
• support professionals and services to analyse their response to family violence from the perspective of ensuring victim survivor safety
• support services and organisations to make changes to practice or policy to align with the MARAM Framework.

Specialist perpetrator intervention services play a key role in family violence system development and work alongside victim survivor services to:

• identify and address family violence risk
• establish referral pathways and networks
• promote a shared understanding of perpetrator patterns of behaviour, beliefs and attitudes (narratives), and compounding needs and circumstances that contribute to dynamic risk.

Specialist perpetrator intervention services may also:

• support professionals and services to analyse their practice and response to people using violence through the lens of victim survivor safety and freedom
• support services and organisations to make changes to practice or policy to align with safe risk assessment practice responses to people using violence
• identify opportunities to strengthen accountability through naming system gaps and barriers and building coordinated networks
• identify change or escalation of family violence risk, monitor and lead coordination on risk management interventions with specialist victim survivor services.

Footnotes

^[1] Adapted from Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse 2008, ‘Multi-agency responses to domestic violence — from good ideas to good practice’, Newsletter, no. 33, p. 4.

^[2] Centre for Innovative Justice 2018, Bringing pathways towards accountability together: perpetrator experiences and system roles and responsibilities, p. 55.

[3] Adapted from Government of New South Wales, Good Practice Guidelines for the Domestic and Family Violence Sector in NSW.

[4] Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Centre Victoria 2004, Developing Integrated Responses to Family Violence in Victoria — Issues and Directions, p. 24.

^[5] This supports consistent and collaborative practice in multi-agency environments, and is in line with the MARAM Framework, Pillar 2.