Page 1907 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 June 2021
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of domestic and family violence, but when the risk of serious harm is high, we need systems and services to work together to keep families safe.
The ACT government is committed to a new approach to domestic and family violence. In addition to funding existing front-line services, the government has committed to trialling new ideas, service supports and new or improved services to find what works for the ACT.
The Family Safety Hub is key to the delivery of this process. The hub has led the delivery of the ACT’s health justice partnerships, upskilling the community sector to recognise and respond to financial abuse, undertaking consultations with young people experiencing family violence, and identifying the ideas and initiatives that are emerging from that consultation.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Family Safety Hub delivered a targeted campaign to make sure that those in need knew that services were operating during the pandemic. Through digital, social and print media, the message was clear: help is available; domestic and family violence services are open; and if you need to leave an unsafe situation, COVID-19 restrictions do not apply.
Just over two years ago we introduced a new service to the ACT. Three health justice partnerships are providing a unique style of wraparound care and early intervention for people that are at greater risk of domestic and family violence, pregnant women, and new parents. The health and legal care provided through the partnerships is timely, trusted and accessible. Help is available when and where it is needed.
For many of the partnership clients, it has been this ease of access that has meant they have been able to get help. The majority of partnership clients have never sought help from a lawyer before, yet they have an average of four legal issues each. The most common of these issues relates to domestic and family violence. The partnerships have become an important service in the healthcare system. The integration of legal services with health care recognises the interaction between health problems and legal issues, particularly how detrimental domestic and family violence can be on mental health.
Most importantly, the health justice partnerships are helping women find safety. Partnership lawyers are representing victim-survivors in court and helping them to seek family violence orders to exclude the perpetrator from their home, manage child custody and support issues, find emergency housing or financial support, and understand visa issues more.
When face-to-face consultations became impossible during COVID-19, the partnerships continued operating, with people meeting with clients on the phone and online and even seeking family violence orders over the phone. As the pandemic progressed, our emergency department saw an increase in the presentation of serious physical injuries caused by incidents of domestic and family violence. We extended the health justice partnership into the emergency department to provide immediate legal assistance to these very vulnerable clients.
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