All people and communities are free from family violence and have freedom and choice over their lives

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What is the RFVP?

The RFVP exists to integrate and improve the local family violence system. We do this by providing specialist expertise and leadership, supporting workforces and communities to transform family violence, and influencing and advocating for positive change.

The RFVP works to integrate and improve the family violence system and help end family violence across the Eastern Metropolitan Region (EMR). The EMR covers the two Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) areas of Inner Eastern Melbourne and Outer Eastern Melbourne encompassing the seven Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Boorondara, Monash, Manningham, Whitehorse, Maroondah, Knox and Yarra Ranges.

The RFVP has representation from specialist family violence services as well as broader cross-sector organisations and alliances whose work intersects with family violence response, early intervention and prevention. RFVP members are leaders active in strengthening the family violence system and ending family violence in the EMR.

Our stakeholders
  • Individuals – All people affected by family violence in our communities – victim survivors who are currently experiencing violence, victim survivors who are recovering from family violence, and people who use violence.
  • Workforces in our region – All those who work with and identify family violence in their clients and colleagues.
  • Communities – General public with a duty of care to recognise and respond to family violence.
All members of the RFVP are guided by:

Our Vision

All people and communities are free from family violence and have freedom and choice over their lives.

Our Purpose

To foster a community where family violence is prevented and responded to holistically. Through leadership, advocacy, and professional and lived expertise, we integrate and optimise local systems, enhance workforce and community capacity, and advance equity and social justice.

Our Strategic Priority Areas

  1. Lead and implement service integration and system improvement initiatives to strengthen the whole-of-family violence response system.
  2. Grow our evidence base to inform planning, system improvement activities and advocacy for system change.
  3. Build workforce capacity and capability.

Our Values

Collaboration

We pro-actively foster partnerships across sectors, including primary prevention, and with victim survivors and other individuals with lived experience to work towards our vision.

Safety

We strive to embed cultural safety and trauma-informed practice in everything we do with the aim of improving the system so that it is safe for victim survivors, children, families, and all people. 

Equity

We identify, challenge, and address unfair distributions of resources, power, and opportunities to ensure that we are contributing to a system, which is fair and provides equitable outcomes for all people.

Recovery-oriented

We strive to create a system that provides holistic, long-term support that fosters recovery and healing for individuals and communities. The voices of victim survivors are central to making this possible. 

The work of the RFVP is guided by our Strategic Plan. Members of the RFVP work together under a common statement of purpose – the Memorandum of Understanding. A new Memorandum of Understanding is under development.

For more information on Family Violence Regional Integration Committee’s and what they do, click here.

Governance Structure

Established in 2007 under the Victorian family violence reforms, Family Violence Regional Integration Committees (FVRICs) provided a governance structure to improve the integration between services responding to family violence in the local regions.

The Royal Commission into Family Violence (RCFV), which concluded in 2016, dramatically changed the landscape of Victoria’s family violence system. The RCFV provided a once-in-a-generation opportunity to examine our system from the ground up and put victim survivors at the centre of family violence reform. Ending Family Violence: Victoria’s plan for change is the Victorian Government’s plan to deliver on all 227 recommendations.

In early 2019, the previous governance body of the RFVP, the Executive Committee, unanimously decided to strengthen our regional integration work by embedding a new governance framework. The work of the partnership is today driven by the Systems Leadership Group and the Implementation Committee

To find out more information or to enquire about membership to these governance groups, please contact the Principal Strategic Advisor (PSA).

 

Principal Strategic Advisor (PSA) and the RFVP Team

The RFVP governance groups are supported by the RFVP Team, consisting of the Principal Strategic Advisor (PSA), Independent Chair and Project and Communication Coordinator. None of these roles hold voting rights in the RFVP governance groups.

The Independent Chair’s role is to maintain focus on the strategy of the committee and guide decision-making by consensus at monthly meetings. The Chair meets regularly with the PSA to plan RFVP Governance meetings, including prioritising the agenda and papers.

The Principal Strategic Advisor’s provides expertise, leadership and oversight of the work of the RFVP, providing advice to the committees, government and local services; coordinating capacity building initiatives and maintaining strategic relationships with key stakeholders.

The PSAs core role horizontally is to work to the RFVP so that the partnership ‘can achieve its function as the local system expert for family violence reform and for its ongoing improvements to the local system’. Vertically the PSA has the ‘authority and capability to collate local system experiences and issues related to the reform, and to communicate these to the statewide level in order to influence the direction of centrally-driven reform initiatives’. [1]

The Project and Communication Coordinator supports the Principal Strategic Advisor in the delivery of an effective regional integration strategy and action plan by supporting the delivery and implementation of distinct projects approved by the RFVP Systems Leadership Group. The Project and Communication Coordinator is also responsible for managing communications to the region, including the RFVP newsletter. 

[1] The State of Victoria, 2018. Family Violence Regional Integration Project: Strengthening the case for the future of regional integration, October 2018, p. 12.

 

Auspice agency

The RFVP Team is overseen by an auspice agency as a means of facilitating the implementation of the RFVP and its strategic priorities. As the auspice agency, FVREE (Formerly EDVOS) manages brokerage attached to the RFVP; and provides human resource and information technology support to the RFVP Team.

 

Working Groups

To enable family violence system reform to occur on a regional level, the RFVP has developed several time limited and topic specific Working Groups that are accountable to the RFVP governance groups and the Strategic Plan. Anyone in the region, including those from signatory and non-signatory agencies under the Memorandum of Understanding, is welcome to join a working group.

Click here If you would like more information on these working groups or how to get involved.

 

Why should your service be involved with the RFVP?

The Regional Family Violence Partnership welcomes new members and opportunities to broaden our partnership work in the region. By participating in the RFVP you have an opportunity to make a significant contribution to improving how our region addresses family violence. You will stand together with a network of organisations, practitioners and community members who share a common goal to support the region as a place that promotes respectful relationships and does not tolerate violence and abuse. As a member, you will be able to:

  • Contribute to innovative discussions on family violence reform

  • Participate in working groups and projects

  • Receive invitations to educational forums and special events

To become a member of the RFVP, your organisation can elect to sign our Memorandum of Understanding. For more information, please contact the RFVP team.

The best way to stay up to date on what’s happening in the Eastern Metropolitan Region is to sign up to the RFVP newsletter.

It provides useful and relevant information about family violence reforms, training and events, news and research outcomes. Delivered fortnightly, the newsletter is a great way to stay up to date with developments in our region.

RFVP Newsletter

For family violence sector updates and news on events/trainings.

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RFVP Calendar of Events

Find out what events are happening throughout the year and book online.

VIEW calendar
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