VCOSS welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to develop the next National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. This next 10-year National Plan will be crucial to help drive investment in priority areas and help support coordinated action across all levels of government and organisations to significantly reduce and eliminate all forms of violence against women and children.

Family, domestic and sexual violence causes serious social, economic and health consequences. While it occurs across all ages, socioeconomic and demographic groups, it mainly affects women and their children, people with a disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, young women and pregnant women.[1]

One-in-three Australian women has experienced physical violence since the age of 15 and one-in-five has experienced sexual violence.[2] On average, one woman is murdered by her current or former partner each week[3] and this year alone, 25 Australian women have lost their lives due to family violence.[4] Women are around three times more likely to experience violence from an intimate partner than men.[5]  

Family violence is a leading driver of homelessness for women.[6] Its impact on the broader economy cannot be underestimated, with research from 2015 showing that violence against women is costing Australia $21.7 billion each year.[7]

As Monash University’s Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre research has shown, the COVID-19 pandemic has “increased women’s vulnerability to all forms of gender-based violence”.[8] 

The development of the next National Plan must take into account the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Australian women and their children, and the increase in demand on services for support.

Following its Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2015, the Victorian Government made an unprecedented investment into family violence, with $2.9 billion allocated across successive budgets. This funding allocation not only reflected the Victorian Government’s commitment to addressing family violence, but was a key foundation to support the transformation of the system to better meet the needs of victim-survivors and help prevent family violence.

If we are to see a reduction in family violence across Australia, this National Plan must see an increase in funding across the prevention and response systems to ensure that services can meet rising levels of demand and provide appropriate and targeted support to women and children in all states and territories.

This submission is informed by significant engagement and consultation with VCOSS members and makes recommendations for preventing and responding effectively to family violence. It focuses on key areas in which the Commonwealth can drive reforms including: housing, prevention of family violence, family law, migration law, children and young people, supporting workforce capacity in the disability sector, education and financial abuse.

Summary of Recommendations

Address the impact of COVID-19 on family violence risk

• Identify areas of Commonwealth service delivery that require surge capacity and provide funding supplementation to enable them to meet increased demand.
• Develop a national campaign raising awareness of the high incidence of family violence during the COVID-19 pandemic and providing the 1800RESPECT hotline number.

Build on the draft framework for Australia’s National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children

• Develop a nationally consistent definition of family, domestic and sexual violence.
• Develop a detailed National Plan for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children.
• Facilitate the collection of nationally consistent data on family, domestic and sexual violence.
• Introduce paid family and domestic violence leave into the National Employment Standards.  

Ensure access to safe, accessible and stable housing

• Make access to housing a key priority in the next National Plan.
• Commit to a long-term national social housing construction program that delivers the 16,800 new homes to meet current demand and a pipeline of future new social housing stock based on population growth.
• Continue to prioritise access to housing and homelessness services.

Prevent family violence

Strengthen the family law system

• Prioritise making the soon-to-commence Federal Circuit Court and Family Court of Australia safe for victim-survivors in the next National Plan and ensure changes include meaningful engagement opportunities for the community.
• Reduce fragmentation between state and territory courts and the soon-to-commence Federal Circuit Court and Family Court of Australia by establishing a common definition and framework to respond to family violence, implementing family violence training for all court personnel and continuing to improve safe and appropriate information-sharing and collaboration.
• Provide adequate funding for free legal assistance and advocacy.

Ensure migrants and people on temporary visas receive targeted support

• Provide ongoing funding to community legal centres with large proportions of highly vulnerable and newly arrived migrants to deliver culturally sensitive, wraparound legal services to victim-survivors of family violence.

Better support children and young people who have experienced family violence

• Ensure that the next National Plan recognises young people as victim-survivors of family violence in their own right and ensures that services are funded to deliver age-appropriate and tailored support.

Support workforce capacity in the disability sector

• Undertake an audit of the training needs of disability support workers and NDIA assessors and deliver a comprehensive calendar of targeted and timely training opportunities on family violence and assessing risk.

Leverage Australia’s education system

• Express public support for gender equality and respectful relationships education that addresses the drivers of violence against women.
• Provide national resources, guidance and regulatory support to promote consistent policy and practice across jurisdictions in line with evolving evidence on respectful relationships and consent education.

Prevent financial abuse

Address the impact of COVID-19 on family violence risk

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated the risks of family violence for women and their children.

Research by Monash University’s Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre has reported that Victorian practitioners are concerned:

“ … that the pandemic has led to an increase in the frequency and severity of violence against women alongside an increase in the complexity of women’s needs.”[9] 

This finding was also supported by research conducted by VCOSS and the Future Social Services Institute in 2020. The Stories into Evidence project, which examined demand for social services during the first and second wave of the pandemic in Victoria, found that:

“CSOs also report that there has been an increase in women experiencing family violence, with an increase in the severity and complexity of incidents being reported. This increase in new complex clients has required immediate safety planning and risk assessment, placing pressure on organisations and workers.”[10]

Giving the rising incidents of family violence occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing protracted lockdowns occurring across many states and territories, the Commonwealth Government should ensure that services it delivers – and those that it contracts community organisations to deliver – have the necessary resources to meet increased demand.  Specifically, the Commonwealth Government should identify areas of Commonwealth service delivery that require surge capacity and provide funding supplementation to enable frontline services to respond to the unique challenges of the pandemic. 

Additionally, there is a need for the Commonwealth Government to deliver a national campaign that raises awareness of family violence, reminds the public that they can leave home during a lockdown if they are experiencing violence or are feeling unsafe, and provides the national 1800Respect hotline number.

With more incidents of family violence and many practitioners working from home during extended lockdowns, this has created “challenges for staff who are bringing family violence discussions with perpetrators into their homes.”[11]

Supporting the mental health and wellbeing of family violence workers is important if we are to retain these workers in the family violence sector. The family violence sector continues to experience challenges with attracting and retaining staff, as illustrated by the recently released 2019 Victorian Family Violence census.

Case study: Family violence workforce insights

The 2019 Victorian Census of Workforces that Intersect with Family Violence (the 2019 Census)[12] was committed to in the Building from Strength: 10-year Industry Plan for Family Violence Prevention and Response (Building from Strength).

Family violence staff love their work; they just have too much of it

Results from the 2019 Census show that family violence staff, particularly those from the specialist family violence and primary prevention workforces, are highly motivated and committed to working in a family violence response or primary prevention of family violence role. The workforce loves the work they do, have high confidence levels in terms of training and experience, and are satisfied in their current role. They are also buoyed by a strong belief that their work is making a difference.

However, the actual amount of work the workforce is being asked to do is impacting their health and wellbeing, and a significant portion of the workforce plan to leave their role within the next 12 months. Reasons include:

When asked about changes that could be made respondents indicated;

• Increased availability and accessibility of training (or professional development e.g. use of tools to assess and manage family violence risk)
• More long-term or permanent funding and resources
• Improved supervision (clinical and external), management and governance
• More collaboration, community of practice and working with others, policies procedures and guidance
• More staff to share workload with (or for specific roles).

It is crucial to consider and address these workforce challenges in coming years to ensure that services can meet ongoing demand, maintain sustainability and ensure staff health and wellbeing.  

RECOMMENDATIONS

Build on the draft framework for Australia’s National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children

VCOSS members provided feedback on the draft framework, which will help inform the development of Australia’s National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children.

Definition of family, domestic and sexual violence

VCOSS members noted that there are currently inconsistent definitions of family violence across federal, state and territory legislation. This is creating service gaps, inefficiencies and fragmented responses for women and children experiencing family violence.

It is recommended that a nationally consistent and contemporary definition of family, domestic and sexual violence be developed. This should reflect the range of relationships in which violence can occur and recognise that coercive control is a central aspect of family violence.

By creating a national definition, this would also help support the collection of data and enable this to be comparable across states and territories.

Guiding Principles

VCOSS members were broadly supportive of the six key principles articulated in the draft framework, which will help steer and inform the development of the next National Plan.

However, it was noted that additional principles should be considered to ensure that the next National Plan considers intersectionality, people with lived experience and retains a focus on perpetrators.

In relation to intersectionality, it was noted that the current draft framework does not appear to appropriately address the multiple and overlapping ‘identities’ that generate the lived experience of discrimination, marginalisation and inequality that then intersect with family violence. This should be addressed and prioritised in the National Plan.

National Priorities

VCOSS members were broadly supportive of the eight national priorities in the draft framework, which will help steer and inform the development of the next National Plan.

However, members identified the need for greater nuance – for example, in relation to perpetrators.  Members noted elder abuse is often missing from the conversation about perpetrators and should be addressed through the National Plan.    

In relation to strengthening the evidence base, monitoring and reporting, it was noted that reporting frameworks could be more focused on improving practice (where appropriate) instead of orientated towards compliance. Further, the next National Plan should focus on addressing key data gaps to support consistent national data collection on family, domestic and sexual violence.

Whilst it is pleasing to see that one of the national priorities focuses on supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their families to drive change in their communities, it is noted that this does not currently refer to the need for self-determination. This is fundamental to ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and organisations are leading this work and are funded appropriately.  

