Thanks, Michael, for that introduction, and I would like to thank Berry Street, The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, and VACCA for partnering with us, Safe and Equal, on this forum today. Particular thanks to Berry Street for all the logistics and arrangements to get us here.
I’d like to thank Uncle Colin for his Welcome to Country. I too wish to acknowledge that we are all meeting here on unceded Wurundjeri land and pay my respect to elders past and present and acknowledge any First Nations people joining us here today, including Aunty Muriel, Kalina Morgan-Whyman and our other Aboriginal colleagues in the room. This always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.
I’d also like to recognise all victim survivors, including those here today and those who are sadly no longer with us. It is for you all that we do this work.
My name is Tania Farha, and I am the CEO of Safe and Equal, Victoria’s peak body for specialist family violence services that provide support to victim survivors. I’m proud to also say that we have recently moved to open our full membership to specialist organisiations working across the continuum from primary prevention to recovery, and I look forward to strengthening our role as a peak advocating with and for the family violence sector as a whole.
Thank you to Minister Ward for being here with us today. And whilst we have met one on one, I haven’t had a chance to welcome you to the role publicly and say that we in the family violence sector are really looking forward to working with you. We certainly welcome the Victorian Government’s new strategic narrative “Strong Foundations,” and consultation on the third and final Family Violence Action Plan, as announced this morning. Listening to you this morning, Minister, I think I can safely say we are in sync on the way forward – but also on the challenges we have in front of us. I know you are committed to working with us in the sector to get to where we need to be by collecting the right data, agreeing on the right outcomes and making sure we have the right investment to truly prevent and respond to family violence in the best way possible.
Over the last 8 years in Victoria, it has truly been a time like no other for our sector. We’ve seen unprecedented reforms and investment in Victoria’s family violence system and primary prevention, as a result of the 227 recommendations that came from the Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2016.
The Minister has spent some time talking about the incredible reform agenda we’ve seen in the last eight years; and whilst I will touch on a few key points, I really want to talk about what we as a sector think we need to prioritise right now to ensure our system is inclusive and accessible and can respond appropriately to all people who experience family violence, but also work towards a future where this violence no longer occurs. I’m pleased to see the focus on this in the Strategic Narrative.
In 2016, the Royal Commission released its final report, including 227 recommendations that provided Victoria with a detailed roadmap for achieving long-term systemic change in the family violence system.
Significantly, the Victorian Government committed to implementing all the recommendations, originally investing $2.7 billion to support this. We have, of course, seen nearly $1 billion more since then. There’s no overstating the importance of government support – particularly from the then Premier, Daniel Andrews – to implement these recommendations.
In part, the reform of the service system in Victoria post-Royal Commission has been driven by the need to focus on:
- lived experiences of family violence and how the system can meet victim survivor needs;
- intersectionality, cultural safety and meeting the needs of different communities; and
- self-determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
And whilst there has been a strong focus on all of these elements, with Dhelk Dja being one of the most significant outcomes of the reforms, we still have a way to go in mainstream services to ensure our responses are supporting and allying with the self-determined actions and outcomes of Dhelk Dja and Closing the Gap. That will be a strong focus for us moving forward, working with colleagues and Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.
We must make sure we have a system that can respond to everyone and, where necessary, have specialist services that can not only respond to those most complex cases, but work with the broader sector to build the capability and understanding required to ensure culturally responsible service.
We have made some advances with the inclusion of lived experience of family violence into policy making, system building and continuous improvement – but we are not there yet! We need to continue our journey by bringing together the expertise of our survivor advocates, the lived experience of our own workforce and the many views of the victim survivors who use and navigate the system, so we can really understand what good client outcomes mean for them.
We have also seen significant progress in working with clients with disability through the family violence disability practice leads, with funding for eight of these positions now provided to continue building capability across the sector.
We have made some way with access and inclusion for LGBTIQ+ communities and we are working with advocates, including from the trans community, to make sure that our services are appropriate and safe for them.
We have also made some progress with multicultural communities through the Working Together partnerships, but we still really need to focus efforts for these communities. We need to make sure we can reach and respond to multicultural communities in a way that does not put undue and unfair pressure on grassroots organisations to provide the support they most need. I am looking forward to talking and working with the Minister more about this in the coming year.
One of the most significant reforms that came out of the Royal Commission’s recommendations was the review and re-development of Victoria’s Common Risk Assessment Framework.
The outcome of this has become what is now known as the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework, or MARAM – and has really driven the shared understanding we now have across the service system, of how we assess risk, ensure safety, and make sure survivors’ needs are met.
We must continue our investment in this critical part of the reforms. MARAM and the information sharing schemes are the gel that enable the system to connect and ensure line of sight of the victim survivor’s experience. They are also the foundation of the capability that sits at the heart of family violence practice.
But we still have some way to go. By mid-next year, we will see the introduction of a MARAM tool dedicated to the risk, safety and needs of children and young people. This will be an important lever for us to build the capability we need across the specialist family violence system. It is also a fantastic opportunity for us to work closely with our colleagues from child and family services to make sure we are all responding to children and young people in the way they need it, regardless of their entry point into the system. We will be hearing from young people today and a bit more from Deb, but I think it is safe to say we have heard time and time again from them that they want responses that meet their particular needs and recognise them as survivors in their own right. We also know that we must include them in any efforts to prevent this violence from happening in the first place.
Addressing this is absolutely a priority moving forward – and I am pleased to see the focus on children and young people is a key priority in Victoria’s strategic narrative, including tailored prevention and early intervention efforts.
