Additional initiatives

Additional initiatives such as the Family Violence Sexual Assault Traineeships Program and the Family Violence Rural and Regional Social Work Graduate Program are working toward creating sustainable pipelines into sectors. These pipelines will encourage prospective family violence and sexual assault workers to take up roles in areas that need them the most.

Family Violence and Sexual Assault Traineeships Program

In November last year, the Victorian Government invested $8.1 million over 3 years to build the family violence and sexual assault workforce, supporting the coordination of up to 240 traineeships across the state. The Family Violence and Sexual Assault Traineeships Program will support several outcomes of Strengthening the Foundations: First Rolling Action Plan 2019–22, including addressing current workforce supply challenges in the family violence sector, as well as the need to build a sustainable pipeline for the future with clear pathways into the sector for students and workers from other sectors.

It will provide opportunities to support about 240 people to commence their journey to becoming a sexual assault or specialist family violence response practitioner through gaining a vocational education and training (VET) accredited qualification and work experience in a workforce intersecting with family violence and/or sexual assault.

The program aims to:

• support organisations to increase the number of trainees within their organisations and provide additional assistance for people undertaking traineeships
• increase the capacity and capability of organisations to maintain traineeships after the program funding lapses by equipping the sector with the skills to recruit and train new workers
• identify common skills and knowledge for new workers to build pathway opportunities across the family violence and sexual assault sectors
• target young people (18–25), people from Aboriginal communities, multicultural communities, older people and those who have been impacted by COVID-19.

The Centre for Workforce Excellence (CWE) is in the early scoping stages of this project and is currently liaising with the government departments and critical stakeholders to discuss and scope potential options for the traineeships program.

Family Violence Rural and Regional Social Work Graduate Program

The Rural and Regional Social Work Graduate Program will provide a pathway for new and recent graduates into the family violence sector by providing additional training, professional development, supervision and mentoring support.

Advertising for the program commenced in May 2021 as part of the broader Attraction and Recruitment Campaign and social work graduates will be invited to attend a virtual Career Insights event next month to learn more about the program and what it is like to work in the family violence sector.

Key components of the program include:

• Monthly Communities of Practice sessions, focusing on contemporary family violence issues
• Additional training and wellbeing supports provided to each graduate through their employer agency
• Reduced caseload for new workers to allow them time to attend training, professional development, supervision and mentoring.

Opportunities to get involved

To ensure that agencies can maximise the impact of the upcoming Attraction and Recruitment Campaign advertising, agencies should consider advertising any vacant positions using the Family Violence Jobs Portal. Agencies are also encouraged to share the campaign messaging and communications widely on their own social media channels to further promote the campaign and the sector more broadly.

We would like to hear your feedback on the Health, Safety and Wellbeing Guide, as well as actions that you’re currently undertaking within your workplace that are working well. Please get in touch by emailing the Family Safety Victoria Centre for Workforce Excellence at cwe@familysafety.vic.gov.au.