Safe + Equal CEO Tania Farha published a piece in Council to Homeless Persons’ Parity: “Poverty and Homelessness” October 2023 Edition. The op-ed explores how financial security and safe, accessible housing contribute to a victim survivor’s journey to recovery from family violence. Financial security and safe, accessible housing are two of the most critical pillars in the journey to recovery from family violence. Without them, victim survivors often find themselves trapped, unable to safely escape their perpetrator and rebuild their lives without risking poverty and homelessness.
Workers will have access to 10 days of paid Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) leave as new laws come into effect February 1.
As the Albanese government’s first change in workplace laws, all workers in businesses with 15 or more employees will have access to 10 days of leave starting February 1, regardless of whether they work full-time, part-time or casually. For businesses with fewer than 15 employees, the same 10-day leave entitlement will start on 1 August 2023. Employees will continue to be entitled to 5 days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave until they can access the new paid entitlement.
There are also rules in place to keep workers’ information private, as FDV leave isn’t allowed to be included on an employee’s pay slip.
Click here to read full article
Click here for more information from Fair Work
In 2022, the Centre for Innovative Justice (CIJ) at RMIT University was contracted by Family Safety Victoria to contribute to the development of a MARAM Practice Guidance regarding Adolescents Using Family Violence.
In the context of this project, the term ‘Adolescents Using Family Violence’ (AFV) was scoped to incorporate young people using violence or harm across a range of personal relationships, both within their family of origin, wider family networks and intimate relationships.
Similarly, the term was also scoped to include harmful sexual behaviour, which is otherwise generally addressed as a standalone issue within the literature, given that it requires a particularly specialised response.
As part of this project, the CIJ was asked to conduct a review of the applicable evidence base. The relevant evidence base is necessarily broad, given the spectrum of behaviour and relationship contexts contemplated within the project’s focus.
Click here to read the recently released research paper from RMIT, on the effects of the MARAM practice tool in relation to adolescents.
Domestic abusers will be barred from repeatedly dragging their victims through courts and a legal presumption of shared parenting responsibilities will be scrapped in what domestic violence campaigners say will prevent partners from weaponising the courts against their families.
An exposure draft of family law amendments released by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus aims to put children’s welfare at the heart of legal decisions by replacing complex factors judges need to consider with streamlined principles surrounding the child’s best interests.
Courts will be given a new power to restrain someone from persistently filing family law applications against a partner if it is likely to cause them harm.
Once this order is in place, further applications would first be assessed to ensure that they are not “vexatious, frivolous or an abuse of proceedings”.
To read full article, click here
As the Victorian Government announced the acquittal of all recommendations from 2016’s Royal Commission into Family Violence, we reflect on the landmark achievements and progress made in the past seven years and set our sights forward on the continued commitment and investment required to realise the Royal Commission’s vision: a Victoria free from family violence.
Since the Royal Commission published its 227 recommendations in March 2016, we have seen unprecedented investment into Victoria’s family violence system.
Based on a robust and comprehensive evidence base, the Royal Commission’s findings and recommendations cemented Victoria as a world leader in the prioritisation of eliminating family and gender-based violence. It provided the Victorian government, specialist family violence sector and the broader community a once in a lifetime opportunity to fundamentally change the way we respond to family violence and improve the safety and wellbeing of all victim survivors.
To read the full article, click here
On 29 August 2022 a media release by the Victorian Government announced the Social Services Jobs Guarantee for Diploma of Community Services graduates with the objective of supporting the workforce pipeline across community services roles, including the specialist family violence sector.
With specialist family violence practitioner roles making up the vast majority of vacancies in the sector, it is important to understand how organisations can take advantage of the Jobs Guarantee for these roles.
Employers who take advantage of this program to advertise roles may be able to access up to $20,000 per FTE of funding to support them in employing graduates.
Click here to view Jobs Guarantee Program Guidelines
Click here for more information
Transforming responses to intimate partner and sexual violence: Listening to the voices of victims, perpetrators and services.
This large-scale national project (the “Voices” study) captures the experiences and perspectives of victims and survivors, people who use violence, and service providers. By building an understanding of help-seeking journeys, this project has addressed a gap in the evidence base which has previously been limited to discrete contexts of help-seeking, such as emergency departments, primary healthcare providers and the court system.
The broader view of the help-seeking journey in this study informs service design and policy responses across service systems. The study was a collaboration between the Safer Families Centre for Research Excellence at the University of Melbourne and ANROWS.
EDVOS, an acronym for Eastern Domestic Violence Outreach Service has served the community since 1994. As society and our community has changed over time, so too has EDVOS. In response to those societal changes, major reform and policy leadership in Victoria and an evolving level of understanding and expectations of family violence and gender inequity, EDVOS recognised an opportunity to refocus their brand and identity towards the future.
The team arrived at their new name, FVREE and identity through a process of consultation with stakeholders, staff and victim survivors. This video provides a snapshot of some context.
FVREE still provide the same support services in the same way and more recently through the Orange Door. Their new web address is www.fvree.org.au and their contact numbers remain unchanged.
Survivors of family violence are often left with limited housing options once they leave the relationship. PCLC have seen many examples of women settling for less than half the joint property value where assets are held only in the name of their partner and the women are unaware of their legal rights over the property. At least 5% of our family law clients in the past year came to us with evidence of property ownership, but none were able to retain this post financial settlement and were often forced into seeking social housing.
Through a pilot program completed earlier this year, PCLC assisted women affected by family violence to access a more equitable share of assets. During the pilot, a total of 43 women were assisted, with 20 receiving ongoing support and a monetary benefit of $1,177,673 resulting in significant financial stability to the families involved. While PCLC is continuing to provide legal assistance to a small number of women with small pool property claims, at present we only have limited ability to assist.
PCLC is advocating for additional funding for legal and financial planning support for women who have survived family violence and are in the process of financial separation. PCLC is also advocating that the federal government makes good on a pre-election promise to establish a shared equity scheme to help people on moderate incomes to secure home loans with the government taking a stake in the property, and that these women be targeted as priority beneficiaries.
In October, Peninsula Community Legal Centre commenced providing legal services at Frankston Orange Door, the Victorian government family violence services hub. The demand for legal assistance for victim survivors of family violence has continued to rise due to an increase in the rate of family violence and significant backlogs of family violence matters in the Magistrates Court as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Victorian Federation of Community Legal Centres is advocating for community legal services to be embedded in the Orange Door network across the state to meet this rising demand.