‘Best-practice’ legal services helping to reduce family violence risk in Victoria

Published:: Sunday 24 November 2024 at 10:15 pm

An evaluation of the legal services set up to support Victoria’s first five specialist family violence courts demonstrates the important role holistic legal assistance plays in addressing gender-based violence in Australia.

The state government provides specific funding for the trauma-informed and collaborative model of legal services at the Shepparton, Ballarat, Moorabbin, Frankston and Heidelberg specialist family violence courts.

The services are provided by Victoria Legal Aid (VLA) and community legal centres who hope to extend the model to all specialist family violence courts across the state.

A final evaluation by the Centre for Innovative Justice (CIJ) has found the legal services:

are in line with international best practice for trauma-informed and client-focused family violence legal services
help to address people’s non-legal needs which can increase risk if left unaddressed
contribute to improved safety by connecting people to specialist support and legal assistance which can facilitate increased compliance with orders.

‘The evaluation demonstrates that legal services with a holistic approach have a key role to play in improving the safety of women and children in Australia who are experiencing family violence,’ said our Associate Director Family Violence, Sharika Jeyakumar.

‘Specialist family violence courts reduce the traumatisation of victim survivors trying to navigate the complexities of the courts, and support safer and fairer outcomes in family violence matters,’ said Federation of Community Legal Centres CEO Louisa Gibbs.

‘This evaluation provides evidence of the effectiveness of legal services at these courts, and of their immense value as an integral part of the family violence prevention and response system.’

Learning from lived experience

Despite the significant disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic to the project, and ongoing high demand at the courts, the model shows the benefit of designing services with the input of people who need them.

‘From the outset we knew listening to and acting on the input of people with a lived experience of family violence would be crucial to meeting their needs,’ said Sharika.

‘The evaluation shows the combination of legal and non-legal roles we created, alongside extra training and resources, has led to high-quality services, which are focused on people’s individual needs.’

‘The evaluation shows the importance of linking people with assistance that can address their legal and non-legal needs at the same time, ensuring that contact with the legal process can function as a positive intervention,’ said CIJ Associate Director of Research, Advocacy and Policy Elena Campbell.

A collaborative model

Under the model, VLA and community legal centre lawyers provide duty lawyer services to applicants and respondents in family violence intervention order matters. At the same time, non-legal support staff are on hand to provide information, referrals to other services like housing, counselling or behaviour change programs, and a practical and compassionate approach to demystify the court process.

‘The information and referral officers at the courts and VLA’s network of Aboriginal community engagement officers have been highly valuable, particularly for respondents who may not have previously engaged with any support services,’ said Sharika.

Providing services to people who use family violence is an important step in increasing accountability for their actions, changing behaviour and preventing breaches of intervention orders.

‘Evidence shows that providing family violence informed legal assistance, as well as connection with services that address non-legal needs such as housing, can help to reduce risk by increasing understanding, accountability and compliance,’ said Elena.

We worked closely with the Federation of Community Legal Centres and the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria in designing the legal services model.

‘Through working with victim survivors of family violence, community legal centres understand the critical importance of trauma-informed, comprehensive and specialist legal assistance for people trying to escape unsafe situations,’ said Louisa.

13 Magistrates’ Courts in Victoria have now been designated as specialist family violence courts, but the funding provided for legal services is not consistent at all locations.

Victoria Legal Aid and the Federation continue to advocate for sustainable and ongoing funding to extend this successful model of legal services to all regions in Victoria, as well as another program of pre-court engagement, which provides early access to information and advice in family violence legal matters.