Implemented
Who is leading the change
Family Safety Victoria
The Victorian Government provide dedicated funding for future perpetrator programs. These should include evaluation studies to establish longer term effectiveness and assist in improving program design in the long term.
Work is being done to develop a more coordinated and responsive approach to funding perpetrator interventions and keeping perpetrators in view in order to hold them accountable and to help change their behaviours. New models of interventions for perpetrators have and will continue to be trialled through the implementation of Recommendation 87 and under Ending Family Violence: Victoria’s 10 Plan for Change (10-Year Plan), incorporating lessons from the evaluation of the trials into future delivery.
Workforce training, sector capacity building and practice resources will also be delivered to support the implementation of new service models and improve existing services.
Since the Royal Commission into Family Violence the government has provided additional funding each year to provide:
- additional places in voluntary Men’s Behaviour Change Programs (MBCP)
- additional places in court ordered MBCPs
- case management and perpetrator brokerage as a means of expanding the range of interventions to address perpetrator behaviours and an evaluation of these initiatives
- trials of customised programs targeting specific cohorts of perpetrators for whom existing programs are not suitable and an evaluation of these initiatives
- short- and medium-term accommodation options to complement perpetrator interventions with a view to keeping victims safe and in their own homes
- programs to train additional MBCP group facilitators.
Government has allocated $96.5 million to the former Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Family Safety Victoria (FSV) between 2016-17 and 2020-21 with a further allocation of $18.3 million in the 2021-22 State budget.
Further, $40.1 million was provided to fund court-ordered MBCP places from 2019-20 through to 2024-25. The Court Mandated Counselling Order Program (CMCOP) builds on FSV’s Minimum Standards for MBCPs and includes enhanced service delivery for perpetrators and affected family members.
In addition, the government has funded the Department of Justice and Community Safety to deliver MBCPs and case management to perpetrators in Corrections Victoria. Funding provided from the state budget and the Family Violence Perpetrator Intervention Grants has also allowed for the implementation of targeted interventions to perpetrators in Corrections Victoria, including programs for male perpetrators in prison, women in prison who use violence in the context of family violence and Aboriginal men who are perpetrators of family violence.
Implemented.
Updated