Risk & Needs Assessment Practice Team (formerly Integrated Counselling & Case Management Program design)
The CIJ is providing further support to the Magistrates' Court of Victoria's family violence reforms through the design of the Integrated Counselling and Case Management program.
This program responds to recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence, which called for perpetrators of family violence to be able to be referred to a wider range of interventions. It also builds directly on the work that the CIJ conducted for the Magistrates’ Court in 2018, in which we developed and designed a single, best practice model for the Court Mandated Counselling Order Program (CMCOP) across Specialist Family Violence Courts.
With the CMCOP as the foundation, the Integrated Counselling and Case Management model will increase the capacity of the court to provide or facilitate case management for perpetrators with co-occurring issues, such as alcohol and drug use, or mental ill health.
In doing so, it will ensure that the specialist family violence court teams, Court Integrated Support Program practitioners and family violence service practitioners work collaboratively to ensure that perpetrators are receiving case management from a source which best suits their individual needs, and which keeps a gendered understanding of family violence firmly at the centre.
The ICCM model will also offer bridging pathways to accountability focused interventions for perpetrators from diverse cohorts, to increase safety and reduce risk in a wider range of settings than is currently the case.
