Page 4199 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 24 October 2018

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(e) these impacts are frequently compounded by unstable living arrangements as a result of fleeing the violence, leading to disruptions in home life, school, relationships with friends, and relationships with primary caregivers;

(f) the effects of domestic and family violence on culturally and linguistically diverse children can be further compounded by cultural and linguistic barriers as well as by discrimination and racism; and

(g) research suggests that children affected by domestic and family violence are more likely to become victims of domestic and family violence as adults and may also be at increased risk of perpetrating such violence;

(2) further notes that:

(a) the Domestic Violence Prevention Council (DVPC) recently released a report to the ACT Government summarising its second extraordinary meeting, held on 4 April 2018;

(b) this report acknowledges that “children witnessing and experiencing family and domestic violence have special needs, in addition to the needs of the adults around them”;

(c) this report finds that children affected by domestic and family violence “are often “invisible” in the ACT’s domestic and family violence system”;

(d) the DVPC is optimistic that improved results “could be accelerated across the ACT”, in part as a consequence of “work already underway”;

(e) the DVPC report recommends action in five priority areas;

(f) the ACT Government has already begun responding to the first recommendation by committing $100 000 to assist the Coordinator General for Family Safety and the Children and Young People Commissioner in designing appropriate mechanisms for consulting children and young people to better understand their needs;

(g) this report further finds that “the full extent and impacts of the problem are not yet clear, due to limitations in ACT approaches to identifying clients and capturing case data”;

(h) robust data are necessary to inform domestic and family violence strategies for children and young people, including by identifying “unmet need”;

(i) the DVCP therefore recommends “that the ACT Government improve on the ACT’s use of data to inform strategies for children and young people”;

(j) the DVCP report notes that the ACT has already agreed to the National Data Collection and Reporting Framework, which will accomplish this end but will not be operational until 2022; and

(k) the DVCP report strongly suggests that much of the infrastructure and many of the resources necessary to accomplish this collection and use of data are already in place now; and

(3) calls on the ACT Government to:


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