A detailed National Plan for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children is required to better prevent and respond to violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The National Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services Forum has also produced a detailed submission which should be considered in developing the next National Plan.

VCOSS members noted that, in relation to partnering, there is a need to recognise the important role of local government.  In Victoria, councils (alongside colleagues in community health) undertake significant work in prevention and gender equality through the State’s Health and Wellbeing Act.  The National Plan provides an opportunity to leverage the knowledge, skills, expertise and reach of local governments nationally, but will need to be backed by funding.

Focus Areas

VCOSS members were broadly supportive of the 12 focus areas in the draft framework. 

However they noted that a number of important focus areas were missing, for example

These two focus areas are discussed below.

Additionally, VCOSS members noted that there is no explicit mention of elder abuse, although it may be inferred to be in scope in focus areas such as coercive control and financial abuse.  VCOSS members reflected that COVID-19 has heightened the risk of elder abuse and also obscured elder abuse (for example, services have less visibility of older people during lockdowns).  Members identified the need for the National Plan to engage with elder abuse.

Consideration should also be given to amending Australia’s Fair Work Act (2009) and introducing paid family and domestic violence leave into the National Employment Standards.  

Outcomes

VCOSS members believe the outcomes are too high-level and vague, with “room for error”.

In relation to prevention, members want to see specific outcomes related to gender equality.  They identified the need for the National Plan outcomes on prevention to align with the four pillars of Change the Story.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Ensure access to safe, accessible and stable housing

Family and domestic violence continues to be the main reason people seek support from homelessness services in Victoria (45% of homelessness service users in 2019 – 20).^[13] A lack of housing options drives many women to return to perpetrators and the risk of violence, or into insecure housing situations and homelessness.

Crisis accommodation is an important part of the housing continuum, providing an option for victim-survivors and their children to stabilise in short-term, safe accommodation. Crisis accommodation in Victoria is critically overwhelmed, forcing many victim-survivors in crisis into motels and rooming houses, which are not appropriate housing options for safety, recovery or for accommodating children.

VCOSS welcomes funding for Safe Places Emergency Accommodation Program (‘Safe Places’) in 2020 to grow the crisis accommodation sector, including accommodation that is provided in core and cluster style developments, and with service provision models that are trauma-informed, family focused and enable recovery.

But long-term, affordable housing is crucial to establish safety and wellbeing for victim-survivors and their children and to provide the foundation for a good life. While the private rental market provides opportunities for some victim-survivors of family violence, for many victim-survivors social housing is the only housing option that is affordable and secure, which are necessary conditions for recovery.

While the Fourth Action Plan includes an action to increase access to suitable and stable accommodation within communities for women who have experienced domestic, family and sexual violence, the Commonwealth Government has not invested in new social housing supply required to address this issue.

As COVID-19 continues to create nation-wide economic challenges, the Commonwealth Government has an opportunity to invest in social housing, that will provide both economic stimulus and deliver social housing that is urgently needed to house victim survivors of family violence. There is strong precedent in Australia for taking this opportunity to build the nation and create jobs by investing in social housing. Both Labor and Liberal governments got behind a post war public housing construction program that kept people housed and builders building.

The Victorian Government, under the Big Housing Build package, will build 9,000 new social housing homes over the next four years, with 1,000 allocated to victim survivors of family violence. However, with 1 in 10 priority applications on the Victorian Housing Register (the waitlist for social housing) victim-survivors of family violence, at least 2,000 additional new homes are required to meet the immediate need in Victoria.^[14]

At the national level, recent modelling by Equity Economics also found that 16,8000 additional social housing units would be required across Australia to address the current shortfall.^[15] 

The next National Plan should prioritise social housing growth and commit to a long-term national construction program that will both deliver the 16,800 new homes to meet current demand, as well as a pipeline of new social housing stock based on future population growth.

Quality supports are critical to accessing housing and sustaining tenancies. The next National Plan should continue to prioritise measures that will ensure victim-survivors can access the support they need at the right time and in the right settings, and that service providers, including housing and homelessness services, have the capabilities to provide safe and respectful supports to victim survivors.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Prevent family violence

Prevention is the most effective way to eliminate violence against women and their children, and was at the core of the Fourth Action Plan. Primary prevention means stopping violence before it occurs. It means changing the behaviours and norms, in all areas of society, that excuse, justify or even promote violence against women and their children.

Primary prevention is identified as a national priority in the draft Framework for Australia’s National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children, which states:

“Effective primary prevention initiatives to promote healthy and safe relationships and build gender equitable values is a key part of ending violence against women and children.”

VCOSS members were overwhelmingly support of primary prevention being a national priority. They reflected concerns though that funding for prevention activities is often short term, project funding, whereby activities may run in local communities for a year or two, and then cease because of a lack of funding.

This creates difficulties both from a staffing perspective in retaining skilled prevention practitioners, but also in driving change within the communities practitioners are working in. It also creates challenges around the evaluation of activities and building the evidence base to ensure that the most effective primary prevention activities are being funded by government and delivered by organisations.

VCOSS members reflected on the need for more longitudinal studies to see what works in primary prevention to help build the evidence base. Evaluations should focus on impact rather than outcomes, and organisations should be funded to undertake this work, alongside program delivery, as this information can then be fed back to government to inform future funding decisions. Focusing on impact over outcomes is important because this considers the long-term and broader effects of policies and funding, compared with narrowly defined outcomes.

Organisations such as VicHealth are attempting to build the evidence base for primary prevention. For example, through the Man Box study they have gathered evidence on the attitudes to manhood and the behaviours of young Australian men aged 18 to 30 that can help inform policy and practice, evaluation and further research.[16]

It is also important that primary prevention activities reach into diverse communities.  Government funding for primary prevention should make adequate provision for diverse access needs, including access for people with disabilities (for example, funding to produce resources in easy English) and access for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (for example, material translated into a wide range of community languages).  There is also an opportunity for government to more effectively leverage place-based, faith-based and other community-led organisations, alongside larger community organisations. 

VCOSS members reflected that having champions of change in local communities can help drive behavioural change at a grass roots level, for example through supporting young leaders and leaders from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. However, many smaller organisations – particularly those reliant on community volunteers – face barriers to accessing and/or navigating grant or other funding processes. 

RECOMMENDATION

• Increase the quantum of funding for primary prevention initiatives and activities and provide longer-term contracts to organisations to deliver these programs.

Strengthen our family law system

The Interim report of the Improvements in Family Law Proceedings Inquiry notes that allegations of family violence are present in the majority of family law matters. Yet, the Family Law system can be unsafe, unjust and retraumatising for victim survivors of family violence, with some VCOSS members describing the system as “impenetrable”.

While some court jurisdictions have improved in their responses to family violence in recent years, there are still inconsistencies in how courts define and respond to family violence. Many courts, including the Federal Family Law Court, still demonstrate a lack of understanding of the complexities of family violence, resulting in injustice and harm for victim-survivors.

VCOSS notes that the Federal Circuit Court and Family Court will be merged into the Federal Circuit Court and Family Court of Australia in September 2021. The next National Plan should include an action to ensure that this new Court – including all judges, registrars and support staff, as well as intersecting service providers – is equipped with enough resources and capability to identify and respond to family violence.  

Further reforms of the family law system should provide meaningful engagement opportunities for community to provide safe input and contribute to better system design. VCOSS notes that many of our sector colleagues have not engaged with the current Family Law Proceedings Inquiry, due to concerns about the legitimacy of the Inquiry process.[17]

There is a continued need to develop a common framework for identifying and responding to family violence across the family law system and state and territory legislation, based on a consistent definition of family violence. Further, a model for early identification of family violence and specialist case management should be introduced in the family law system, to ensure that the court can make informed decisions and provide appropriate supports that prioritise safety and wellbeing.

The Royal Commission into Family Violence in Victoria found that fragmentation between state courts and the federal family law courts is a significant concern, with many users telling the Commission that experiences of family violence are not given sufficient weight and consideration in matters. 

To address the issue of fragmentation, the Royal Commission recommended that Victorian Courts establish an information-sharing arrangement/protocol with the Family Court of Australia. While such an arrangement has since been implemented between child protection, family violence and family law, improvements to support information sharing and collaboration should be made.

We note that the Interim report of the Improvements in Family Law Proceedings Inquiry has recommended the development of an appropriate technology platform for information-sharing between family law, child protection and family violence systems at Commonwealth, state and territory level (recommendation 14), which, if adopted, should incorporate safeguards to protect victim-survivors against inappropriate or unsafe information sharing.

There is a continued need for adequate training of all court personnel to ensure that engagement with victim-survivors is safe and decisions take into account complexities of family violence.

The next National Plan should continue to prioritise access to appropriate supports, including legal assistance and advocacy, to ensure that families are supported to understand their legal rights and responsibilities (including understanding conditions of orders), resolve disputes early to prevent prolonged interaction with the legal system, and ensure access to justice for victim-survivors. Since many parents cannot afford private legal representation and most are ineligible for legal aid, adequate resourcing of community legal services should be prioritised.  

