Specialist Family Violence Advisor program in mental health and alcohol and other drug services Victoria

The Specialist Family Violence Advisor capacity building program in mental health and alcohol and other drug services Victoria – guidelines provide guidance for Specialist Family Violence Advisor service delivery across Victoria within the mental health and alcohol and drug sectors. The guidelines support consistent state-wide delivery of the program, describe responsibilities, clarify activities, and confirm reporting requirements.

Background

The Royal Commission into Family Violence 2016made 227 recommendations to improve the way authorities, systems, and services prevent, identify, and respond to family violence in Victoria. The Royal Commission highlighted the need to enhance the way health and human services work together to ensure victim survivors are supported and people who use family violence are visible and held accountable. The Royal Commission found alcohol and other drug services and mental health services play a direct role in identifying and responding to family violence. Therefore, building capacity was needed in these sectors to enable this and to strengthen relationships with specialist family violence services.

Specialist Family Violence Advisor positions were developed in response to recommendations 98 and 99 of the Royal Commission into Family Violence 2016:

Recommendation 98

The Victorian Government fund the establishment of specialist family violence advisor positions to be located in major mental health and drug and alcohol services. The advisors’ expertise should be available to practitioners in these sectors across Victoria.

For more information, see Establish specialist family violence advisers in major mental health, drug and alcohol services

Recommendation 99

The Victorian Government encourage and facilitate mental health, drug and alcohol and family violence services to collaborate by:

• resourcing and promoting shared casework models
• ensuring that mental health and drug and alcohol services are represented on Risk Assessment and Management Panels and other multi-agency risk management models at the local level.

For more information, see Increased collaboration between mental health, drug and alcohol and family violence services

The Victorian Government funded establishment of the Specialist Family Violence Advisor (SFVA) positions across 17 areas in 2017. The ongoing positions are auspiced by mental health and alcohol and other drug service providers. SFVAs embed family violence expertise within the alcohol and other drug and mental health sectors, support continuous improvement, lead system and practice change, and build sector capacity and capability to identify, assess, and respond to family violence.

In October 2021 guidelines were developed by the Department of Health in conjunction with the SFVA state-wide steering committee, SFVAs, Family Safety Victoria. The department revised and updated the guidelines in June 2024 to reflect changes to the program and governance arrangements.