Focus area 4: Whole-of-system approach

A whole-of-system approach looks at the overarching factors that can work together to prevent and respond to family and sexual violence.

This approach recognises how these factors are linked, including:

• laws
• policies and processes
• services
• organisations
• people
• technologies.

It highlights how interconnected and reinforcing actions at every level are vital for ending family and sexual violence.

For example:

• A teacher is trained to recognise the risks and signs of family violence.
• This means the school can intervene early and refer the family to The Orange Door.
• The Orange Door can connect the family to specialist services before violence happens or escalates.

Early intervention may prevent violence and lead to fewer statutory responses being needed.

We must make sure the system works consistently for the benefit of victim survivors and is not exploited by people who use violence.

Ensuring the system is informed by lived experience

For many years, we have benefited from the expertise of lived experience advocates and committees, including VSAC. Many services have also set up their own lived experience groups to inform their work.

This plan includes several initiatives designed to increase the influence of victim survivors in our work, including:

• championing the role of VSAC across all areas of government
• making sure the newly-established Senior Victorians Advisory Committee’s work program includes a focus on elder abuse.

We will amplify and better connect different lived experience forums to build a more complete picture of the diverse range of people and their experiences.

Some people who have experienced violence choose to work in the public sector or the family and sexual violence sector because they want to help others. Staff members with lived experience bring unique expertise. We should use this to improve and drive changes to policy and service delivery. We will help services to support and value their employees through trauma-informed ways of working.

Improving system and service accountability to Aboriginal people

Cultural safety is a fundamental human right. In practice, it involves:

• making sure initiatives to prevent violence are culturally sensitive
• creating environments where Aboriginal people feel safe to find and get support.

To achieve this, we need strong and well-funded Aboriginal-led organisations, as well as broader services that are safe and welcoming for Aboriginal people. This can only happen through genuine partnership with Aboriginal communities, underpinned by respect for Aboriginal-led approaches.

We will formalise the existing practice of reserving a portion of new family violence funding for ACCOs. Aboriginal-led organisations have a long history of running successful programs to address violence. Providing direct funding is consistent with Aboriginal self-determination.

We are making it easier and more accessible for Aboriginal people to get the qualifications they need for family violence work. We are:

• revising the mandatory minimum qualifications policy for specialist family violence practitioners
• supporting qualification pathways to family violence work – for more on our partnership with Federation University, see priority on Keeping a dedicated focus on our specialist workforce.

We know that family violence and sexual assault services are not always culturally safe for Aboriginal people, which can:

• discourage Aboriginal people from getting help when they experience violence
• further traumatise them when they try to find support.

People working in non-Aboriginal led services need a strong understanding of the impacts of colonisation and intergenerational trauma.

Actions under this plan will also help organisations actively address unconscious bias, racism and discrimination.

There is no end point in achieving cultural safety. Organisations must keep listening, learning and improving all the time.

Services will need to:

• identify and change practices that cause harm to Aboriginal people and their families
• accept and respond to feedback on how they can be safer for Aboriginal people.

Strengthening a system-wide focus on people who use violence

We need a service system that stops people from using violence as early as possible.

We will help services that may have contact with people at risk of using violence to:

• recognise high-risk attitudes and behaviours
• have the confidence to take immediate action to address them.

Embedding effective risk assessment and management is an important way to achieve this.

When violence happens, the justice system must respond quickly and effectively. We will improve:

• intervention orders, which are issued by courts to protect victim survivors
• the stalking offence to make it clearer, and easier to understand and apply.

We recognise that laws alone will not keep people safe from violence. We also need to create behaviour change in people who use violence. We are investing in targeted, trauma-informed programs for people who use violence to help them address the specific factors contributing to their behaviour.

We are committed to making sure victim survivors who attend court feel safe and supported. SFVCs have been designed with extra safety features to create a safer environment. We will continue to refine and improve the SFVC model.

Addressing misidentification

The person who is predominantly using violence in a family or intimate partner relationship is sometimes referred to as the ‘predominant aggressor’.

Misidentification occurs when someone is incorrectly labelled as a perpetrator or predominant aggressor.

This can happen when agencies:

• act on incorrect or incomplete information
• do not recognise their own assumptions, biases or prejudices
• fail to identify patterns of behaviour and risk.

For example:

• a perpetrator may undermine the victim or frame them as the aggressor
• a victim may use violence when acting in self-defence.

This means that systems set up to protect victim survivors can unintentionally cause further harm.

Aboriginal women are disproportionately misidentified as the predominant aggressor. This can have devastating impacts and worsen the violence and racism they are experiencing.

Through MARAM guidance and training, we are improving the skills agencies need to:

• prevent the misidentification of the person using family violence
• make sure steps are taken to correct records
• address the impact on victim survivors when misidentification occurs.

Regulating activities that contribute to family and sexual violence, including alcohol and gambling

Not all people who gamble or use alcohol are violent. However, alcohol and gambling can worsen the use of violence and its consequences.[1]

Evidence shows that greater access to alcohol increases the risks of family and sexual violence. This is concerning given the recent rapid growth in the online sale and delivery of alcohol.[2] We will review alcohol laws and their impact on family violence victims. We will identify and share best practice and reforms across jurisdictions.