  RECOMMENDATIONS

• Prioritise making the soon-to-commence Federal Circuit Court and Family Court of Australia safe for victim-survivors in the next National Plan and ensure changes include meaningful engagement opportunities for the community.
• Reduce fragmentation between state and territory courts and the soon-to-commence Federal Circuit Court and Family Court of Australia by establishing a common definition and framework to respond to family violence, implementing family violence training for all court personnel and continuing to improve safe and appropriate information-sharing and collaboration.
• Provide adequate funding for free legal assistance and advocacy.

Ensure migrants and people on temporary visas receive targeted support

Migration status can impact how and whether women seek support and intervention when experiencing family violence. Some of the barriers include “fear of deportation, loss of custody of children, and ineligibility for social support, such as Centrelink benefits, income support and limited health and education services.”^[18]

According to Professor Segrave, the most recent Fourth Action Plan is “limited on detail and fails to recognise the complexity of women’s experiences”, particularly migrant women.[19] 

“Specifically, there is radio silence on the way in which our migration system compounds and sustains family violence via empowering perpetrators who are citizens to control and coerce women who are temporary migrants.”[20]

The connections between family law and migration law increases risk for women. The role of extended family members as perpetrators of family violence is not really recognised within migration law. Migration abuse is commonly perpetrated on women from migrant, refugee or asylum seeker backgrounds in Australia

Having a migration lawyer work alongside the duty lawyer service and collaboratively with family violence lawyers ensures better legal outcomes for clients. For example, a migration lawyer could liaise with the family violence duty lawyer regarding obtaining adequate judicial evidence to support migration applications.[21] 

Even if children are Australian citizens, there is no automatic legal right for their mother to remain in Australia. This can translate into situations where the mother must leave both Australia and her child (or a father/perpetrator).[22] 

For people holding various types of temporary visas, the migration system does not provide a solution where there is a child born in Australia and the other parent (Australian resident or citizen) wants the child to live long-term in Australia. A (Subclass 143) Contributory Parent visa costs around $100,000. As a result, women often no choice but to stay with a partner who is violent so that they are not forced to leave Australia without their child.[23] 

The complex intersections of marriage, migration and coercive control requires a dedicated community legal response.

The Indian Family Violence Project 2019-2021 by Northern Community Legal Centre is an example of a successful pilot program that focused on improving the safety of vulnerable women and children.

Through a coordinated response combining migration and family law legal advice, alongside community engagement and community education, they were able to assist 164 Indian women across a range of legal problems including family violence intervention orders (65%), immigration (52%), property settlement (50%), victims of crime compensation (48%), divorce (41%), breach of family violence intervention order (20%), spousal maintenance (13%), fines/infringements (11%) and child support (9%).[24]

This report provides a number of detailed recommendations regarding how best to support newly arrived vulnerable women who have experienced family violence.[25]

It is recommended that community legal centres located in places with large proportions of highly vulnerable and newly arrived migrants be provided ongoing funding to deliver culturally sensitive, wraparound legal services to victim-survivors of family violence. This should include funding for legal advice, advocacy and social work support, community engagement and legal education to newly arrived communities. 

RECOMMENDATION

• Provide ongoing funding to community legal centres with large proportions of highly vulnerable and newly arrived migrants to deliver culturally sensitive, wraparound legal services to victim-survivors of family violence.

Better support children and young people who have experienced family violence

While the current draft framework refers to children experiencing family violence, it is noted that ‘children and young people’ are not one homogenous group.

VCOSS members report that there are significant gaps in the service system for young people who are experiencing family violence.[26]

Melbourne City Mission (MCM) reports that in Victoria there is currently a gap in supports for young people experiencing family violence, noting that:

• ‘Children and young people’ are too often seen as extensions of their parents or carers for the purposes of support.
• [There is a] focus on adolescents as perpetrators of family violence rather than victim survivors in their own right.
• An over-reliance of the child protection system for young people under 18 years, and adult services for young people over 18 years.”

MCM reports that it has seen an increase in referrals to its Front Yard Housing Service from single adolescents who are experiencing family violence in their homes. It is important that services are adapted to and targeted to the developmental needs of young people.

The next National Plan should ensure that it refers to young people, ‘recognises young people as victim-survivors of family violence in their own right’ and ensures that services are funded to deliver age-appropriate and tailored support including access to crisis accommodation for young people.[27]

RECOMMENDATION

• Ensure that the next National Plan recognises young people as victim-survivors of family violence in their own right and ensures that services are funded to deliver age-appropriate and tailored support.

Support workforce capacity in the disability sector

People with disability are 1.8 times as likely to have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from a partner in the previous year, compared with people without disability.[28]

The Fourth Action Plan notes that women with disability experience significantly higher levels of all forms of violence. Nine in 10 women with intellectual disability report experiencing sexual assault.

Violence against women with disability is also more diverse in nature. While women with disability face many of the same forms of domestic, family and sexual violence, women with disability also experience and are at more risk of particular forms of violence, such as forced sterilisation, seclusion and restrictive practices, and experience violence in a range of institutional and service settings such as in residential institutions and aged care facilities.^[29]

Disability is identified as a focus area in the draft framework for Australia’s National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children.

One of the issues raised by VCOSS members is challenges around the lack of consistency and understanding of family violence and the ability to identify risk within disability support services. As a result, people experiencing family violence are not being referred to appropriate specialist family violence services by their support workers. Further, if an NDIA assessor does not have an appropriate understanding of family violence and associated risk factors, they may not prioritise the assessments for support.

To address gaps in the skills, knowledge and confidence of disability support workers and NDIA assessors in relation to assessing family violence risk, the Commonwealth Government should undertake an audit of the training needs of these workers and deliver a comprehensive calendar of targeted and timely training opportunities.

Alongside training, supervision, staffing and leadership from people with disabilities is needed to effect cultural change, which is a pre-condition for genuine, sustained practice change and improvement over time.

RECOMMENDATION

Leverage Australia’s education system

The Australian Curriculum sets the expectations for what all young Australians should be taught in school, regardless of where they live — but decisions on how this is implemented, including teaching children about respectful relationships and consent, are made at a state level, with schools often having significant autonomy.[30]

Respectful Relationships

Victoria is a leader in primary prevention practice, with the successful Respectful Relationships program being rolled out across early childhood settings and 1850 government, Catholic and independent schools.^[31]

Respectful Relationships focuses on “embedding a culture of respect and equality across our entire community” by modeling respectful, positive attitudes and behaviors and “teaching children how to build healthy relationships, resilience and confidence”.^[32]

With most states and territories rolling out Respectful Relationship programs (or pilots), it is important that the Commonwealth takes a leadership role in providing national resources and guidance to create a nationally consistent approach to ensure that all Australian students receive high quality, evidence-based education.

Resources should include building an understanding that students may hold multiple, intersecting identities and may experience discrimination or oppression not only because of gender, but due to class, ethnicity and cultural background, religion, disability and/or sexual orientation. It is important that national resources and guidance builds an understanding of this, and how different aspects of a student’s identity may expose them to overlapping forms of discrimination and marginalisation.

In line with Our Watch’s recommendations,[33] VCOSS recommends that the Commonwealth Government:

Respectful Relationship’s curriculum should also be accessible and inclusive for all students regardless of their intersecting identities.

Consent education

Community legal centres are often asked to deliver education on a range of issues associated with relationships such as consent, sexting, sexual assault and family violence to high schools in their local regions.

For example, through its community and sector engagement, Springvale Monash Legal Service (SMLS) has received requests from schools to deliver education sessions in classrooms and after-school programs. These requests often arise in response to an incident occurring at the school, for example, after a disclosure of inappropriate behaviour by students, a breach of consent or a complaint, or even police intervention.

As a result, SMLS has developed a set of high quality, well researched educational material on these topics and use a mixture of games, activities and sport to teach young people about consent and the law. After delivering these education sessions, SMLS has seen an increase in referrals regarding sexual assault.

There is currently significant autonomy for schools in how consent education is taught.[34] According to Victorian Student Representative Council, “the material in Respectful Relationships was “great” but not all teachers had the confidence or training to teach it comprehensively or in a way that empowered students.”[35]

“What we’ve heard is that [consent teaching] is inconsistent across schools and across areas, like most topics that are very personal.”[36]

Victoria has recently committed to making consent education mandatory in Victorian state schools.[37] However, a nationally consistent approach to consent education would help ensure that all Australian students are taught about consent in an age-appropriate way.   

  RECOMMENDATIONS

Prevent financial abuse

The National Consumer Credit Protection Amendment (Supporting Economic Recovery) Bill 2020, which is currently before the Senate, seeks to wind back our current responsible lending obligations (RLOs).

A key factor in the effectiveness of RLOs are assessment and verification requirements, which ensure a loan is affordable and not unsuitable for a borrower. Removing RLOs will lead to cases where loans or a line of credit are provided by a lender without undertaking these important checks.

Consumer and family violence advocates are particularly concerned about the impact of these changes on people, predominantly women, fleeing or experiencing family violence and economic abuse.

Coerced debt is a common factor in the inability for victim survivors to leave a violent or abusive relationship and re-establish their lives.

