A whole-of-person approach creates a system that understands and adapts to what people need.
Victim survivors need services to be flexible, specialised and wrap around their daily life.
Interventions for people who use violence are most effective when they are tailored to the person’s characteristics and circumstances.
We also need to recognise that a person’s identity and life experiences can shape their beliefs and attitudes about family and sexual violence.
Support for victim survivors will always be at the centre of our work
We will help victim survivors of family and sexual violence:
- connect with specialist support
- have more confidence in the criminal justice system.
This includes trialling Justice Navigators in a new and more coordinated way. This should help survivors of sexual assault who connect with the justice system get the advice and support they need.
We are building a system that can respond to the needs of diverse communities, through targeted services and programs for:
- women from multicultural migrant and refugee communities
- LGBTIQA+ victim survivors
- victim survivors with disability
- women and gender diverse people who have been in prison.
The justice system should enable victim survivors to access support, consider and act on their reporting options, secure a justice outcome (if that’s what they want) and recover.
– Sexual Assault Services Victoria
Addressing the specific needs of children and young people
Since the Royal Commission, we have been improving the family violence system to be more child and youth centred. There are now therapeutic supports and refuges that have been designed for the needs of children and young people as victim survivors.
We are better at recognising that each person’s risks and needs can be different, even among siblings. For example, The Orange Door conducts risk assessments for each child in a family affected by family violence.
The service system must recognise young people as victim-survivors and help-seekers in their own right…
– Centre for Innovative Justice, Melbourne City Mission, Youth Affairs Council Victoria and Berry Street Y-Change
This work has led to change in organisations that interact with children and young people, including:
- police
- schools
- maternal health nurses
- specialist family violence services.
These organisations have had to shift their thinking and practice to make sure children and young people are recognised as victims in their own right.
Children and young people are being positioned as being ‘agents of generational change’ – but the burden of breaking the cycle of family violence cannot solely rest on our shoulders. We need access to age-appropriate, youth specific supports that don’t leave us to bear the brunt of expensive, often out of reach healing and recovery supports.
–Conor Pall, Deputy Chair, Victim Survivor’s Advisory Council
Children and young people continue to describe feeling disempowered and ignored by a family violence system that has not always seen them as victims in their own right.
We need a system that consistently wraps support around children and young people, no matter their age, stage or development. We want children and young people to have agency in decisions about risk, safety planning, healing and recovery.
Children are not a homogeneous group, and their individual circumstances need to be considered when assisting their recovery from family violence.
– Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare
Over the next 3 years, we will make sure the needs of children and young people are recognised and prioritised. We will do this both in our efforts to prevent violence and in our response to it.
We are developing new MARAM practice guidance and tools specifically for identifying and managing family violence safety risks to children and young people. This will help over 6,000 organisations and 400,000 professionals across Victoria (including Victoria Police) to be consistent and coordinated in addressing the needs of children and young people who are victim survivors. This guidance will also enable coordinated responses to young people who use violence.
We will continue to innovate and improve the counselling and therapy available for children and young people to support their recovery from family and sexual violence. This will help them not only rebuild their lives but thrive.
We will refine and embed the approach to children and young people who use violence in the home or display harmful sexual behaviours. We will invest in developmentally-appropriate and therapeutic services to help children and young people get the supports they need.
We will also expand and improve responses to peer-to-peer sexual harm in schools, including harm that occurs online.
Supporting children, young people and their families
In 2023, the Victorian Government announced the establishment of a new Children’s portfolio to improve equity, access and outcomes for Victorian children and families. It puts the needs of the child at the centre of a better-connected system.
The Children’s portfolio brings together important system touchpoints that were spread across different departments and policy areas, including:
- maternal and child health
- early childhood education
- statutory and non-statutory children and family services
- supports for children and young people leaving care services.
This builds on Victoria’s work under Roadmap for reform: Strong families, safe children to shift the children and family services system’s focus from crisis response to prevention and early intervention.
There is also work in progress to expand the Aboriginal-led child and family service system. Wungurilwil Gapgapduir: Aboriginal children and families agreement (‘strong families’ in Latji Latji) is an agreement between:
- the Aboriginal community
- the Victorian Government
- community service organisations.
Wungurilwil Gapgapduir sets out a strategic direction to reduce the number of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care by building their connection to culture, Country and community.
Trauma-capable services for people who use violence
We will work with people who use violence in ways that address the specific factors contributing to their behaviour. This includes:
- challenging harmful beliefs and attitudes towards women
- addressing past trauma
- providing support when there is drug and alcohol dependence or gambling
- making sure there are enough workers with the right skills and capabilities to do this complex work.
We also need to explore new and different ways of blocking pathways to violence. This includes intervening early to support children and young people who have experienced or witnessed violence. This will help them recover and reduce the risk of violence becoming normalised for them.
…early intervention with children and young people entering the system will promote healing and behaviour change.
– Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre
We are investing in programs for adults who use violence, including specialist programs for:
- fathers
- people from multicultural communities
- people with disability
- Aboriginal people through Aboriginal-led men’s programs.
These programs can help to break or prevent generational cycles of violence.
To end family violence in a generation we must advance research and practice simultaneously, including exploring innovative approaches to working with men.
– No to Violence
By conducting a thorough research study into perpetrators, we will better understand their behaviours and motivations. This will inform our programs for people who use violence and make sure that:
- positive changes to their behaviour continue
- their family members stay safe.
Our actions
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