Page 3306 - Week 11 - Thursday, 11 November 2021
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lawyers into healthcare settings where they can reach people experiencing domestic and family violence who would otherwise not have safe access to receive such help.
Importantly, the budget also included $249,000 for 2021-22 to continue the effective and innovative Family Safety Action Pilot, which supports high-risk families experiencing domestic and family violence by sharing information to identify, assess and manage risk. It also provides case management, case coordination and support for individuals and families.
The new investment in 2021-22 also includes an initial $388,000 over two years to scope and design community-led responses to address the trauma and harm from domestic and family violence for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. This will support implementation of the We don’t shoot our wounded… recommendations.
The budget also provides $940,000 over four years to continue the Support for Women and Children to Leave Violence initiative, which provides $2,000 to eligible people to support them to sustain or re-establish a family home in the private market following the experience of family violence. This initiative will also scope options around access to housing that is affordable, long term and safe for people, and particularly women, who are leaving.
The ACT government has provided ongoing funding to the Domestic Violence Crisis Service to deliver Room4Change, a therapeutic residential men’s behaviour change program. Room4Change supports the whole family and is one of a small number of residential behaviour-change programs in Australia.
The ACT government has also made significant investments in upskilling its workforce in domestic and family violence responses. Dedicated training programs have been developed and delivered to operational staff and these remain a core training requirement for those on our front line.
In 2019-20 the government committed $2.48 million over four years to deliver domestic and family violence training for all ACT public servants, supporting the ongoing development of our skilled workforce and ensuring they are better equipped to recognise and respond to the needs of people experiencing domestic and family violence.
The ACT government continues to actively participate in the establishment and implementation of the national child protection information sharing system Connect 4 Safety. Since early 2016 there has been a significant increase in the volume of child concern reporting, and the 2017-18 budget committed $2½ million a year to establish two additional frontline casework teams in response to the increase in child concern reports.
Child and Youth Protection Services—CYPS—has also established co-location and liaison relationships with OneLink, Education and Health to improve referral protocols and information sharing, and is improving the transparency of
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