Compliance with RLOs, if done correctly, can identify red flags in financial abuse. When lenders and intermediaries like brokers undertake proper responsible lending assessments, they will often be put on notice that loans should not be approved, an important role in preventing financial abuse.

Importantly, the responsible lending provisions also provide a remedy for victim-survivors of financial abuse when lenders do not undertake the required steps or ignore these red flags.

The requirement for lenders or brokers to consider a borrower’s requirements and objectives is a key protection for victims-survivors of family violence and financial abuse, where it should be apparent the borrower, or one of the borrowers, will get no benefit from the loan. For example, if a couple apply for a car loan at a dealership and the perpetrator requests that the loan be placed solely in their partner’s name, despite their partner not holding a driver’s licence. In this instance, the loan should normally be assessed as unsuitable for the partner as it does not meet their requirements and objectives, and the application would be declined.

The removal of RLOs creates a big risk that red flags of family violence or financial abuse will be missed, and victim-survivors would be left without redress for irresponsible lending.

The negative impact of weakened individual rights to redress are also likely to disproportionately affect those experiencing financial abuse, making it harder for victim-survivors to get back on their feet after unsuitable loans have been provided. Removing these laws will reduce the ability of advocates such as financial counsellors and community lawyers to assist victim-survivors with debts that they accrued during abusive relationships.

It has been well documented that rates of family violence and financial abuse have risen sharply during the COVID-19 crisis. Removing these critical protections at a time when people are so vulnerable to abuse would have devastating results.

  RECOMMENDATION

• Retain our current responsible lending obligations and abandon the National Consumer Credit Protection Amendment (Supporting Economic Recovery) Bill 2020.

[1] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia, 2018, https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/domestic-violence/family-domestic-sexual-violence-in-australia-2018/contents/table-of-contents

[2] Our Watch, Quick facts, https://www.ourwatch.org.au/quick-facts/

[3] Ibid.

[4] Counting Dead Women Australia, https://www.facebook.com/Counting-Dead-Women-Australia-111647810713234/

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] PwC 2015. A High Price to Pay: the economic case for preventing violence against women. Melbourne: PricewaterhouseCoopers.

[8] Responding to the shadow pandemic: practitioner views on the nation of and responses to violence against women in Victoria, Australia during the COVID-19 restrictions,2020,   https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/report/Responding_to_the_shadow_pandemic_practitioner_views_on_the_nature_of_and_responses_to_violence_against_women_in_Victoria_Australia_during_the_COVID-19_restrictions/12433517

[9] Responding to the shadow pandemic: practitioner views on the nation of and responses to violence against women in Victoria, Australia during the COVID-19 restrictions,2020,   https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/report/Responding_to_the_shadow_pandemic_practitioner_views_on_the_nature_of_and_responses_to_violence_against_women_in_Victoria_Australia_during_the_COVID-19_restrictions/12433517

[10] VCOSS and FSSI, Stories into Evidence: Covid-19 adaptations in the Victorian community services sector, 2020, p.11

[11] Ibid, p.18.

[12] Victorian Government, 2019-20 Census of workforces that intersect with family violence: Summary findings report, https://www.vic.gov.au/summary-findings-report-2019-20-workforce-census

[13] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Specialist Homelessness Services 2019-20 Vic, December 2020.

[14] Homes Victoria, Victoria’s Big Housing Build, November 2020, p9 and Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, Victorian Housing Register and Transfer List, March 2021.

[15] Equity Economics, Nowhere to go: the benefits of providing long-term social housing to women that have experience domestic and family violence, July 2021, p5.

[16] VicHealth, Trapped in the ‘man box’ – belief in outdated gender stereotypes biggest predictor of men using violence, 22 July 2020, https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/media-and-resources/media-releases/trapped-in-the-man-box

[17] Australian Women against Violence Alliance, Joint statement: Make Family law safe: stop putting victim-survivors of family violence and child abuse in harm’s way, 18 October 2019, https://awava.org.au/2019/10/18/media-release/joint-statement-make-family-law-safe

[18] Marie Segrave, How Australia’s migration system is failing victims of gendered violence, 11 November 2019, https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2019/11/11/1377635/how-australias-migration-system-is-failing-victims-of-gendered-violence

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Northern Community Legal Centre, Indian Family Violence Project 2019-2021, p.10

[22] Northern Community Legal Centre, Indian Family Violence Project 2019-2021, p.13

[23] Ibid.

[24] Northern Community Legal Centre, Indian Family Violence Project 2019-2021, p.8

[25] Ibid, p. 2-4.

[26] For example, see Melbourne City Mission’s Young People’s Family Violence Project Background Paper, and Safe Steps.

[27] Melbourne City Mission, Young People’s Family Violence Project Background Paper.

[28] Department of Social Services, Consultation Guide, https://engage.dss.gov.au/developing-the-next-national-plan-to-reduce-violence-against-women-and-their-children/

[29] Department of Social Services, Fourth Action Plan, https://www.dss.gov.au/women-publications-articles-reducing-violence/fourth-action-plan

[30] Zach Hope, ‘We have to listen to students’: Consent education to become mandatory in state schools, 21 March 2021

[31] Department of Education and Training, Respectful Relationships, https://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/Pages/respectfulrelationships.aspx

[32] Ibid.

[33] Our Watch, Respectful relationships education as part of a national approach to preventing gender-based violence:

A brief for policy makers, https://media-cdn.ourwatch.org.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/29130251/RRE-Policy-Brief-accessible-250221.pdf#page=14

[34] Bri Lee, Ill-informed consent, https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2021/may/1619791200/bri-lee/ill-informed-consent#mtr

[35] Zach Hope, ‘We have to listen to students’: Consent education to become mandatory in state schools, 21 March 2021

[36] Ibid.

[37] ABC News, Consent education to become mandatory in Victorian state schools, 21 March 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-21/consent-education-to-become-mandatory-in-victorian-state-schools/100019522

• Responding to community-based healthcare demand
  $78.3m in 2021-22 ($96.5m/4 yrs)
  Funding is provided to 12 women’s health services to meet growing demand for gender responsive healthcare, including prevention of family violence support services, women’s mental health and sexual and reproductive health services.
  
  Three new women’s sexual and reproductive health hubs will be established and the operating hours and scope of services at the eight existing hubs will be expanded. This initiative also supports community-based healthcare including catch-up care for dental services, cancer services, and maternal child health services to ensure clients who were unable to engage over the past 12 months receive the care they need.
  
  Increase in demand for alcohol and other drugs programs will be met by three new residential AOD treatment facilities, additional community-based counselling services and expanded forensic services.

• Support for victim survivors of family violence and sexual assault
  $21.9m in 2021-22 ($49m/4 yrs)
  Funding is provided to continue case management responses for victim survivors of family violence in emergency accommodation and for victim survivors of sexual assault, to extend family violence supports and services including sexual assault services, for state-wide 24/7 crisis services, flexible support packages, culturally safe responses for Aboriginal survivors, and case management and brokerage for women on temporary visas.

• Improving outcomes for women in Victoria: strengthening Victoria’s economic recovery through women’s participation
  $2.1m in 2021-22 ($4.2m/2 yrs)
  Funding is provided to establish a Gender Responsive Budgeting Unit within the Department of Treasury and Finance, working closely with the Office for Women to ensure outcomes for women are measured and considered as part of budget decision-making processes. This will embed gender impact analysis and understanding in the allocation of resources. The initiative will also deliver targeted economic security programs to support migrant and refugee women into employment.

• Specialist family violence integrated court response
  $10.1m in 2021-22 ($42.6m/4 yrs)
  Funding is provided to establish specialist family violence courts at the remaining Magistrates’ Courts, further acquitting the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

• Perpetrator accountability
  $12.8m in 2021-22 ($18.1m / 4 yrs)
  Funding has been allocated to enable family violence specialists to deliver perpetrator interventions and contribute to an increasing evidence base about what works to change behaviour and prevent violence, including delivering Men’s Behaviour Change programs.

• Responses for children and young people impacted by family violence and sexual assault
  $14.1m in 2021-22 ($44.1m / 4 yrs)
  Funding is provided to continue the statewide expansion of services to adolescents who use violence in the home, extend sexually abusive behaviour treatment services and provide sexual assault support services targeted to children and young people.

Analysis

The 2021-22 Budget invests $354 million to support victim survivors and address family violence. Funding will continue support for the operation of the Central Information Point, and support Phase 2 organisations to meet their obligations under the MARAM framework and Child and Family Violence Information Sharing Schemes. Funding has also been allocated to enable family violence specialists to deliver perpetrator interventions and Men’s Behaviour Change programs, which will contribute to an increasing evidence base about what works to change behaviour and prevent violence.

VCOSS is particularly pleased to see the establishment of a Gender Responsive Budgeting Unit within the Department of Treasury and Finance. This unit will help overcome the inequalities experienced by women by further embracing gender impact assessments, gender budgeting and gender auditing.

VCOSS welcomes the commitment to build three additional sexual and reproductive health hubs and the commitment to provide additional support for Victoria’s 12 women’s health services. We know that COVID had a disproportionate impact on women’s mental and physical health, as well as sexual and reproductive health, and these commitments will help ensure more women can access the tailored, gendered health information they need to effectively navigate Victoria’s health system.

