Alice Springs Integrated Response to Family and Domestic Violence Project: Final evaluation report

Abstract

The Alice Springs Integrated Response to Family and Domestic Violence (the Alice Springs Integrated Response) project aims to increase the safety of women and children; and to improve accountability of men who use family and domestic violence and support them to change their behaviour. The project was initially funded under the Alice Springs Transformation Plan through which the Australian Government provided $3.2 million over three and a half years from January 2012 to June 2015 for Phase One. An additional $2.4 million for the following two years to June 2017 (Phase Two) was provided through Stronger Futures funding. The Northern Territory (NT) Department of the Attorney-General and Justice (AGD) and the NT Department of Children and Families (DCF) are the lead agencies for the project. To achieve its aims the project adopted three key strategies. The first was a partnership approach that sought to address family and domestic violence (F&DV) through inter-agency collaboration across a spectrum of prevention, crisis intervention, justice responses and behavioural and social change. The second key strategy was to increase levels of service provision and the third to improve the skills of practitioners in the sector. The project has five components: • the Family Safety Framework (FSF) • the Victim Support and Advocacy Service (VSAS) • the Men's Behaviour Change Program (MBCP) • a prevention program focused on school-age children and young people • community engagement. These components have been implemented progressively over three years from 2012 to 2014.