Family Safety Hub
Responsible government
- Australian Capital Territory
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.
- 19 Build the evidence base to inform responses to domestic, family and sexual violence by strengthening the focus on what works to reduce violence, improving data and supporting the Fourth Action Plan priorities.
What are we doing?
The ACT Government is providing $1.591 million plus indexation annually to continue delivering the Family Safety Hub. The Family Safety Hub takes an innovative approach to designing domestic violence services and supports. The Family Safety Hub brings together people with lived experience, community organisations, crisis services and government to co-design, develop and test new ideas to meet the needs of those affected by domestic and family violence. For more information about the work being led by the Family Safety Hub, please visit their webpage.
What have we achieved so far?
Since the launch of the Family Safety Hub on 11 May 2018, the Hub has focused on several priority areas:
- Early support for pregnant women and parents – because this is a time when violence is more likely to occur
- establishing Health Justice Partnerships in healthcare settings to provide free and confidential legal advice for pregnant women and new parents. Following a successful pilot, this is now embedded in the ACT service system (see Health Justice Partnership).
- Avoiding housing and financial crisis – because domestic violence contributes to homelessness
- piloting a successful program to upskill community service frontline workers to better recognise financial abuse and to make appropriate referrals to support services.
- Supporting our children and young people – because their voices are not heard when services and supports are designed and delivered
- consulting directly with young people who have experienced family violence (in partnership with the ACT Children and Young People Commissioner) and developing the Now You Have Heard Us, What Will You Do? resources
- leading a co-design process to design solutions for young people, with the community sector and young people themselves.
- Keeping people connected and supported during COVID-19 – because isolation exacerbates violence
- promoting services through multiple channels to help people recognise the signs of domestic and family violence and seek help.
- Supporting a new framework to deliver an integrated system response to domestic and family violence in the ACT. The framework is informing strategic direction of the ACT’s response to domestic and family violence.
The Family Safety Hub continues to design, develop and test new ideas for services and supports that can meet the needs of people affected by domestic and family violence.
What is next?
A key focus for the Family Safety Hub in 2021 is on developing new responses for children and young people who experience domestic and family violence, so they receive support that meets their unique needs separately to the needs of their parents. This includes working with sector partners to design and test training for the youth sector, to improve its ability to recognise and respond to domestic and family violence.
What difference will we make?
The Family Safety Hub uses a human-centred approach to co-design and co-produce new ideas and pilots that are tested to make a tangible difference and provide better support, earlier. The pilots are tested and evaluated to identify opportunities for improvement and identify those that can become a permanent part of the service response in the ACT.
Our aim is to:
- create new or improved pathways to safety that better meet the needs of the community
- promote integration and cohesion across the system
- build capability across the system
- foster shared understanding of domestic violence and its impacts.