We will work to make sure venues that serve alcohol are safe for patrons and will train staff to identify and respond to behaviours that suggest harassment and family violence.

We will also introduce reforms to the regulation of electronic gambling machines. We will work with other jurisdictions to develop a national strategy to reduce online gambling harm.

Building the skills and capability of relevant workforces

Since 2018, the MARAM Framework has been the common way to identify, assess and manage family violence risk across different sectors.

At the same time, we also changed laws to make it easier for different services and agencies to share information about risks of family violence (under the FVISS).

These changes have allowed services to:

• work with better information
• manage risk more effectively
• provide more joined-up support.

In some cases, services have had to make big changes to their culture and ways of working.

In this plan, we will embed these changes by continuing to develop this workforce’s skills and knowledge, with MARAM guidance on:

• adults using family violence – to build capability and more effectively respond to people who use violence across the service system
• children and young people – child and young person MARAM practice guides (to be released in 2026) will help children and young people be recognised as victim survivors of family violence in their own right.

We will continue to help organisations align with MARAM and make family violence risk assessment and risk management part of everyday practice. This next phase of work will focus on:

• clarifying, streamlining and consolidating our efforts
• improving how data is used to measure and track outcomes over time
• strengthening the impact of our work.

We will revise the Responding to family violence capability framework (Response Framework), so workers and organisations develop the skills needed to implement MARAM consistently. The Response Framework will identify capabilities workers need to meet their responsibilities. The Response Framework will also guide:

• Vocational Education and Training (VET) and university courses
• professional development activities
• workforce planning.

This will improve the way skills and training systems develop needed capabilities across all workforces related to family violence.

Keeping a dedicated focus on our specialist workforce

Our specialist workforce is vital to our efforts to end violence. These are people who:

• work across the community to prevent and respond to family and sexual violence
• make sure the system is responsive, coordinated and effective.

This workforce should be supported through:

• career pathways
• skills and capability building
• a focus on their health, safety and wellbeing.

Since the start of the Royal Commission into Family Violence, the specialist family violence workforce has grown 5 times larger. In 2014, there were around 500 workers. In 2023, there were around 2,500.

We will keep working to make sure there are enough qualified workers to meet the demand for services and help employers address critical vacancies. We will make sure employers make workers’ health, safety and wellbeing a priority.

Under this plan, we will work with education providers to create attractive career pathways into the family and sexual violence workforces. Courses need to stay current with best practice and prepare students for the practical realities of the work.

We are partnering with Federation University on a new Graduate Certificate of Social and Community Services program. In 2026 and 2027, 68 fully-funded places will be available – especially for Aboriginal workers and people living outside metropolitan Melbourne. The new qualification will:

• give workers better access to training
• help attract and retain a diverse and highly skilled family violence workforce that reflects communities across Victoria.

The Community and Social Services Graduate Program is a structured professional graduate program for community services. This pilot program started in 2024 to give new graduates opportunities to start their careers in community services, including family violence and sexual assault services. This program recognises that supporting someone effectively in their first year can set them up for a long and successful career and make it easier to build and retain skilled workers.

To attract workers who want to make a difference in the family and sexual violence sectors, we need organisations to offer a range of roles that are:

• satisfying
• well supported
• offer meaningful career progression.

Organisations also need to invest in:

• onboarding
• supervision
• learning and development opportunities
• looking after their workers’ health, safety and wellbeing.

We are trialling innovative ideas to boost the number of skilled workers. One example is the Workforce Vacancies Demonstration Program. This program involves 4 lead organisations trialling ideas, such as:

• cross-agency secondment
• shared induction
• learning and development
• mentoring.

It is also looking to better support staff from diverse backgrounds and encourage students to do work experience in specialist services.

Through these changes, we will have a vibrant, skilled and supported workforce that is ready to meet the challenge of ending family and sexual violence.

Improving the coordination of services, policies and programs for better support

We will promote consistency and collaboration across a broader range of services.

For example, Respect Victoria will introduce quality principles to help put in place quality and evidence‑informed primary prevention programs in different settings and sectors. This will lead to greater consistency in how programs are designed and implemented, so they can have the greatest effect possible.

We will encourage better integration across mental health and victim services. We will improve access and intake to mental health services for victim survivors.

We will build an understanding of the connections between:

• family violence
• sexual offending
• suicide.

This will help:

• identify key intervention points
• improve referral pathways
• strengthen service responses.

Improving how we measure our impact

We need to make sure that the changes we are making to end family and sexual violence are working. Every dollar we invest in addressing violence should make a difference.

We will keep building our understanding of what works to prevent violence and refine our strategies accordingly.

By consistently collecting data across the family violence and sexual assault systems, we can identify trends and track outcomes over time. This includes developing a better understanding of:

• what happens as people progress through the system
• how effective broader programs and services are.

Data can help us make sure services are sustainable in the long term. We can use date to understand how much funding is needed to meet current and future demand.

We will link data we collect to the Family Violence Outcomes Framework so we can:

• track our collective impact
• be transparent
• make sure we meet our commitments
• contribute rigorous data to national efforts to measure progress to end violence.