Working together to address domestic and family violence
The challenge
To improve the way services work cooperatively to assist women and children living with – and separating from – domestic and family violence.
Who we worked with
What we did
Together with The University of Melbourne, we conducted what we believe to be the first ever scoping review of evidence on how specialist domestic violence services, child protection agencies and family law services collaborate.
This work was part of a broader ANROWS initiative called the PATRICIA project (Pathways And Research In Collaborative Inter-Agency working). The project is gathering evidence on the best ways to achieve cross-sector collaboration to address the women and children’s safety and wellbeing.
Our ‘State of Knowledge’ review identified 24 different models of how agencies were working together. It found agencies undertake a range of processes to promote interagency working with child protection services. These include establishing formal agreements for working together and sharing information.
The review recommended further rigorous evaluation to determine the impact of agencies working together.
The result
The issues the review identified were used to inform the development of a national practice framework for interagency working. This applied to the way specialist domestic and family violence services, child protection services and family law services collaborated.
Learn more
- Read the State of Knowledge report
- Read the scoping review
- Discover more about the PATRICIA project
- Find out about our work in knowledge synthesis