While this Budget does provide some investment in the prevention of family violence, including $44 million to develop tools and resources to address the drivers of sexual violence in young people and the delivery of youth-focused programs that promote healthy relationships and community understanding of family violence, we know that more funding is needed if we are to stop violence before it starts.

Respect Victoria has identified that currently only 3 per cent of the family violence budget is spent on primary prevention. Victoria must commit to boost overall spending on family violence prevention to at least 10 per cent of the family violence budget to help change behaviour within families and the community so that we can all live free from violence.

Increased funding for the specialist family violence sector is also needed to meet rising levels of demand and ensure that services can cover higher operational costs, retain experienced staff and pay workers at a classification/level commensurate with their qualifications, knowledge and skills.

Family violence causes serious social, economic and health consequences. While it occurs across all ages, socioeconomic and demographic groups, it mainly affects women and their children, people with a disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, young women and pregnant women.

One in three Australian women has experienced physical violence since the age of 15 and one in five has experienced sexual violence. On average, one woman is murdered by her current or former partner each week and this year alone, five Victorian women have lost their lives due to family violence. Women are around three times more likely to experience violence from an intimate partner than men.

While there has been a downward trend in the rates of overall violence from any person in Australia, rates of partner violence and sexual violence have remained relatively stable since 2005. Recent crime statistics show that number of family violence recorded incidents by Victoria Police is the highest on record in the 12 months for the period to 31 March 2020.

Family violence is a leading driver of homelessness for women. Its impact on the broader economy cannot be underestimated, with research from 2015 showing that violence against women is costing Australia $21.7 billion each year.

To address this scourge and bring the issue into the light, the Victorian Government established the Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2015. On 30 March 2016, the Royal Commission handed down its landmark eight volume report. Presenting 227 recommendations to the Victorian Government, this momentous report represented a shift in family violence service delivery, matched by an initial $1.9 billion investment and commitment to implement every single recommendation.

Fast forward four years, $2.9 billion has been invested in the system, with 154 recommendations now implemented. While much progress has been made, there are still areas that require continued attention and investment by government if we are to realise the benefits of this historic reform agenda.

In light of the progress made to date and informed by consultation with VCOSS members, this submission makes recommendations for preventing and responding effectively to family violence. It focuses on how the family violence service system, and users’ experience of it, has changed since the Royal Commission; looks forward to what is still required in the family violence reforms; and considers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on service delivery.

It is important to recognise that we are only four years into a 10 year reform agenda and that continued investment in the reforms will be needed to ensure we provide the best supports to victim-survivors and perpetrators of family violence.

Summary of Recommendations

What’s still to be done?

• Increase investment in the Private Rental Assistance Program
• Increase investment in Flexible Support Packages and make these a permanent feature of the family violence service system
• Build 6,000 new public and community homes each year for the next decade
• Allocate at least 10 per cent of the Family Violence Budget to the primary prevention of family violence
• Support the coordination of women’s health primary prevention partnership programs
• Fully implement the Victorian Auditor-General Office’s nine recommendations to improve the operation of the support and safety hubs
• Invest in prevention and develop early intervention programs to minimise the negative effects of violence on children
• Support organisations to undertake evaluations to build the evidence-base
• Design evidence-based programs to better engage adolescents that use violence in the home.

Supporting sector and organisational sustainability

• Develop a fairer indexation model to ensure community service organisations are sustainable and effective into the future
• Implement new funding models that reduce reliance on short-term funding contracts and provide greater job security
• Deliver training in regional locations, identify champions of change and establish local communities of practice
• Increase investment in the MARAM Framework and Information Sharing Scheme to ensure non-family violence specialist organisations understand their roles and responsibilities.

Better support diverse communities

• Improve data collection and conduct research on the prevalence and impacts of family, domestic and sexual violence among people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
• Continue to increase funding and support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander led family violence prevention and response efforts
• Review laws and policies that disproportionately criminalise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children
• Fund the Disability Family Violence Crisis Response Initiative for three years to ensure women with disability experiencing family violence can access immediate, tailored support.

Changes since the Family Violence Royal Commission

Since the Royal Commission into Family Violence handed down its report into the family violence service system in 2016, a lot has changed. There is now greater community recognition and understanding of family violence in public discourse and the media, including its complexity and nuances. There is also greater discussion about the causes of family violence and challenging of myths and victim-blaming attitudes. In fact, victims are more likely to be praised now for being resilient.

Five safety and support hubs, branded The Orange Door, have been rolled out across Victoria with another 12 scheduled to open by 2022. While the Auditor-General has criticised the roll out of the hubs, they hold the potential to change the way victim-survivors and perpetrators access support and services.

In November 2016 the Victoria Government released Victoria’s 10-year plan for change, Ending Family Violence which set out the Royal Commission’s 227 recommendations, outcomes and initial targets to prevent and respond to family violence. In 2017, Victoria’s first primary prevention of family violence strategy, Free from Violence was released, alongside the establishment of a central coordination agency, Family Safety Victoria. The primary prevention agency, Respect Victoria was established in 2018, with responsibility for conducting research and coordinating behavioural change campaigns. All up, $2.9 billion has been invested in family violence reforms across five state budgets.

VCOSS members report that one area that has improved since the reforms began is police responses. There has been a significant difference in documenting L17s and how family violence investigations occur. This is having positive effects in terms of how victim-survivors interact with police.

Another positive change that is beginning to emerge is willingness to collaborate between services through the new information sharing protocols. This is seeing services working more in partnership with one another to deliver wrap-around supports for victim-survivors and children.

Despite the development of the Family Violence Outcomes Framework, which outlines Victoria’s priorities in preventing and responding to family violence, VCOSS members report that there are still challenges around data collection that are inhibiting measuring the success of these reforms. In particular, concerns have been raised that there is currently an absence of data demonstrating that victim-survivors are safer as a result of the reforms.

While significant progress has been made in ticking off the 227 recommendations of the Royal Commission, with 154 recommendations now implemented, it is important that we retain focus on transforming victim-survivors experience of the family violence service system and not just ticking off the implementation of the recommendations.

What’s still to be done?

Prioritise housing for people experiencing family violence driven homelessness.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Increase investment in the Private Rental Assistance Program
• Increase investment in Flexible Support Packages and make these a permanent feature of the family violence service system
• Build 6,000 new public and community homes each year for the next decade.

The Royal Commission into Family Violence highlighted the complex link between victim-survivor’s safety, the ability to recover from family violence and access to long-term housing.

As the Royal Commission recognised, ‘a lack of housing options can exacerbate the trauma and dislocation of the violence, disrupting social and economic participation and education and adversely affect health and wellbeing. In some cases it forces women to choose to return to a violent partner.’

There is currently a housing affordability crisis in Victoria. Only 2 properties were affordable to a single person on Newstart in April 2019, with the median house rent in Melbourne now $430. Further, nearly 1 million Victorians live in housing stress.

Demand for social housing remains high, with more than 82,000 Victorians on the wait list for public and community housing. This is projected to reach 100,000 by mid-2020. While the Victorian population, house prices and rents continue to increase, government investment in social housing has decreased. Social housing currently makes up only 3.2 per cent of all housing in Victoria. This is well below the national average of 4.5 per cent. Victoria spends the least of all Australian states and territories on social housing per person. This has flow-on effects for the Victorian specialist homelessness service system, which sees the most clients annually of all the states and territories.

For those seeking assistance from specialist homelessness services, more than 42 per cent report this is due to family violence. The inadequate supply of social housing in Victoria continues to create blockages in and out of family violence refuges and crisis accommodation. In fact, 62 per cent of Victorians who fled family violence into homelessness were unable to get the housing they need. That is, of the 11,565 Victorians who became homeless due to family violence in 2018-2019, 7,194 Victorians were still homeless after seeking help.

Following the Royal Commission, the Family Violence Housing Blitz saw a range of initiatives including investments in social housing, and successful subsidy programs to house women in private rental housing.

Recommendation 18 of the Royal Commission – Give priority to victims gaining stable housing as quickly as possible – The Victorian Government give priority to removing current blockages in refuge and crisis accommodation and transitional housing, so that victims of family violence can gain stable housing as quickly as possible and with a minimum number of relocations, are not accommodated in motels and other ad hoc accommodation, and spend on average no longer than six weeks in refuge and crisis accommodation.

The implementation of this recommendation is currently in progress. To deliver on this, the Victorian Government should continue to invest in the Private Rental Assistance Program (funded to July 2021) which provides people at risk of or experiencing homelessness with financial and practical assistance to establish and maintain private rental tenancies. VCOSS members report that the Private Rental Assistance Program is particularly beneficial for victim-survivors as it allows people to establish their own space and gives them the respect they need within their community to begin to rebuild their lives.

The Victorian Government should also continue to invest in Flexible Support Packages which deliver a personalised and holistic response to victim-survivors experiencing family violence by assisting them to access support, move out of crisis, stabilise, secure access to safe, stable housing and improve their safety, well-being and independence into recovery. Individualised packages of up to $10,000 are available, with each package costing on average $3,000.

