Central Information Point
Responsible government
- Victoria
Fourth Action Plan actions
- Improve support and service system responses
- 17 Collaborate across services, sectors and workforces to ensure responses to women affected by domestic, family and sexual violence are coordinated, meet women’s needs, avoid women having to retell their story and promote their recovery.
What are we doing?
The Central Information Point (CIP) is a unique and targeted cross government information sharing service to improve access to risk-relevant information to support victim survivors, and keep those who use violence in view and more accountable for their actions. The CIP consolidates critical information about a perpetrator or alleged perpetrator of family violence into a single report for frontline workers to assist with family violence risk assessment and management. This allows frontline workers to make more informed assessment of family violence risk, identify safety needs and enable more tailored service response to keep victims safe. Information provided through the CIP also allows victim survivors to be more empowered to make decisions about their safety and increases accountability of perpetrators for their decisions and actions.
- The Victorian Government committed $89.5 million in the 2017-18 Budget to establish the CIP and improve critical government information systems to support more timely and effective information sharing capabilities.
- The Victorian Government 2020-21 Budget allocated $7.928 million (Source: Budget Paper 3 2020-21, p. 64, p. 78) for the continued operation and enhancement of the CIP. This funding supports service delivery and enables system efficiencies, through partial automation of data sharing, to continue.
What have we achieved so far?
- Since service commenced in April 2018, the Central Information Point (CIP) has provided over 11,400 CIP reports to support frontline practitioners in family violence risk assessment and management, including safety planning.
- The CIP is currently available to The Orange Door Network, as it rolls out across the state. In late 2020, the CIP was also made available to five Risk Assessment and Management Panels (RAMPs). All RAMP areas will have access to the CIP by June 2022.
- The CIP continues to have a significant impact on family violence risk assessment and management planning and allows frontline practitioners to be more informed about risk, act more quickly, tailor service responses and focus safety planning. The CIP has become a critical practice tool for The Orange Door and RAMPs to access timely and consolidated information to support and facilitate service response, including proactive responses with victim survivors and perpetrators of family violence.
- In particular, The Orange Door has found value in receiving information in a way that shows a perpetrator/alleged perpetrator’s pattern and history of family violence, supports and validates a victim survivor’s story or experience, and empowers decision-making and self-determination for victim survivors.
What is next?
- The CIP will continue to be delivered to The Orange Door Network, across the established areas and those that are scheduled to commence as part of state-wide rollout. Service delivery to RAMPs will also continue.
- System integration work will also continue to support automated data flow between the CIP and partner agency systems (police, courts, corrections and child protection) to increase the efficiencies of the CIP operating model. The integration of these systems will allow for the secure flow of information to reduce manual data entry processes and better allow the CIP to scale up to meet demand and increase capacity to expand its service to more specialist family violence services.
- Ensuring that the CIP operating model is sustainable to meet ongoing and future demand will remain a strategic priority.
What difference will we make?
The CIP contributes to the National Outcomes that services meet the needs of women and their children experiencing violence and that perpetrators stop their violence and are held to account.
Frontline practitioners have identified the following benefits of the CIP:
- effective sharing of information keeps victim survivors safe
- practitioners gather risk information quickly
- providing previously unknown information about perpetrator risk
- enhancing risk assessment and supporting victim-survivors to make more informed decisions about their safety
- strengthening cross-agency information sharing and collaboration and integrated service responses.
In a survey of CIP requesters, 72 per cent of practitioners responding to the survey said that the CIP changed their risk assessment level, and 100 per cent of respondents said that the CIP report was either useful, significant or essential (2019-20 MARAM annual report). The CIP also empowers victim survivors to make more informed decisions about their safety.
The Victorian Family Violence Outcomes Framework was published in Ending Family Violence: Victoria’s Plan for Change, which outlined Victoria’s priorities in preventing and responding to family violence, why they matter, and what constitutes success. The Victorian Family Violence Outcomes Framework is a whole of Government framework and is intended to ensure Victorian family violence reform efforts are focused on the actions that make a difference. The Victorian Government is progressing development of the framework, including through indicators and measures. In time, measurement and monitoring of Victorian family violence outcomes may also support reporting for the National Plan.