| Aboriginal | While acknowledging the diversity of Aboriginal people in Australia, in this document the term ‘Aboriginal’ has been used to refer to all people of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander descent. |
| Child Information Sharing Scheme | Established in legislation, the scheme provides for sharing of information among authorised organisations to promote child wellbeing or safety, including within (but not limited to) family violence contexts. |
| Collude | Intentional or unintentional collaboration with a perpetrator by reinforcing, excusing, minimising or denying a perpetrator’s violence towards family members. |
| Family Safety Victoria | A division of the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing with dedicated responsibility for delivering key elements of the family violence reform. This includes the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme, The Orange Door network and the Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management reforms. |
| Family violence | Any violent, threatening, coercive or controlling behaviour that occurs in current or past familial relationships, including by intimate partners, family members, and/or non-family carers. |
| Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme | Established in legislation, the scheme enables sharing of information between authorised organisations to support the assessment and management of family violence risk. |
| Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management (MARAM) Framework | A framework to support the identification, assessment and management of family violence risk. A range of organisations are required by law, under the Family Violence Protection Act 2008, to align their practices and policies with MARAM, which replaced the former common risk assessment framework or ‘CRAF’. The MARAM Framework is supported by operational practice guidance and risk identification, screening and assessment tools. |
| Family violence regional integration committees | Local governance partnerships in 14 areas across Victoria bringing together family violence services and other key sectors and services, including child and family services, child protection, mental health services, homelessness services, housing services, courts, police and Indigenous Family Violence Regional Action Groups, to improve the integration of local services that respond to family violence. |
| LGBTIQ+ | An inclusive initialism that refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer people. |
| MARAM | See Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management (MARAM) Framework. |
| Phase 1 | Phase 1 of the information sharing and MARAM reforms began on 27 September 2018, when more than 850 organisations were prescribed to the reforms. More than 35,000 professionals from organisations including those in the specialist family violence sector, including The Orange Door staff, and services in alcohol and other drug, child protection, homelessness, courts, police and corrections, noting that not all were prescribed to all three of the reforms. |
| Phase 2 | Phase 2 of the information sharing and MARAM reforms began on 19 April 2021, when more than 350,000 additional professionals from approximately 8,000 organisations were prescribed to the reforms. This phase comprised mostly of universal services, including health and education services. |
| Prescribed organisation | Organisations that must meet the responsibilities set out under the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework, the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme and/or the Child Information Sharing Scheme. |
| Principal Strategic Advisor | A key leadership role within the family violence regional integration committees. This role has a strong focus on integration and collaboration of services, driving implementation of the reforms and capacity building of the workforce. |
| PROTECT guidance | Resources developed to support school staff in all Victorian schools to identify and respond to all forms of violence, including child abuse and student sexual offending. |
| Respectful Relationships | A primary prevention education initiative that supports government, Catholic and independent schools and early childhood settings to promote and model respect, positive attitudes and behaviours. The Victorian Curriculum provides the basis for teaching and learning about respectful relationships and identifies the knowledge, skills and understanding for students to be able to engage in respectful relationships. |
| Royal Commission into Family Violence | Established in 2015, the Commission was tasked with finding ways to prevent family violence, improve support for victim survivors and hold perpetrators to account. The Royal Commission provided its report, which included 227 recommendations, to the Victorian Government on 29 March 2016. |
| Secondary consultation | A mechanism by which professionals can seek guidance or advice from specialist services when supporting those impacted by family violence, to determine the appropriate response based on risk and needs. |
| SHRFV | See Strengthening Hospital Responses to Family Violence. |
| Strengthening Hospital Responses to Family Violence | A system-wide model for hospitals to educate and support their staff in identifying and responding to family violence experienced by patients, as part of a whole-of-hospital approach. |
| The Orange Door | A network that is the entry point to women’s and children’s family violence services, services for men who use violence and family services. It undertakes triage to assess and manage risk and connect people to the services they need. |
| Victim survivor | A person who has experienced domestic, family or sexual violence. |
| Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council | Formed in July 2016, the council was established to include people with lived experience of family violence in the service design of the family violence reform. |
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