The Orange Door, the brand name for the Support and Safety Hubs, was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Family Violence. It is designed to provide a visible, and more accessible way for people to get help and support for family violence and family services.
As a key entry point into the system, The Orange Door assesses and manages risk and connects people to services including crisis responses as needed. This report is an important milestone. It is not just a presentation of service delivery data, it is an important first step in building the evidence of how new reforms are working together in practice to improve safety.
Workers in the Orange Door have more access to information than ever before, following changes to legislation, which allows information relevant to family violence risk to be shared between organisations to better identify and manage family violence risk and to promote the wellbeing and safety of children.
This ability to share information is complemented by a new system wide practice approach that enables the most contemporary and evidence-informed practice and tools to support professionals, including recognising unique risk to children and young people.
The Orange Door provides choice for how people want to access services, including a physical location which has been designed with victim survivors, to be accessible to all Victorians and is inviting, warm and child friendly.
People can walk in, call or be referred by another agency to one of the Orange Door services currently operating in five DHHS regions of Barwon, Bayside Peninsula, Inner Gippsland, North East Melbourne Area and Mallee. There are additional access points for Orange Door services in Swan Hill and Colac.
The data in this report is for the first five Orange Door sites and will be used to inform the establishment of the remainder of the 17 sites which will be operational across Victoria by 2022.
The report specifically focuses on how people are accessing the Orange Door, how the Orange Door prioritises need and how people and families are supported. Key highlights include:
- In its first full year of operation, The Orange Door provided a response to 51,157 people, including 19,655 children, ranging from identification of key issues and safety risks to being provided with an immediate crisis response or connected to services.
- The Orange Door plays a pivotal role in connecting people to service responses, including to family violence and child and family services, perpetrator services or Aboriginal services.
- Workers in The Orange Door have greater access to critical information that strengthens risk assessment and management.
This service delivery data is able to provide us with a better understanding of the demand for different types of services in The Orange Door. This will help us to better direct efforts where they are needed. Over time, this data will assist us to build an understanding of statewide levels of demand for services for the first time. It will contribute to a system level view across The Orange Door and the broader service network that will show us how earlier intervention can prevent demand in the broader system and shows the collective impact of service responses on prevention, earlier intervention and safety. This is the beginning of a process of understanding the bigger picture, and alongside work to capture and learn from client experiences of the Orange Door, we are building the evidence to continue to increase opportunities to keep people and children safe.
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