Early intervention could be key to curbing Australia's domestic violence crisis, as frontline services welcome a critical funding boost.
Create a free account to read this article
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Nearly $48 million is headed the way of NSW-based early intervention initiatives, specialist services and pilot projects in federal government cash.
Some $16 million of that will be spent on early intervention, with Fams, the state's peak body for the sector, praising the government's "proactive and integrated" approach to tackling family violence.
Acting chief executive Lauren Stracey said addressing things before they reach crisis-point was crucial in stopping problems from spiralling out of control
"It's really about ensuring services can do early work that can stop children from experiencing harm, helping kids before they get to crisis point and intervening early to break that cycle of violence and abuse," she told AAP.
"We really want to support families to avoid getting to that crisis, because we know families who experience domestic and family violence are far more likely than other families to come to the attention of child protection."
Seeking to address the 36,072 incidents of domestic violence-related assault experienced in NSW last year, $26 million will go to response, recovery and healing initiatives.
"Beyond the numbers, we know family violence can have destructive consequences for women and children and can leave a devastating impact on the community," NSW Domestic Violence Prevention Minister Jodie Harrison said.
"Our government is committed to seeing dramatic improvements in the rates of domestic, family and sexual violence, and what we need to focus on is delivering appropriate and effective, whole-of-community services for victim-survivors."
Ms Stracey called for long-term funding for early intervention to ensure children were safe and could remain with family.
"If we can invest early to support and promote safety, we can actually prevent a child from being removed from the family unnecessarily," she said.
"Child removal is the absolute crisis-end of the system, which creates ripples of heartache and trauma for generations."
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
Lifeline 13 11 14
Australian Associated Press
