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Seeking help in their own right: Examining how Victorian young people access help when escaping family violence

In Australia, at the national and state level, there is increasing acknowledgement of the need to better respond to young people as victim-survivors of family violence in their own right. The recently released National Plan to end Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 embeds this acknowledgement, and there have been calls at the state and national level to ensure that early intervention and system responses are reformed to ensure age-appropriate and child-centred practices.

Despite the high prevalence of family violence experienced by children and young people in Victoria, little is known about how different points of the service system intersect to respond to children as victim- survivors in their own right.

Project aims and design

Focusing specifically on young people’s experiences of accessing supports at the point of crisis, this project aims to:

  1. Map existing services available for, and accessed by young people when escaping family violence,
  2. Build the evidence base on young people’s experiences of accessing crisis supports in Victoria, to be mapped from the perspective of the young people interviewed.
  3. Better understand what is needed to improve the capacity of the family violence service system to meet the needs of young people experiencing and escaping family violence.

    Where possible, the project will consider how the support needs and experiences of accessing services may differ among young people from a range of backgrounds and communities, including for young people with disability, who identify as LGBTIQA+, First Nations young people, and for young people from regional and rural communities, and culturally and racially diverse communities.

    For this project, data will be collected across three stages:

    While the data collected for this project will be Victorian specific, the findings will have policy and practice relevance for all Australian states and territories.

    Project Team

    Project Lead

    Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon

    Researcher

    Dr Rebecca Stewart

    Project Advisory Group

    This project is supported by an expert advisory group. Members of the project advisory group include:

    • Tracy Adams (CEO, yourtown)
    • Rosie Batty AO (Family Violence Prevention Advocate, Australian of the Year 2015)
    • Liana Buchanan (Victorian Commissioner for Children and Young People)
    • Assistant Commissioner Lauren Callaway (Family Violence Command, Victoria Police)
    • Conor Pall (Advocate and Author)
    • Chelsea Tobin(CEO Safe Steps)

    Project Funding

    This project is funded by Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre.