‘Silo-busting’ and ‘increasing collaboration’ are catch-cries of reform across social services sectors, and family violence services have led the way in developing local alliances to address service issues. However, there have often been difficulties in achieving formal integration. The Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence put this issue squarely at the heart of its recommendations, with the creation of the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework and the opening of ‘Support and Safety Hubs’ (now known as The Orange Door).
Supporting this commitment, and recognising that a significant majority of family services cases involved family violence but did not have a specialist family violence service involved, the Central Highlands Integrated Family Violence Committee (CHIFVC) and Central Highlands Family Services Alliance (CHFSA) brought together a group of agencies in the Central Highlands region – in the west of Victoria – to form the ‘Working Together Partnership,’ focussed on addressing barriers to collaboration.
The Orange Door in Central Highlands, the CHIFVC and the CHFSA, through the Working Together Partnership, have developed a ‘Combined Allocations Process.’ This allows The Orange Door, as the entry point to both sectors, to allocate a case to both Specialist Family Violence Services and Family Services simultaneously, ensuring that clients receive the benefit of a coordinated response drawing on the expertise of both service types from the first point of contact.
This Combined Allocations Process has been running for over 9 months, with a gradual increase in numbers of combined allocations and the addition of perpetrator services. It has enabled and supported the development of increased collaboration and coordination, and a less fragmented responses to clients.
This session will highlight the successes, challenges and opportunities presented by this approach, highlighting the need for long-term relationship building and planning alongside tangible and genuinely innovative responses in achieving the aim of a ‘joined-up’ service system.