VCOSS members report that these packages are being used to purchase vehicles, meet basic material needs, access safe, stable housing, pay for new furnishings in houses or put up security cameras. Significantly, they are reducing the need for victim-survivors to retell their story again, and allows them to build a relationship with their support worker who can then access the funds to meet their needs and help them feel safe again.

A 2017 evaluation of the packages found that they have had a ‘transformational impact in supporting thousands of victim survivors to achieve safety and recover from their experience of family violence’.

Currently Flexible Support Packages are only funded to July 2020 although on 10 April 2020, the Victorian Government committed $5.1 million for more Flexible Support Packages across the state as part of a $40.2 million investment in crisis accommodation and specialist services for people suffering or at risk of family violence. This was welcomed by the sector.
Given the success of the Flexible Support Packages in supporting people experiencing family violence to rebuild their lives, VCOSS members strongly support these becoming a permanent fixture of the family violence system.

Recommendation 19 – Establish a Family Violence Housing Assistance Implementation Taskforce – The Victorian Government establish a Family Violence Housing Assistance Implementation Task Force …. which should:

• … quantify the number of additional social housing units required for family violence victims who are unable to gain access to and sustain private rental accommodation
• …. plan for the statewide rollout of … the social housing required.

VCOSS members report that increased investment in social housing is one of the key ways to help support victim-survivors. While Victoria has made welcome investments in social housing including the commitment to build 1,000 new social housing homes, it is far less than the amount needed to sustain the current proportion of social housing.

To simply maintain the current level of social housing at 3.2 per cent of all households, Victoria would need to build 3,500 new public and community homes each year for the next 10 years. However, to meet the demand indicated by the Victorian Housing Register, the rates of housing stress and homelessness, and match the level of social housing in other states and territories, Victoria would need to build 6,000 new public and community homes each year for the next 10 years. It is important that this housing is accessibly built and designed with a universal housing model in mind to reduce the need for major modifications to be made in the future and ensure that it is suitable for all people, including people with disability and older people.

A lack of housing for perpetrators has also been identified as a significant gap in the current system that undermines victim-survivors safety. While there is currently funding available to access crisis-accommodation or short-term rooming houses or motels, without access to longer term housing solutions, there is a greater chance that a perpetrator will exit into homelessness or attempt to return to the family home and request that a victim-survivor take them back. While accommodation for perpetrators was not a recommendation of the Royal Commission, it has become more apparent that this is an area that needs to be prioritised. Without access to safe and affordable housing, this will make it more difficult to engage perpetrators with support services and encourage them to change their behaviour.

VCOSS members report that investing in housing and making it more affordable is key to ensuring that women and children have a safe place to live and do not need to return to violent households. VCOSS and our members believe that housing should be a policy priority over the next decade to help reduce family violence driven homelessness.

Drive investment in the primary prevention of family violence

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Allocate at least 10 per cent of the Family Violence Budget to the primary prevention of family violence
• Support the coordination of women’s health primary prevention partnership programs.

Adequate and recurrent funding for the prevention of family violence is key to stopping violence before it starts. Primary prevention is aimed at the whole community, and includes public awareness raising, education programs in schools and workplace programs. It is about challenging the attitudes and behaviours that drive family violence and violence against women to stop violence before it occurs.

As a Statutory Authority, Respect Victoria was established in 2018 to drive this work. This fulfilled recommendation 188 of the Royal Commission and delivered on commitments under recommendation 187 of the Royal Commission under the Free from Violence strategy.

Respect Victoria has been funded over four years to lead research, monitoring and evaluation to inform how violence can be prevented; build community awareness of the drivers of violence; drive uptake of best practice; collaborate with others to strengthen primary prevention infrastructure; and advocate for primary prevention policy, practice and investment.

VCOSS members are particularly complementary of the public awareness and social media campaigns that have been run by Respect Victoria, and note that the establishment of the statutory agency has lifted the profile of primary prevention. However, concerns have been raised regarding the research agenda and that there is no transparency around what research is being done or planned, creating the potential for duplication.

Currently, only 3 per cent of family violence spending is on primary prevention (2017/2018 Victorian State Budget – Family Violence). According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report, in line with other public health prevention campaigns (smoking cessation, skin cancer reduction and road safety), the estimated optimal spend on primary prevention is 9.5 – 12 per cent. In considering the current allocation of primary prevention spending, VCOSS members report concerns that a lot of funding is currently directed towards short term projects. This is inadequate for primary prevention which aims for long-term cultural change.

In particular, concerns have been raised that government has funded a plethora of disconnected projects that have not been primary prevention, but rather were early intervention or response type programs. Codesigning initiatives and approaches and building on existing infrastructure and expertise, for example through existing women’s health primary prevention regional partnerships, would help maximise use of limited resources.

Ongoing investment in primary prevention and working with the primary prevention sector (such as women’s health services) is critical to identifying the underlying causes or drivers of violence and preventing violence from happening in the first place. In particular, there are currently nine women’s health primary prevention partnership programs in Victoria however there is no funding attached to coordination. By attaching funding to a coordination function, this will facilitate the exchange of information and best practice to drive primary prevention activities.

The Orange Door

RECOMMENDATION

• Fully implement the Victorian Auditor-General Office’s nine recommendations to improve the operation of the support and safety hubs.

The purpose of the hubs outlined in the Royal Commission report is to have ‘a single, area-based intake into specialist family violence services (for both victims and perpetrators) and Integrated Family Services … to make it easier for victims to get the help they need’.
There is currently a lack of evidence about whether the hubs are improving client outcomes. This was noted in the Victorian Auditor-General report into the hubs, which was released in May 2020 and concluded that:

‘The hubs are not yet realising their full potential to improve the lives of people affected by family violence and families needing support with their children. This is because their service coordination is not yet consistently effective or efficient.

A rushed implementation schedule and a lack of detailed project planning meant FSV opened the first five hubs before they had all the infrastructure, processes or staff needed to meet demand. As a result, some people have waited months to receive support.’

VCOSS has also heard there was a backlog of clients in some of the hubs, although the drop in demand during the initial COVID-19 period has reduced this backlog.

Concerns remain about whether the hubs maintain a clear focus on assessing and responding to family violence risk, as integrating different services with different practice models continues to create challenges. This concern was picked up by the Auditor General, which noted that:

‘A key challenge for FSV has been the conflicting views of stakeholders about how hubs should operate, and the level of service integration required. For example, specialist family violence services have argued that the expanded role of child and family services in hubs has diluted the focus on women victim survivors. In contrast, child and family services practitioners consider that hubs are too focused on family violence, at the expense of child wellbeing.’

Further clarity from government on how the hubs service integration should operate in practice is still needed to address some of the complexities that arise from combining family violence and child and family reforms. For example, Family Safety Victoria training could consider covering how services should work together to deliver an integrated service.

Having state-wide consistency in how hubs work would also help ensure service users receive a similar service irrespective of which hub they attend.

One of the main risks is whether Family Safety Victoria will proceed with the current timelines to launch the remaining 12 hubs by 2022 without making the necessary changes. This concern, which is shared by the Auditor General, requires a renewed commitment from Family Safety Victoria to ensuring that the hubs deliver better outcomes for families. VCOSS was particularly concerned with the finding of the Auditor General that:

‘… there are inconsistencies in how hubs approach service coordination, information sharing and demand management. This means clients may receive a different level of service depending on the hub they access, rather than in response to their specific needs.’

Allowance for extra time to launch the hubs should also be considered given possible COVID-19 delays.

Ensuring that clients receive the same level of service that meets their needs irrespective of which hub they attend is critical to effective service delivery and cementing the hubs reputation in the community. In particular, demonstrating through evidence and by collecting the right data to demonstrate that the hubs are leading to better outcomes for clients is imperative. Detailed and realistic plans and timeframes are needed as part of preparing for the rollout of the rest of the hubs.

Building relationships between the Orange Door and local providers is also critical to the success of the reform. Having strong agreements in place for how they work together can help create continuity of care for service users.

Concerns have been raised about the number and mix of staff in the hubs. VCOSS members have noted that despite the demand, there are not enough men’s practitioners in the hubs. For example in the Mallee Orange Door there are 2 men’s practitioners compared to 6 family violence practitioners, despite the majority of perpetrators being male. This creates challenges around engaging men (which is already challenging) as well as performing additional outreach. More funding is needed to increase the number of men’s practitioners in the hubs to perform this essential work.

VCOSS is pleased to see that the Department of Health and Human Services has accepted all nine recommendations made by the Auditor-General into the hubs and believes that implementing these recommendations will have improve hub service delivery and benefit clients. These recommendations include:

1. ‘Complete detailed plans outlining how it will open remaining hubs and transition them from foundational to the full model of operations;
2. Improves statewide consistency of hub operations and practice;
3. Drawing on the experiences of the open hubs, work with hub partners to develop and run comprehensive training on coordinating service responses for clients, supplemented by other activities, such as supervision, to further develop this capability;
4. Work with local Aboriginal services and community representatives to roll out mandatory cultural safety training that is specific to hub functions and operations, for all hub staff;
5. Work with hubs to strengthen their support for children;
6. Improves monitoring and reporting on demand in hubs;
7. Finalises a performance monitoring framework for hubs;
8. Improves the client relationship management system to allow collection of data on the quality, timeliness and outcomes of hub performance; and
9. Clarifies and formalises governance arrangements.’

