Page 464 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 23 March 2022
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shows that a skilled and appropriate intervention from a service provider, or someone the perpetrator respects in their immediate community, can result in a turning point in their behaviour. As a community, as a service sector and as a government, we must make perpetrator behaviour visible. This means never allowing excuses for violence and never holding a victim survivor responsible for addressing the violence.
The ACT government is committed to testing new approaches that can address domestic and family violence in our community. For 18 months the ACT government has been trialling a new service to support our highest risk cases of domestic and family violence—the Family Violence Safety Action Pilot. The safety action pilot is focused on ensuring the safety of victim survivors and putting in place actions that will help to achieve this. It is the only service of its type in the ACT.
The safety action pilot brings together government and non-government agencies to participate in safety planning for victim survivors and responding to perpetrators. It is led by the Victims of Crime Commission, with the Domestic Violence Crisis Service and the Office of the Coordinator-General for Family Safety. Other partner agencies are eight other government and non-government agencies, which all have an important role to play in activating the safety plan. It is this collaboration that contributes to an integrated response, where multiple agencies and services work together to prioritise the safety of victim survivors and the accountability of perpetrators.
The safety action pilot was established in July 2020 and began taking referrals in November 2020. In the 15 months to January this year, the service has already supported 189 cases. These are the highest risk, the most likely to result in serious injury or even death. The safety action pilot team are highly skilled domestic and family violence experts. Together with partner agencies, they put in place strategies to manage the risk to victim survivors from the person using violence. Each case is unique, and each response is different. The safety action pilot is a complex service response and a best practice example of how to manage the highest risk cases of domestic and family violence.
While the safety action pilot provides extensive support to women and children victim survivors, it is unique in the ACT in how it responds to those who are perpetrating the violence. Within the team is a perpetrator response adviser, who works specifically to coordinate perpetrator-focused agencies and services, to increase information sharing and to support and improve how services interact with perpetrators of family and domestic violence.
I would like to share the experience of just one of the clients that the safety action pilot has supported in the last 18 months. Cases are generally supported for 12 weeks, until the risk is assessed as being reduced. One such case is the story of Alice. Alice’s ex-partner was in custody on charges unrelated to his abuse of her. She was referred to the safety action pilot by a service provider because he was about to be released. When he was released, he began to leave Alice voicemails threatening her with violence. He came to Alice’s home and threatened to break her door and damage her car. He called her up to 20 times a day and left serious threatening voicemails every day.
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