General Overview: This guide is aimed at people who work with victims of family violence in Victoria. It assists them to identify family violence and respond appropriately.

Discussion: Victims of family violence can enter the family violence system through family violence services, police, court, and child protection services or through mainstream services such as education, health, mental health and legal services. An integrated family violence system requires all of these services providers to assess victims and respond consistently. This guide aims to provide the information necessary for service providers to respond appropriately and consistently to victims.

The guide outlines the services available to victims of violence in Victoria and the legislation and policy frameworks that the services operate within. It explains the basic principles of risk assessment. The six components of the Victorian risk assessment and risk management framework are: shared understanding of family violence, standardised risk assessment, appropriate referral pathways and information sharing, risk management strategies that include ongoing assessment and case management, consistent data collection and analysis and quality assurance strategies. Each of these is elaborated in the guide.

The publication concludes with case studies which illustrate how an integrated risk assessment and risk management system should work.