Children as victims in their own right and those who use violence in the home

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Invest in prevention and develop early intervention programs to minimise the negative effects of violence on children
• Support organisations to undertake evaluations to build the evidence-base
• Design evidence-based programs to better engage adolescents that use violence in the home.

Children can be exposed to family violence in the home through overhearing violence or being subjected to deliberate or accidental violence. Growing up in this type of environment can often be unpredictable, creating anxiety, worry, tension and fear about the future. Exposure to family violence can affect a child’s mental wellbeing, in particular leading to depression and low self-esteem. This can have a flow on effects to academic performance, with children experiencing learning difficulties, behavioural problems, lower school attendance and poorer academic outcomes.

A meta-analysis conducted in 2003 found that 67 per cent of children who had witnessed family violence were at greater risk of developmental and adjustment problems, impairing their academic success, cognition and mental health and wellbeing than children who had not been exposed. Where a child witnesses physical or emotional abuse this can cause significant emotional and psychological trauma. Exposure to trauma over a long period of time can result in children experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, and mental health difficulties including depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. It can also impact children’s ability to trust and form positive relationships in the future.
Children may also become caught in the middle of an assault, either intentionally or accidentally. They can become mediators or attempt to protect their younger siblings or mother. Some can feel powerless about a parent acting violently.
In the period following parental separation children are more likely to experience physical and verbal parental conflict, and witness violence. This period requires greater intervention measures to reduce the risks of violence.

Seven of the Royal Commission recommendations broadly relate to children and young people, with four categorised as relating specifically to children and young people’s experience of family violence. Investing in prevention and developing early intervention programs to minimise the negative effects of violence on children is needed.

Adolescent violence – which can occur between the ages of 12 and 18 years – involves behaving violently or abusively towards parents, carers or siblings to create fear and cause physical, emotional, psychological, financial or property damage and/or to gain power and control over another person.

Research indicates that most victims are mothers and most offenders are male. While violence is never acceptable, responses to adolescent violence should consider that they are still children and ‘consider their protection, safety and developmental needs, as well as their offending behaviour’.
Removal from the home should be a last, rather than first resort. Whilst still prioritising the safety of victims, effective interventions should focus on adolescent wellbeing and safety alongside fostering family connections and a focus on restorative justice processes and principles.

As adolescents can have difficulty separating emotions from behaviours, responses to adolescent violence should focus on building their capacity to problem solve and self-sooth so that they have the skills to deal with their emotions in a healthy, respectful and constructive way. Importantly, addressing adolescent violence is imperative to helping stop intergenerational cycles of violence.

The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare in consultation with Domestic Violence Victoria (DV Vic), is leading a state-wide research project to identify, translate and embed the best available research and practice expertise to build the evidence base in relation to adolescents who use violence in the home.

One of the early findings of this project is that while there are a number of different types of projects occurring across the state that focus on adolescents using violence, the evidence-base underpinning these projects differs. Often staff have limited expertise or capacity to undertake evaluations and their organisations lack the funding resources to obtain external independent evaluations. Better supporting organisations to implement outcomes-based measurement practices will help lift the evidence-base to identify which projects work best and with which cohorts of young people.

Supporting sector and organisational sustainability

RECOMMENDATION

• Develop a fairer indexation model to ensure community service organisations are sustainable and effective into the future.

The community sector, like many other industries, is facing new challenges and disruptions because of COVID-19. Demand is high, and services are transitioning to new service models, including telehealth and remote delivery. They are experiencing reductions in fundraising and donation income. For some, the end of JobKeeper and the uncertainty around the ongoing federal funding of the Equal Remuneration Order loom as financial cliffs. Many contracts have been extended for only three months, awaiting the delayed state budget in late 2020.

Organisations are already struggling to make ends meet. Many organisations now lack adequate funding to sustainably deliver services and plan for the future. Government funding for social service organisations has stayed at two per cent per annum over the past six years. Yet Fair Work Australia last year raised the minimum wage by three per cent, and other costs, like the increase to the superannuation guarantee, continue to rise.

This is a challenging environment for community organisations to operate in. Community organisations spend most of their budget on wages and salaries. Increased costs will inevitably lead to reductions in other areas, including service delivery and contact hours.

With low indexation rates in recent years, and increasing costs, government funding has slipped behind the true cost of delivering services. Underfunding community organisations leads to job losses and reduced support for vulnerable community members.

A fair indexation formula incorporating wage rises, the superannuation guarantee, portable long service leave and the different costs of delivering services in rural and remote areas is desperately needed to guarantee community service organisations are sustainable and effective into the future.

Tackle workforce shortages

RECOMMENDATION

• Implement new funding models that reduce reliance on short-term funding contracts and provide greater job security.

The Building from Strength: 10-Year Industry Plan for Family Violence Prevention and Response Strategy was released in December 2017. Alongside the Rolling Action Plan 2019 – 2022, which was released in 2019, this focuses on building prevention and response capability across the system; strengthening the specialist workforce; improving workforce health and wellbeing and building a system that works.

While these targeted plans will help tackle workforce shortages over time, in the short-term workforce shortages continue to be an ongoing problem for the sector. VCOSS members report that one of the driving factors behind workforce shortages is short-term funding contracts that result in fixed-term employment contracts. This includes not only funding for pilot programs, but for programs that continue to funded on a one or two year basis. For example, men’s behaviour change contracts are often short-term (or even casual/sessional workforce), which creates challenges for organisations to hold on to great facilitators.

Lower rates of pay, and disparity in pay compared to government roles such as those at the Orange Door and Family Safety Victoria also make positions difficult to recruit. Where organisations continue to lose good quality staff to other community services sectors, this means that Victoria is not building the prevention and response sector workforce that is needed.

The impact on victim-survivors and families of short-term funding should also be recognised. Where funding ends for a particular program, this can mean that the relationships services have built cease and momentum is lost. Where a program is refunded, this can create difficult conversations where workers have to go back to say “that we are open again”. This creates an increased workload for workers and also sends the wrong message to victim-survivors and families that their experiences do not matter to government.

In regional Victoria, many organisations have a substantial number of vacant positions, including family violence specialist workers, due to workforce and/or skill shortages.

One of the other challenges identified by VCOSS members include gaps in middle management roles and resources required to manage larger teams and support new qualified/or inexperienced staff to effectively meet client demand. More middle management roles are needed to support training of new staff, undertake supervision as well as support senior leadership, whose roles are increasingly taken up with stewarding reform activities and implementing large scale change.

While the recently released Family Violence Jobs Portal should help, until these broader issues around pay and job security are addressed there will continue to be workforce shortages in the sector.

MARAM and information sharing

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Deliver training in regional locations, identify champions of change and establish local communities of practice
• Increase investment in the MARAM Framework and Information Sharing Scheme to ensure non-family violence specialist organisations understand their roles and responsibilities.

Improving risk assessment and management practice is a key focus of the family violence reform work and formed part of the first three recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

In September 2019, VCOSS conducted research to gather insights into how specialist and non-specialists organisations in regional Victoria (Gippsland, The Mallee and Goulburn Valley/North East) are experiencing the MARAM and information sharing reforms on the ground (Attachment A).

Concerns were raised for example that:

• Much of the early training was conducted before the MARAM and the Scheme tools and resources were finalised
• The facilitators did not necessarily have deep industry knowledge, and as a result, the training was general in nature, and not well received
• Larger organisations, especially those with policy capability, are more advanced with embedding the Schemes into their policies, procedures and practices
• A lack of a forward schedule of training in regional areas has made it difficult for agencies to prepare their workforce and plan for this implementation in conjunction with the many other reforms underway, and
• There was overly long and complex documentation where simple, practical tools and user-friendly guides are being sought by practitioners and leaders.

There have been some positive changes reported including:

• Improved relationships and stronger collaboration within organisations is starting to occur,
• Greater safety has been achieved through information sourced and shared between organisations,
• The perpetrator is increasingly being viewed in a different light which provides greater safety for the victim, and
• In some organisations, clearer processes exist as to how to gain information where relationships did not exist.

This report contained a number of recommendations to government to help support organisations including for example, that:

• Place-based networks are best placed to drive training and workforce development needs;

o they can provide information on the sise of the workforce that requires access to particular training and based on this, the number of courses and best locations to meet demand
o they can also advertise and recruit the appropriate workforce to specific training opportunities

• Identifying champions of change in each regional area is crucial to facilitate local implementation;
• The need to provide training in regional locations that matches demand mapped by local providers; and
• Establishing local communities of practice to customise organisational policies, procedures and practices.

These recommendations are particularly important given the ongoing rollout of the MARAM to new workforces. In the second phase of the MARAM rollout, it is expected that an additional 370,000 employees will be in scope for implementation of the Framework. Continuing to financially support the rollout of the MARAM and Information Sharing Scheme training is important as these reforms represent a big cultural shift for organisations and workers to develop their understanding of family violence risk and respond appropriately.

