Safe at Home
Responsible government
- Tasmania
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?
Safe at Home is the Tasmanian Government’s integrated, whole of government criminal justice response to family violence. Under Safe at Home, a range of services work together to protect and support victim-survivors of family violence (including children and young people) while making offenders responsible for their behaviours. Safe at Home responds to all reported incidents of family violence. The Safe at Home service system is underpinned by the Family Violence Act 2004 (Tas) and operates in partnership with multiple Tasmanian Government agencies.
- The 2018-19 Tasmanian State Budget allocated $1.5 million over two years to extend Safe at Home services due to significant increases in demand.
What have we achieved so far?
The Safe at Home service system continues to respond to all reported incidents of family violence and family arguments. The service system is designed to contribute to the safety of adult and child victims of family violence and mitigate against the risk that a perpetrator will repeat or escalate their violence by coordinating an integrated service response that is proactive, timely, holistic and effective.
In November 2019, the Safe at Home program won a Gold Award in the Australian Crime Prevention Awards in recognition for its response to family violence. The annual Awards recognise and reward good practice in the prevention or reduction of violence and other types of crime in Australia. The Awards are managed by the Australian Institute of Criminology and play a vital role in highlighting effective community-based initiatives to prevent crime and violence, before it occurs.
Safe at Home services received additional funding through the Tasmanian Government’s $2.7 million COVID-19 family violence package. This funding has enabled services to continue operations throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and in some instances to expand existing services.
The Safe at Home Coordination Unit received a portion of this additional funding for an additional Senior Policy Officer role for a 12-month period, enabling them to better support the whole Safe at Home system through policy development, research and evaluation.
Safe at Home received further funding in 2021-22 to maintain increased operational capacity to 30 June 2022.
What is next?
Safe at Home will continue to work with its partners and the broader family violence service system in Tasmania to enhance the safety of adults and children experiencing family violence and hold perpetrators accountable for their behaviour.
What difference will we make?
The intended outcomes of Safe at Home are:
- Improve the safety and security for adult and child victim-survivors of family violence in the short and long term;
- Ensure that offenders are held accountable for family violence as a public crime and change their offending behaviour;
- Reduce the incidence and severity of family violence in the longer term; and
- Minimise the negative impacts of contact with the criminal justice system on adult and child victims.