For many family violence organisations, they routinely provide their data to various government agencies, but they rarely receive it back except reflecting a statewide view. This poses difficulties for Victorian Family Violence Regional Integration Committees, given they are specifically designed to provide system leadership to the family violence system within a particular region. Understanding the demands, capacities and efficiencies of the system, rather than individual agencies, is essential.
The DataPRESS is an innovative response to a lack of access to local data for local purposes. In 2018, the Central Highlands Integrated Family Violence Committee (CHIFVC) joined with Ballarat Health Services and Federation University to develop a ‘portal’ designed to capture and reflect back data about and related to family violence in Central Highlands, a region in the west of Victoria.
The DataPRESS offers:
• A better understanding of the communities CHIFVC engages and serves;
• An understanding of the impact CHIFVC and other local initiatives are having;
• Evidence of how well the service system is responding to family violence in Central Highlands (including consideration of diverse communities);
• Improved system and service planning, including identification of ‘hotspots’ etc;
• Clarity regarding the interplay between demand and capacity across time; and
• Improved, evidence-based advocacy.
The DataPRESS is designed to bring together publicly available data sources, local service data provided by CHIFVC members, and a range of tools designed to visualise, understand and contextualise the data. It has transformed the CHIFVC’s understanding of the region, the family violence system and the community make-up, building data capacity and the evidence base to support decision-making, prioritisation and advocacy in the work of strengthening the regional response to family violence.