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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-11-26 Daily Xml
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FAMILY SAFETY FRAMEWORK

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:05): On the same topic, Mr President, I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question regarding the family safety framework.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: The South Australian government works tirelessly to ensure that services to families most at risk of violence are available through the family safety framework. My question to the minister is: can the minister update the chamber about the family safety framework initiative?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (15:05): I thank the honourable member for his question. It is incredibly timely, considering the last question, and in answering this question it gives me an opportunity to outline in more detail some of the work that we have achieved in relation to the family safety framework.

A Right to Safety, the second phase of our women's safety strategy, is led by a chief executives group and chaired by me. This group includes the chief executives of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Attorney-General's Department, Correctional Services, Health and Ageing, Communities and Social Inclusion, and Education and Child Development. The Commissioner of Police, and the Executive Director, Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, are also members of this group. So, you can see it has significant cross-agency support.

Since its inception in 2011, the group has worked on numerous initiatives that tackle violence against women, from early intervention work through to community education. One such project has been the implementation of the family safety framework. The family safety framework is an initiative that seeks to ensure that the services to families most at risk of violence are dealt with in a more structured and systematic way through agencies sharing information about high-risk families and taking responsibility for supporting these families to navigate the services that are available to them—they are often quite complex, Mr President.

The family safety framework includes family safety meetings, held at the local level, focusing on individual high-risk cases and common risk assessment, to ensure consistency in the assessment of high-risk cases. Initially trialled at Holden Hill, Noarlunga and Port Augusta policing boundaries in 2007, on 21 November, a family safety framework meeting was held in Victor Harbor for the Kangaroo Island and Fleurieu Peninsula region.

As I stated, I am extremely pleased to be able to announce that, with that meeting, we have now completed a statewide rollout of our family safety framework. Every region of South Australia now has a family safety framework network implemented and in place. The model has been so successful that it has gone beyond state borders and has also been implemented in Alice Springs, with family safety meetings commencing there in July 2012.

The South Australian Office for Women provided support and training to the Northern Territory Department of Justice and a range of agencies involved in this work in Alice Springs, and I certainly congratulate them on their work and their leadership. This collaborative work with the Northern Territory supports the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. The national plan sets out a key objective of improving cross-jurisdictional mechanisms to protect women and children. In working with the Northern Territory, we are fostering partnerships and enabling consistency in service provision right across the states.

I am also advised that New South Wales has modelled their proposed safety action meetings on our family safety framework model, and that South Australia has raised the family safety framework meetings in Western Australia at a conference of women's domestic violence services, and in particular around the Warburton area of Western Australia. This area is part of the NPY region—the remote tristate cross-border area of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. I am advised that discussions are soon to be held with relevant agencies in that region.

The completion of the rollout marks the conclusion of what have been years of extremely hard work and persistence by officers and stakeholders involved, who are all committed to ensuring South Australians, regardless of location, have access to support services when most needed. I certainly thank them for their contribution, support and ongoing commitment and passion to helping protect women and children against violence, and I thank them for helping to keep South Australian families safe.

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