Better practice in responding to family violence

The Economic Abuse Reference Group recommends that in addition to providing all staff with general awareness training, staff who have any customer contact, respond to vulnerable customers or hold management roles should also receive tailored training.

Tailored training for staff members interacting directly with customers will help develop their capacity to identify signs of family violence at an early stage and to respond according to the organisation’s policy. All staff engaging with customers, across every level, should receive high-quality training on:

• detecting the warning signs of family violence
• ensuring customer safety and confidentiality
• providing flexible and personalised solutions
• making referrals to support services (this can be transferring them directly to the appropriate team within the organisation or, if the customer is talking to the specialised team member, external referrals to support service organisations).

Coliban Water trains its customer support team to ensure staff are mentally prepared to provide quality and timely support should a customer disclose family violence. All staff at Lower Murray Water took part in introductory training and front end staff and managers took part in more specialised training.

Case study – Coliban Water

Coliban Water engaged the Centre for Non-Violence to provide accredited training to its customer support staff. This provided valuable resources that were displayed around the customer support department area to encourage discussion about family violence.

The customer support manager spoke to each of her team members to ensure they felt supported and confident enough to discuss and provide assistance to victim-survivors and perpetrators. This approach provided the staff member the opportunity to discuss or raise concerns in a confidential setting.

Once staff had received accredited training and had the opportunity to actively participate in creating procedures their confidence increased. They also felt comfortable to discuss family violence and make referrals for victim-survivors and perpetrators to external agencies.

Case study – Lower Murray Water

Lower Murray Water found staff training was a critical aspect of its family violence response. Staff across the business received a level of training in family violence, and frontline staff and people leaders attended training specific to their roles.

Following the training Lower Murray Water said staff were more vigilant and recognised the importance of keeping customer data secure. Customers told the business they appreciated the ability to have their data secured and that they were relieved to be taken seriously.

Lower Murray Water sees this as a continuing and combined effort across the organisation to ensure all staff have a clear and up-to-date understanding of family violence and supporting the privacy and safety of victim-survivors.

Tailored training for senior roles helps management effectively implement policy, improve processes and support their staff. It also increases leadership support. The Thriving Communities Partnership considers leadership support as imperative to responding to family violence. Leadership support ensures there is funding available for training and resources.

Horsham City Council commissioned Women’s Health Grampians to provide leadership briefing and intensive ‘bystander training’ to senior management across Wimmera councils as part of the Act@Work program.

“Bystander training aims to raise awareness of sexism, discrimination and violence against women. Educating senior management about these issues has helped each council develop a framework for taking action and to progress work in relation to preventing violence against women.” – Horsham City Council