Better practice in responding to family violence

Developing a family violence strategy and implementing policies can be complex and requires commitment from across the organisation. Tailoring a strategy to the organisation’s needs ensures implementation is likely to have a positive impact for staff and customers.

Southern Rural Water developed its family violence policy with input from all business functions to ensure they had addressed issues across the business. When implementing its family violence response customer service staff at Barwon Water expressed a concern about handling calls from victim-survivors. Barwon Water improved the level of support it provided to customers and staff through a practical, low cost solution.

Case Study – Southern Rural Water

In developing its family violence response Southern Rural Water established a working group that included members from every business function, including IT and finance. This ensured that all parts of the business were considering the risk of family violence in their work. Other benefits included sharing the work load, discussing issues within teams before being raised at working group meetings and a greater sense of ownership and relevance across the organisation.

The group was disbanded once the policy was completed. A new cross functional group will be put together when the policy is renewed along with another refresher program.

Case study – Barwon Water

Frontline staff said they did not have enough confidence or the composure to remember details about what to listen out for, what words to say, how to assist and who to refer to when they received a call that they identified as relating to family violence.

To assist staff to respond confidentially to these situations, Barwon Water created a pocket size reference card for its contact centre to refer to quickly and better handle difficult conversations. The reference card provided clear prompts for staff during calls. It was not costly or onerous, yet overcame the concern staff expressed.

Barwon Water noticed an increase in the number of customers identified as experiencing family violence. It considered this to be a result of staff being trained and having the reference card.