Family violence

Our position on family violence

As a values-based organisation, the Bouverie Centre takes seriously our responsibilities to recognise family violence risk and ameliorate trauma related to family violence. We actively seek to recognise safety needs for family members, our staff, trainees, and participants in our research programs.

Click here to see more about our Position on Family Violence.

How we work

Our work with services in this area incorporates training and implementation in practice approaches including Single Session Thinking and family subsystems, as well as a range of interventions.

Our workforce development and clinical staff keep abreast of current developments and practices in the family violence field and staff have completed the Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management training.

We undertake a risk assessment for all families we see to determine if there are current family violence or other safety concerns.

In situations where violence is still present, we refer families to specialist services that can work with them to address immediate safety concerns.

We do not provide family therapy in this situation as it may inadvertently escalate the risk. It is also unlikely families can effectively engage in a therapeutic process if they are not currently safe.

Once families are in a safer context we work with them to address the effects of the abuse, including issues of:

• trauma
• parenting challenges
• disruption to relationships.

Find more information on the Orange Door - Support and Safety Hubs website.

Responding to suspected elder abuse

We have been funded by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) to enhance capacity to respond to elder abuse under the new Victorian Government’s Integrated Model of Care.

This innovative model aims to enhance the health service sector’s capacity to respond to situations of suspected or known abuse and to strengthen options and pathways for older Victorians who are at risk of or experiencing elder abuse.

It includes four key components:

• workforce development
• counselling and mediation services (including financial counselling)
• an elder abuse prevention and response liaison officer
• a local elder abuse prevention network.

Our role is to deliver workforce development training to Victorian health services by:

• designing and delivering training packages with a client-centred, family-inclusive approach
• supporting frontline staff and managers to achieve meaningful and sustainable practice change
• using action-research to inform implementation, knowledge generation and practice development.

Find out more about the training. For additional information, you can email us or call us at (03) 8481 4800.