Legal assistance priority area

• Victoria Legal Aid is implementing and has had an initial evaluation of the Specialist Family Violence Courts legal practice model. This forms part of the Specialist Family Violence Courts implementation at Shepparton, Ballarat, Moorabbin, Heidelberg and Frankston Magistrates’ Courts. Victoria Legal Aid is working with local groups and committees at each site to embed and refine the model’s processes.
• A pilot of Victoria Legal Aid’s Information and Referral Officer role is in place at the Specialist Family Violence Courts in Shepparton, Ballarat and Moorabbin. This has aided service delivery, especially during COVID-19 restriction periods. A priority phone line has also been created under the model. This phone line accepts calls from professionals servicing the Frankston and Heidelberg Specialist Family Violence Courts.
• The Pre-Court Engagement and Resolution Pilot provides early legal assistance to family violence intervention order parties and, where appropriate, supports the resolution of family violence intervention order matters prior to the court date. Court users may also be referred to other services, such as court family violence practitioners, including specialist LGBTIQ+ and Umalek Balit practitioners, and interpreters. The pilot commenced at Frankston Magistrates’ Court in April 2020. A further $7.75 million was provided by the Victorian Government in the 2020–21 state budget to service seven Magistrates’ Court locations at Broadmeadows, Dandenong, Melbourne, Sunshine, Ringwood, Werribee and the Latrobe Valley.
• A pilot is being developed to connect clients of The Orange Door network with legal services that meet their needs in a timely manner. This will also ensure effective connections with family violence and/or family services through The Orange Door network.

• We have commenced a review and assessment of COVID-19 pre-court legal assistance initiatives implemented by the courts. These included providing information and referrals earlier and electronically. The remote service delivery and enhanced audiovisual link technology access initiative has continued to expand. This complements the Specialist Family Violence Courts model.
• We are undertaking a review of the legal assistance recommendations from the Positive interventions for perpetrators of adolescent violence in the home report, completed by the Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety and Centre for Innovative Justice.
• Delivery of Safer Families has commenced. This professional development program supports community legal centre lawyers to provide high-quality, effective advice and representation to clients experiencing family violence. Discussions with Women's Legal Service to explore how the Safer Families Program can be expanded or uplifted are in train.

• The Royal Women's Hospital has implemented the Acting on the Warning Signs Project as part of the Health Justice Partnership movement in Australia. The initiative offers free legal assistance to inpatients and outpatients and is delivered on-site (the lawyer being located within the hospital). The program focuses on removing some of the barriers women may face when seeking legal advice such as cost and access. Participants in the program reported that ‘receiving legal advice had a positive impact upon their psychological and emotional health immediately during or after the consultation’.

Activities delivered under this priority area have played an important role in keeping victim survivors safe, especially during periods of COVID-19 restrictions. The shift to online accessibility and other adaptations to the legal system help improve victim survivors’ safety by moving towards online and remote service delivery. This is a tangible outcome for victim survivors, who do not need to worry about engaging with or seeing the perpetrator.

The delivery of legal assistance activities will keep perpetrators accountable and further support victim survivors’ safety by improving access to legal support and representation. The Pre-Court Engagement and Resolution Pilot identifies and refers respondents to family violence intervention order matters to legal assistance. It also refers them to family violence practitioners to provide non-legal information, support and referrals. This supports perpetrators to be accountable for their actions.

We are changing the legal system to better support victim survivors and build consistency of understanding and approach across legal services and other areas of the sector. This supports a family violence system that is integrated, person centred and responsive. Activities in this priority area will help integrate legal assistance across the broader family violence system. As victim survivors and perpetrators interact with the family violence system at various points access to legal assistance is also needed at various points. The development of the pilot to embed legal services in The Orange Door network is one approach that could support capability building within the sector and increase the ability of the system to intervene earlier to identify and respond to family violence.