Family Violence Risk Assessment and Risk Management Framework

The following was received from the Victorian Department of Health - Mental Health, Drugs and Regions Division:

The Family Violence Risk Assessment and Risk Management Framework is a key aspect of the integrated family violence reforms. This simple tool is designed to help professional and practitioners working in a range of fields (community services, courts, health sector) to identify risk factors associated with family violence and respond appropriately to people experiencing family violence.

The framework was developed in extensive consultation with specialists in the field and builds upon international and national evidence. An initial statewide training program on the framework was delivered throughout 2009 and it is now being utilised by family violence services and a wide range of agencies and service sectors including housing and homelessness, Maternal Child and Health Nurses, court registrars, police officers, Child Protection and disability workers.

The Victorian Government is providing a second program of fully funded training sessions to all regions across the state throughout May and June 2010. These sessions are for agencies and sectors that may not have accessed the previous training, and to meet some of the existing demand in sectors already using the framework.

The training session on Preliminary Risk Assessment is designed for professionals who work in mainstream services and may encounter and work with people experiencing family violence. The session covers:

• a shared understanding of family violence (including its impact);
• how to use the risk assessment tool to assess for presence of evidence-based risk factors;
• the safety planning process; and
• information sharing and effective referral within the integrated family violence system.

The training is being delivered by Swinburne University and the Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria in partnership with No To Violence. Together these organisations have extensive specialist knowledge and understanding, a high level of training expertise and are key stakeholders in the family violence reforms in Victoria.

Further information on the training sessions, the training schedule and enrolment procedures, can be found here.

Limited training sessions are being offered for a two month period from the end of April to the end of June 2010. Given the high level of demand we encourage you to visit the website and, if you wish to attend training, to enrol as soon as possible. Further information on regional sessions can be obtained from the organisations listed on the training website.