Together, Ending family violence: Victoria’s plan for change and the Roadmap for reform outline a reform vision that ultimately aims to ensure that all people experiencing family violence or risks to child safety and wellbeing receive the help they need.
Across the family violence and family services reform agendas, a range of activities are contributing to addressing the demand challenges in the system:
- significant additional investment in the family violence and family services systems ($572 million in the 2016–17 State Budget and $1.91 billion in the 2017–18 State Budget)
- prioritising primary prevention, which will stop family violence before it starts and lead to reduced demand for services in the long term
- strengthening capacity and embedding a shared responsibility for identifying and responding to family violence and families in need of support with the care, wellbeing and development of children and young people across universal and secondary services, through the embedding of the MARAM Framework, and reforms in the Children and Families service system
Demand for family violence and family support services will continue to increase for the medium term as greater awareness leads more people to disclose issues and seek support. Establishing The Orange Door offers a unique opportunity to reform the system to support greater efficiency in service delivery through the view of overall system demand and capacity and its role in helping to coordinate and organise system responses.
The Orange Door aims to help the service system move from managing demand to meeting demand.
The service model was designed with a view to addressing key demand pressures within the service system. The Orange Door helps to improve service system flow by:
- offering early intervention responses that prevent escalation
- streamlining processes (for example, effective assessment and planning makes service allocation swifter, more successful and less costly)
- providing readily accessible information, advice and targeted interventions to enable clients to support self-management and reduce the need for more intensive support
- reducing duplication within the system (through centralised intake, information and service allocation)
- providing more effective interventions that prevent recidivism, and monitoring outcomes to help identify what interventions are effective
- fostering a culture of continuous improvement in processes and practice
- building partnerships and collective responsibility for the service system and client outcomes in each area through collaboration and coordination of effort
The Orange Door has an important role to play in system coordination and oversight to help project and plan for demand.
The Orange Door and core services are required to report on the number of clients, service allocations and capacity to support a shared understanding of demand across The Orange Door and core services. FSV will collect and analyse this data to build a clear picture of demand drivers, blockages and gaps across the system. Information will be used to inform reporting that is shared with the Hubs Leadership Groups in local areas.
FSV continues to develop system supports to assist with managing demand. These will help to build a shared understanding of and commitment to:
- flexibility and commitment to applying demand-management strategies, including the requirement to adopt multiple strategies
- open and transparent decision making within a respectful environment where demand management is a collective responsibility
- building internal capability in problem solving, data analysis and service flow improvement methods
- where necessary, contingency arrangements so that appropriate trigger points and management strategies are agreed before demand pressures emerge
This system oversight capability will facilitate greater transparency and will enable FSV, The Orange Door and services to work together to institute timely and effective solutions when blockages, gaps and demand pressures emerge.
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