Violence intervention cuts coming

THE region’s peak child and family services organisation has responded to a decision from the Magistrates Court of Victoria to cease funding for intervention funding.

The decision will see court-directed male family violence interventions cease from Sunday 30 June and Cafs CEO, Wendy Sturgess said it’ll negatively impact families experiencing domestic violence situations.

“As a program that provides a coordinated response to keep many high-risk high-harm offenders ‘in view’ while also engaging with their family members, services currently provided by Cafs are critical for keeping women and children in our community safe and should not be watered down to save money,” she said.

“We believe this short-sighted decision to close these critical services and withdraw the funding from Cafs which has undertaken this complex and important work puts women and children in the Ballarat region in danger.”

Cafs staff were informed of the decision in mid-April, and were told their annual $500,000 funding under the MCV’s Court Mandated Counselling Order Program would not be extended and would no longer be taking new referrals from the cut-off date.

“This means 120 men using family violence in hard hit Ballarat risk being taken out of view each year, leaving affected family members potentially unsupported and at risk,” said No to Violence CEO, Phillip Ripper.

No to Violence is Australia’s peak national body for male-driven family violence matters and is pushing back against the decision.

“We were deeply concerned to learn in the midst of a national family violence emergency that the Magistrates Court of Victoria is ceasing vital funding for one of its key family violence intervention services,” Mr Ripper said.

“MCV’s own figures suggest that only around four per cent of all respondents to final Family Violence Intervention Orders across Victoria receive a counselling order.

“We are now told that the Court aim to spread this meagre funding even further, greatly reducing the potential impact of the Court Mandated Counselling Order Program on high-risk men.”

Mr Ripper has called on Premier, Jacinta Allen and Attorney-General, Jaclyn Symes to provide additional funding to Magistrate’s Court in Victoria to help fill the gap.

Meanwhile, Ms Sturgess has called for existing funding to be rolled over for the next 12 months to accommodate for the change.

“With the lives of women and children across our community at stake, $500,000 is a small funding commitment that can have a huge impact in the Ballarat community,” she said.

“We need this decision reversed immediately, and a commitment from the Victorian Government to expand funding to the Courts for the existing services for a further 12 months while they work together with CMCOP service providers across that period to co-design a new flexible best practice model of perpetrator interventions that moves away from the ‘one size fits all’ approach.”