Evidence Based Reform in Victoria, Australia

Safety and Accountability in Families: Evidence and Research (SAFER) aims to understand how Family Violence Reforms are impacting the safety and wellbeing of women and children, and the responsibility of men who use violence in Victoria, Australia.

This project is a collaboration between a team of interdisciplinary researchers based at the University of Melbourne and Monash University, and four Victorian State Government departments; Planning and Community Development, Planning, Human Services and Victorian Police. The program encompasses two streams of research, exploring the perspectives of women, children and men, and identifying and evaluating the governance, pathways and collaborative processes in place to reduce the effects of family violence in Victoria.  There is a strong applied focus, to provide evidence  for policy and practice.

Key questions for the project are:

• How can reform create a system that enables the woman to safely remove herself from violence?
• How can reform engender a system response that is more consistent and powerful than the man's abuse and control of the woman?
• How can reform lead to a system which ensures that women and children are safe and men are held accountable and responsible?

Perspectives of women will be explored under the Safe at Home project. Safe at Home will examine women’s experiences and the decisions they make about how to remain safe from family violence in the home. The pathway of children through the family violence system will also be examined. The Men Who Use Violence project will explore how the integrated family violence service system challenges men who use violence against women and how this impacts on the safety of women and children. 

The Governance and Pathways stream of the research will identify a model for monitoring how the family violence system works and examine the translation of Victorian Government policy into service delivery practice in local communities. This stream of the research will examine the extent of integration within the system and identify inter-agency collaborations and effectiveness of service delivery at a range of levels. Throughout all project streams, the effectiveness of service delivery pathways will be assessed.

This research is funded by the Australian Research Council under the Linkage Project Grants scheme, with matched financial contribution and in-kind support from partners Monash University, Victoria Police, Department of Human Services, Department of Justice and the Department of Planning and Community Development.

Contact:Professor Cathy Humphreys, Alfred Felton Chair in Child and Family Welfare, Social Work at Melbourne, The University of Melbourne, cathy.humphreys@unimelb.edu.au

Project manager – Louise Stockfeldlouise.stockfeld@unimelb.edu.au

You can see a power point overview of the SAFER program online here. 

Reports from the Victoria Family Violence Reforms:

'Strengthening Partnerships and Service Integration in an Enhanced Local Response to Family Violence:  Northern Crisis and Advocacy Response Service (CARS)' is the evaluation of a new pilot crisis and advocacy response service which was established to provide a 24 hour face to face crisis service to women experiencing family violence. 

CARS was developed by a network of service providers to enhance the integration of the family violence service system and to provide better counselling, information, support and advocacy. 

The aims of the research were to document changes in multi-agency working relationships in an integrated crisis response service and to examine the service providers’ evaluation of the change. The research also aimed to identify some of the outcomes for women of the service reorientation.

You can read the evaluation 'Early Findings from the Establishment of the Northern Crisis and Advocacy Response Service (CARS)' by Marion Frere et al here. 

You can read more about the background to the Victorian Family Violence Reforms via the Northern Intergrated Family Violence Services website here. 

You can read:  Building the Evidence: A report on the status of policy and practice in responding to violence against women with disabilities in Victoria, July 2008.

You can read: Frere, M et al. A Whole of Government Strategy for Family Violence Reform. Australian Journal of Public Administration, Volume 70, Issue 2, June 2011 here.   

You can read more about SAFER via the McCaughey Centre website here.

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