Update on government Family and Sexual Violence work programme announces new team

The latest government family and sexual violence work programme update announced that a new multi-agency team has been established to coordinate and drive the work programme.

The multi-agency team is made up of officials drawn from the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Social Development, Department of Corrections and New Zealand Police.

Government agencies will continue to deliver many aspects of the work programme individually, with the overarching strategy coordinated through this team:

"Bringing together the various agencies under one team reflects the need for a joined up and integrated response to family and sexual violence, by Crown agencies and across the sector. As the work programme has progressed we have found it increasingly important to ensure that all the connections between the work are being made at every level. The multi-agency team is an efficient and effective way to achieve that."

In addition, public consultation has been completed on the Family Violence, Sexual Violence and Violence within Whānau Workforce Capability Framework. The next steps involve working through the feedback and testing the framework at the Integrated Safety Response (ISR) sites.

Work has continued on finalising the Family Violence Risk Assessment and Management Framework after consultation. The workgroup is currently developing practice guidance, tools and training materials for frontline staff and organisations. The intention is to develop three sets of generic practice guidance and resources for generalist, statutory and specialist workforce levels identified in the Framework. The Ministry of Justice is currently working with general practitioners (GPs), family lawyers, financial capability services and Whānau Ora providers. Consultation and guidance for specialist service providers will also be part of their work over the coming year.

The announcement also recapped recent progress and updates including:

• Ministerial Family Violence Summit scheduled for 7 June 2017 in Wellington
• Introduction of the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill in Parliament
• Launch of the pilot of supervised handover service for children
• Consultation currently open on the development of sexual violence crisis support services and the new national sexual violence helpline.

For more information see the full Ministry of Justice April update. Also see the previous NZFVC stories:

Further update on cross-government work programme on family and sexual violence, January 2017

Consultation open on family, whānau and sexual violence workforce capability framework, December 2016

Update on Ministerial Group on Family and Sexual Violence work programme, August 2016

Stay up to date

To receive email updates on the Family and Sexual Violence Work Programme, email familyandsexualviolence@justice.govt.nz.

Other Government agencies are providing regular updates on service developments and reforms. You can subscribe to these regular updates by email. Send a request to the email addresses below to sign-up:

Development of sexual violence services, Ministry of Social Development: CI_Sexual_Violence_Services@msd.govt.nz 

Sexual Violence Prevention, Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC): SVPrevention@acc.co.nz

Integrated Safety Response (ISR) pilot, NZ Police: ISR@police.govt.nz

Related media

Unanimous support for family violence Bill, Press Release: NZ Government, 11.04.2017