4.1 The family violence system intervenes early to identify and respond to family violence to prevent escalation

Indicator: Increase in people receiving help and support following first disclosure

Engagement with The Orange Door network after a referral helps ensure victim survivors can get the right services they need at the earliest opportunity. With The Orange Door network bringing together workers from specialist family violence, child and family, Aboriginal and perpetrator services, victim survivors’ diverse needs can be identified and met through connecting the victim survivor with the services they need.

Measure: Number and proportion of unique family violence clients who engaged with The Orange Door network following one or more police referrals

Since 2018, there has been an increasing number of family violence clients engaging with The Orange Door network following a police referral. The steep increase was due to the progressive expansion of The Orange Door network across Victoria and increased community awareness of the supports available.

Figure 1: Family violence clients who engaged with The Orange Door network following a police referral, Victoria, 2018 to 2022

Source: The Orange Door Client Relationship Management system

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Family violence clients referred to The Orange Door following police incident	2018–19	2019–20	2020–21	2021–22
Number of family violence clients referred following a police incident who engaged with The Orange Door network	9,105	11,592	15,325	21,685
Total family violence clients referred to The Orange Door network following a police incident (excluding clients where contact was not appropriate or safe)	20,627	27,465	34,256	52,386
Proportion of total clients referred to The Orange Door network who engaged	44.1%	42.2%	44.7%	41.4%

Client roles included are 'victims/survivors' and 'perpetrators'.

About this data

Item	Description
Indicator	Increase in people receiving help and support following first disclosure
Source	The Orange Door Client Relationship Management system (CRM)
Definition	Numerator – The number of unique clients who engaged with The Orange Door network following one or more referrals from police for each financial year. Denominator – Total number of unique clients referred to The Orange Door network following one or more referrals from police for each financial year, excluding clients where contact wasn’t appropriate or safe.
Time period	Data captures four financial years, 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2016 through to 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022.
Data details	A client is regarded to have engaged with The Orange Door network if they had a case closure reason of one of the following: needs met by The Orange Door engaged with the service system service no longer required. The case closure reason ‘Service no longer required’ includes situations where the client engages and an Orange Door Network practitioner works with them, but at some point it is determined the service is no longer needed or required. The total number of family violence clients referred following a police incident excludes clients where contact by an Orange Door Network practitioner was not appropriate or safe. Specifically, clients with the following case closure reasons were removed from the denominator of this measure: case created in error client deceased contact deemed unsafe/inappropriate transferred to another area. Data includes ‘family violence cases’ based on ‘client role’ in cases in the CRM. Client roles included are ‘victims/survivors’ and ‘perpetrators’. A unique client may be counted more than once in certain situations where they have more than one case over the reporting period and their engagement with The Orange Door network differs from one case to the next. For the purposes of this measure, a unique client is deemed to have engaged with The Orange Door if they take up the offer of a service from The Orange Door at least once throughout the reference year, even if at another point throughout the year they chose not to engage. Care needs to be taken when interpreting increases in numbers overtime. Increases in numbers over time must be considered alongside the gradual opening of The Orange Door network between 2018 and 2022.
Data quality and caveats	n/a
Full / Partial / Proxy / Ideal	Full

Indicator: Decrease in people experiencing family violence who were previously in contact with services or police

Understanding the victim survivor’s pathway is critical to gauging change under this outcome. Further work is required, including data linkage, to better understand system interactions following a victim survivor’s first incident recorded by police.

Measure: Number and proportion of unique affected family members who had more than one family violence incident

In each reporting year, most affected family members have one family violence incident recorded with Victoria Police. This may reflect that these affected family members are getting the help they need and police intervention (often followed by family violence services) may be reducing the risk of future harm.

About one-quarter of affected family members were recorded with more than one family violence incident each year. The proportion of affected family members with more than one family violence incident has remained relatively stable since 2015 (between 23 and 26 per cent).

Figure 2: Affected family members who had more than one incident recorded by police within 12 months

Source: Victoria Police Law Enforcement Assistance Program data collected by Crime Statistics Agency

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Number of family violence incidents	2015–16	2016–17	2017–18	2018–19	2019–20	2020–21	2021–22
One family violence incident	41,422	41,001	40,782	43,200	44,841	46,642	45,121
More than one family violence incident	12,901	12,602	12,547	14,009	15,015	16,099	15,544
Total	54,323	53,603	53,329	57,209	59,856	62,741	60,665
Proportion of affected family members with more than one incident	23.7%	23.5%	23.5%	24.5%	25.1%	25.7%	25.6%