Better support diverse communities

Culturally and linguistically diverse communities
RECOMMENDATION

• Improve data collection and conduct research on the prevalence and impacts of family, domestic and sexual violence among people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

According to the AIHW and Our Watch, there is no substantive Australian research on the prevalence and impacts of family, domestic and sexual violence in culturally and linguistically diverse communities (CALD).

In the absence of comprehensive, population-wide data, understanding the prevalence and impact of violence against women from migrant and refugee backgrounds is difficult.

A 2015 report outlining issues and perspectives specific to CALD women found that they are ‘less likely to report violence, can experience more barriers in accessing support services, and are less likely to leave a family violence situation than other Australian women’.

Some of the specific challenges facing CALD women include:

• ‘A lack of support networks.
• Socio-economic disadvantage.
• Language barriers.
• Community pressure.
• Limited knowledge about their rights and Australia’s laws.
• Cultural values and immigration status.’

For women on temporary visas experiencing family violence, they experience a unique form of circumstances and challenges. For example, some temporary visa holders are at risk of visa cancellation or visa refusal if they separate from a perpetrator or report violence to the police. They may also have difficulty accessing justice to review migration decisions through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal because of prohibitive upfront application fees. It is important that women on temporary visas who experience family violence can access specialist support services, justice and government support needed to prioritise their safety and recovery, irrespective of their migration status.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Continue to increase funding and support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander led family violence prevention and response efforts
• Review laws and policies that disproportionately criminalise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children.

Aboriginal women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised from family violence and almost 11 times more likely to be killed as a result of violent assault. But family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture and is perpetrated by both non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal people. It is driven by intergenerational trauma and the legacies of dispossession and colonisation.

Family violence not only has a devastating impact on the physical, emotional and social wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, it is also a leading contributor to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child removal, homelessness, poverty, drug and alcohol misuse and incarceration.

The significant investment in Aboriginal controlled services, like Djirra, and the development of Dhelk Dja – Safe our way: Strong culture, strong peoples, strong families agreement in October 2018 has provided a strong framework to address Aboriginal family violence in Victoria. Funding and decision-making around Aboriginal specific recommendation should continue to go to Aboriginal community controlled organisations with relevant expertise, putting self-determination into practice.

There is unfinished business in addressing the criminalisation and overpolicing of Aboriginal people, and women in particular. While the Koori Family Violence Police Protocols are now implemented in most jurisdictions, Aboriginal women continue to be overrepresented in our criminal justice system. The majority of these women are survivors of trauma, family violence and abuse. Bushfires, Climate Change and the Community Sector Roundtable.

When women are taken into custody, even for short periods on remand, the impacts can be life altering, long-term and intergenerational; disconnection from family and community, children taken into child protection, housing and employment lost. Too often, the impact of the justice system is to punish and entrench disadvantage, rather than promoting healing, support and rehabilitation.

Women with disabilities

RECOMMENDATION

• Fund the Disability Family Violence Crisis Response Initiative for three years to ensure women and children with disability experiencing family violence can access immediate, tailored support.

Due to their experience of discrimination on the basis of both their disability and gender, women with disabilities are at a greater risk of violence. Evidence suggests that women with disabilities are subject to violence and abuse at a higher rate and for longer periods than women without disabilities.

‘when compared with people without disability, people with disability are 1.8 times more likely to have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from a partner in the previous year, and 1.7 times as likely to experienced sexual violence (including assault and threats) since the age of 15.’

Women with disabilities can often experience unique forms of violence and abuse, for example threats to withdraw care or provide inappropriate care; institutional abuse; restricting access to medication, mobility and communication supports; forced sterilisation and financial abuse. Reporting violence can be challenging where a woman’s intimate partner is also her carer as this may result in her losing her support.

Women with disabilities can also experience challenges in accessing domestic and family violence services. To be accessible, ‘services must be approachable, acceptable, available, affordable and appropriate’.

The Royal Commission recognised the important role that the Disability Family Violence Crisis Response Initiative has played since its inception in 2011. This successful initiative has provided immediate crisis supports to women and children with a disability who are experiencing family violence. These supports include personal support workers; Auslan interpreters; equipment hire, mobility aids and transport costs associated with a disability. This initiative provides dedicated disability advice and liaison services to ensure that women and children who are experiencing family violence can have their disability related needs met and access immediate tailored support.

It is important to note that the Disability Family Violence Crisis Response Initiative differs from Flexible Support Packages in that it is funding to meet specific disability needs, whereas the Flexible Support Packages is designed to respond to family violence needs. Without access to this initiative, this would leave many women and children with disability seriously disadvantaged as the Flexible Support Package funding would be used quickly to meet their disability needs.

A DHHS pilot evaluation found that the program is having an ‘overwhelmingly positive’ impact on the lives of people with disabilities. However, this initiative does not have ongoing funding attached to it and is scheduled to run out by June 2020.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

Recent research conducted by Monash University on practitioners’ views on the nature of and responses to violence against women in Victoria during the COVID-19 pandemic has found an increase in the frequency and severity of violence against women, with a particular increase in first-time family violence reporting by women. Similarly, VCOSS members also report that there has been an increase in high risk cases coming through to police and crisis response agencies.

The Monash University report also found that there was less ability for women experiencing violence to seek help during the lockdown period. This correlates with reports from VCOSS members that in some regions, there was a drop off in calls for services.

In considering how people access services, it was noted that in the initial pandemic period there has been a decrease of about 5 per cent in calls from women to 1800Respect, over the same period there has been an increase of approximately 20 per cent on the 1800Respect chat line. During the pandemic, Safe Steps introduced a new online chat function to provide an alternative to calling services, recognising that women were seeking alternatives ways of accessing support. Men’sLine also reported a significant increase in men who are calling for help, concerned about their levels of stress and anxiety, and their behaviour towards partners and children.

Between March and April 2020, 14 per cent of family violence calls to Victoria Police were attributed to circumstances surrounding the coronavirus. Presentations to St Vincent’s Hospital related to family violence more than doubled in the first quarter of 2020 compared to 2019.

The courts have continued to function with urgent applications fast-tracked through the Family Courts and heard by a judge within 72 hours, the police have been responding to calls and services have generally been able to manage demand for advice, support and crisis and emergency accommodation.

For men’s referral services, the amount of police referrals is similar to pre-COVID-19 but they are seeing more new people in the system than repeat offenders. It is currently unclear if this because the ‘neighbours rang’ or if this represents a pattern of behaviour by the perpetrator.

There have been some challenges for services, for example not all staff and services had remote access or access to laptops and phones.

There have also been challenges in delivery of some services. VCOSS members report that there has been an impact on outreach services, especially because phones and digital access aren’t options for everyone and perpetrators can also monitor internet use and phone calls. On the other hand, some clients have enjoyed greater use of online and telephone contact and found services easier to access instead of having to attend in person. Staff have also had to work more creatively, with one VCOSS member reporting that she coordinated with her colleague to contact mum on the phone, while dad was engaged on the phone with her colleague.

Some men’s behaviour change programs have not been able to run group face to face sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic so this work has been put on hold. Others have been able to transfer to an online form of delivery and this has been rolled out across the state.

VCOSS members report that some staff have found working during the pandemic challenging because they are making calls in their own homes and the delineation between work and home has blurred. They have also missed the opportunity to debrief with colleagues about clients and families. Concerns remain for some staff about entering client’s homes and the risks of contracting COVID-19. On a positive note, the move to online meetings has enabled a number of rural and regional organisations to participate in meetings as they no longer need to travel.

VCOSS members report that they did not see a huge uptick in demand for housing from victim-survivors looking to leave their homes and the sector has been able to meet this through existing crisis and emergency housing and the additional $40.2 million in support announced by the Victorian Government.

As social distancing restrictions ease, it is likely that we will see an uptick in demand for services. As people are able to move around more, they may feel more confident in calling and accessing services. Further, due to the expected economic downturn over the next 12-18 months, and the end of higher rates of Commonwealth income support, including JobKeeper and JobSeeker, this is likely to place more families under stress, increasing the risks for family violence. It is essential that the Victorian Government continues to prioritise the family violence reform agenda to ensure all Victorians can live free from violence.

Keeping people at home to keep the community safe from COVID-19. That’s been the response from all levels of government to the current crisis, and it’s arguably the only rational response there is.

But for some Victorians, home is the least safe place they could be.

Anyone experiencing family violence is likely to be in greater danger at the moment. Victim-survivors are deprived of the visibility of regular social contact and the safety of any distance from their abusers – of workplaces, schools, doctors offices, even libraries or mothers groups.

How can we detect and respond to family violence in this new world?

There have been attempts to address this question, but responding to such a dangerous threat in such unprecedented conditions can be like playing whack-a-mole, unforeseen problems popping up all over the place. And the threat is only getting worse.

With that in mind, here are six questions that need to be considered if we’re going to keep all Victorians safe during the COVID-19 crisis.

Victoria has a strong history as a world leader in preventing and responding to family violence.But the health, economic and social crises around COVID-19 present a whole new scale of threat.

The family violence sector is committed to responding to this crisis. But it will take strong and coherent planning, support and resources to keep vulnerable Victorians safe.