Now that the Orange Door network is fully rolled out, and with many other innovations taking place, it is time to focus on integrating all the components- that is, the Orange Doors and the partner services – into a streamlined system. This is where the hard work starts. It is great having the components but if they are not working harmoniously together, then victim survivors will not see the benefit of this significant reform.
So, what do we need for this? We need quality data across all parts of the system: data that can be connected to tell the story of what is happening, where we can see both client outcomes and system outcomes, and the gaps where things aren’t working so well.
We also need to make sure that all parts of the system have the sustainable funding and resources they need to do the job and to invest in and retain the workforce the system needs. We as a sector need to continue building the evidence base to demonstrate what sustainable investment is, and what it is delivering.
We also need to make sure we have the relationships in place to work together. We must – particularly specialist family violence services, services for people using violence, and child and family services – recognise and respect our individual roles and expertise, but also work together for the benefit of those who need us.
In order to do this, we must continue to build our workforce to meet the requirements and demand of the system. We must make sure our workforce skills and capability match the roles being performed in the system; and that individual members of the workforce see themselves as part of the broader system. We know people are attracted to this work because of their passion, but we need to make sure we have diverse entry pathways, means of building skills and capability, good and targeted supervision, mentorship and ongoing professional development, to deliver the services that are required. We must invest in them.
I am really pleased to see that Recommendation 209 (the mandatory minimum qualifications required for family violence workers) is being reviewed to ensure it is achievable and relevant for those wanting to enter the system. This must be accompanied by a focus from us in the family violence system to be clear on jobs, roles and functions that are required, and making sure these are fit-for-purpose.
We also need to ensure we are building and supporting the workforce in primary prevention. This is, of course, a very different workforce: one that has specialisation at its core but is also focused on spreading and embedding prevention across the state in a variety of locations, organisations, settings and communities. We need a better view of the diversity of primary prevention work being undertaken in a range of sectors that contribute collectively to addressing the gendered drivers of violence, and the overlapping drivers such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, and so on. This will allow a stronger collective view of the entire prevention system, and where and how our efforts are best targeted.
The prevention workforce has distinct needs in terms of professional development, mentoring and peer support – which I’m pleased to say Safe and Equal continues to provide, alongside others, through our Partners in Prevention network. I look forward to contributing to stronger visibility and understanding of primary prevention work and the inspiring people doing it, as Safe and Equal continues to grow its role in this space.
In terms of prevention, we know that this is long-term work, changing minds and attitudes on a large scale. The new National Plan commits to generational change – but we must back this with funding and action. While attitudes are generally slowly going in the right direction, it isn’t fast enough – and backlash and resistance means we’re even going backwards in some areas (most worryingly amongst young people). We need long-term core funding for key sector organisations, and programmatic funding to sustain and build on what we’ve done and what we’ve learned works. Sustainable funding is vital to ensure what is already a skilled and knowledgeable workforce can sustain and grow its work – and the relationships that are so important for primary prevention work can be built and maintained. I welcome the focus on prevention in the new strategic narrative, and, as a peak with membership across the continuum, I hope that Safe and Equal will now play a critical role in implementing the specific actions in the forthcoming Industry RAP, as well as shaping what comes next in the third and final Rolling Action Plan.
Speaking of the National Plan, this is an important part of the work we will do in Victoria moving forward. I know the Commissioner, Micaela Cronin, will be talking about her priorities and the national commitments, so I will leave that to her – but I just want to say, we need state and commonwealth governments working closely together on this. We have already seen the tragedy of at least 53 women – one more just yesterday – and countless children significantly impacted by violence (in fact, there is no count for children yet) across the country this year – and it is not even the end of the year. We know that violence increases over the festive season – last year, we saw 10 deaths leading up to the end of year break. This is only what we know by informal counts – there is likely to be so many more deaths that are not counted, including suicides, which haven’t even been taken into consideration. This is a crisis; I have no doubt of that. And in any crisis, we need state and territory governments to work together. It was good to see the Prime Minister announce a commitment to formally count family violence deaths recently, but we need more that that – we need investment and support from the commonwealth to end this violence.
You cannot speak of good outcomes without mentioning crisis accommodation and housing in family violence. We need to ensure we can accommodate women in crisis accommodation that is fit-for-purpose and where we can start the journey of working closely with all survivors to ensure positive outcomes. Motels will not give clients what they need, or access to the services they require, we know that. But we must find a way to reduce our reliance on them and invest money where we need it most. Without access to housing, and without income and economic security, it is nearly impossible for a victim survivor to safely leave a violent relationship and rebuild their life. The result is that many victim survivors face an impossible choice: escape the violence and face being homeless or remain in an abusive home.
We know the Minister for Housing, Harriet Shing, is keen to work closely with us and Minister Ward to address this issue. We also know that the Victorian Government continues to negotiate with the commonwealth to make sure Victoria gets it fair share – and we will do what we can to support you. This is not an easy issue to solve, but we must continue to prioritise housing for those who need it most. We must also find a way to keep victim survivors in their own home safely – whether this is immediately after an incident, or after they have received the refuge and help they need – it must a priority. We spoke about this at the recent conference on homelessness hosted by CHP, a key ally in this work.
Looking to the future, I am hopeful and optimistic. We already have done so much. We have experienced a significant period of intensive reform, and now is really the time to consolidate and get our system functioning so it can meet the needs of every person who comes to us. We also need to increase our efforts in early intervention and primary prevention to make sure violence does not manifest, escalate or indeed happen at all. I look forward to working with the Minister and all of you here today to make that happen.
I’d now like to hand over to Deb Tsorbaris from the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, with whom we work with closely, who will dive a little deeper into how we can best work together to support children and young people moving forward.
Thank you.
