Page 2203 - Week 06 - Thursday, 6 June 2019
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fourth year of the initial safer families funding. These original commitments have helped to improve capacity and the integration of necessary supports and services for individuals experiencing domestic and family violence.
The implementation of the safer families package funding also increased resources and capacity for front-line services to meet the increasing demand they were experiencing. This allowed trusted and local specialist domestic and family violence support services, the Domestic Violence Crisis Service and the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre, to expand their support to Canberrans. In addition to increasing the capacity of front-line services, the first phase of the safer families package has given us the opportunity to test new approaches to responding to domestic and family violence. The Domestic Violence Crisis Service was funded to establish Room4Change, a therapeutic residential men’s behaviour change program.
Room4Change is an important new program for the ACT, as it has the capacity to support the whole family. It is one of a small number of residential behaviour change programs nationally. Room4Change helps men make their own lives better by stopping their use of violence and assisting them to explore what is important for them and their current and future relationships. The program also supports the partners and children to stay safely in the home while men are engaged in the six-month therapeutic program which includes group work and one-on-one case management as well as accommodation.
Room4Change is being independently evaluated, but it is already showing important short-term successes. Since the program began in April 2017, data shows that 48 men have engaged in the program and 21 were accommodated; 30 men have successfully completed the program; and 41 partners and/or ex-partners have accepted partner support, with the support flowing onto their children. There were 94 children in the families supported by Room4Change.
As at 6 May this year, other promising signs are that no men who participated in the program were incarcerated for a domestic and family violence offence; no women were required to leave their home due to domestic and family violence; and child and youth protective services have not been required to support any children receiving support via Room4Change. In the first phase of safer families, the government committed $964,000 over four years to establish the program. From 2019-20 the government will commit to an additional $4.243 million over four years to fund the Room4Change program, allowing for a full evaluation of this program after two years and ongoing service delivery.
In 2016 the role of the Coordinator-General for Family Safety was established to provide strategic leadership and drive whole-of-government collaboration and coordination in our response to domestic and family violence. The coordinator-general works across government and with the community to develop new policy, services and approaches that address emerging problems and strengthen our capability to address domestic and family violence.
The coordinator-general and her office have led the development of a comprehensive training strategy to build capability across the ACT public service. The strategy will
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