Workforce development priority area

• The Best Practice Education Model for accredited primary prevention and family violence training delivery was completed in July 2021. The model outlines the relationship between vocational competency, assessment methods, and professional development. It was informed by extensive consultation with Vocational Education and Training, Family Violence and Aboriginal cultural experts, as well as disability, LGBTIQ+, CALD stakeholders and unions. The model supports trainers and TAFEs to deliver accredited family violence prevention and response training. It also builds trainer capability to increase the number of trainers across the vocational education and training sector.
• MARAM supports workers across the service system to better understand their responsibilities to undertake identification, risk assessment and management. It has been introduced through the tertiary education system. Providers are encouraged to offer delivery models that recognise the training needs of different workforces.
• MARAM guidance for professionals working with adults using family violence was released in July 2021, and course development and delivery has commenced.
• The Building Family Violence Evaluation Capacity Project began in 2018. It has established a centralised whole of department evaluation function to support Department of Justice and Community Safety business units to undertake family violence evaluations. It has been extended to June 2024. Benefits include:
  • evaluations are initiated and completed within faster time frames
  • enhanced quality and consistency of family violence evaluations
  • a robust evidence base for understanding broader, whole of DJCS reform impacts
  • reduction of the siloed nature of family violence evaluation initiatives.
• The health and wellbeing of our workforce is a key priority. We will continue to ensure we understand their perspectives. We will keep their health, safety and wellbeing in focus by:
  • conducting a workforce census every two years. The 2019–20 census identified three target audiences. These are the specialist family violence response workforce, primary prevention of family violence workforce, and the broader workforce that intersects with family violence. The census provides many insights. These include what activities staff are engaged in, how well supported they feel, stressors they face in their work environment, and their motivations for working in the sector. This information is used to inform the development and implementation of training, recruitment and wellbeing programs and policies.
  • developing a Family violence workforce health, safety and wellbeing guide, based on the PERMAH (Positive Emotions, Engagement Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment and Health) model of wellbeing.

The focus on upskilling the broader workforce will support the changing conversation within Victoria of our understanding of family violence and all forms of violence against women. This will help to shift the understanding and attitudes of the broader community. Work over this period has set the scene for a more strategic approach to building sustainable workforce capacity and capability specifically for primary prevention. This is in specialist prevention roles and across a wide range of contributing workforces.

Specialised training, clear policies, procedures and tools equip the workforce to be able to better support victim survivors. Training for the MARAM Framework is supporting a shift in the understanding and management of risk assessments. It also supports better information sharing and embedding an intersectional approach into service delivery. Having more Victorians trained in assessing the potential risks of family violence supports early intervention. This better serves victim survivors by preventing the escalation of family violence.

Specialised training will support implementation of guidance for professionals working with adults using family violence. This is an important step towards a more consistent and collaborative practice across departments and agencies to identify, assess and manage risk. Increasing the workforce’s awareness and knowledge will in turn lead to more informed and targeted interventions. This will help to manage risk more effectively and support behaviour change. Improving the coordination of interventions across services will support the system, workforce and individuals to hold perpetrators to account. This includes encouraging perpetrators to take responsibility for their choice to use violence, including the impact on their children.

Our focus on developing our workforce is key to delivering on the outcome ‘family violence and broader workforce across the system are skilled, capable and reflect the communities they serve’. The 2019–20 workforce census indicates the activities being delivered are supporting the upskilling and capability of the workforce. More than 50 per cent of respondents (for specialist family violence services and primary prevention) feel very or extremely confident in their level of training and experience to complete their role.