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Abstract

This paper discusses the feasibility of early intervention as a model of service delivery for women escaping violence. Outlining an evaluation of a model operating in a regional centre in Australia - the Newcastle Domestic Violence Resource Centre (NDVRC), the paper draws on an extensive systematic review of established literature and interviews with staff. Key themes include honouring women's journey from violence; the significance of empowerment focused casework; developing wraparound services; the critical nature of organisational culture; and the significance of a less crisis driven and more measured service culture in improving the outcomes for women escaping violence.

Keywords

violence against women early intervention service delivery

Introduction

Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) is a significant human rights challenge affecting one in three women across the world (UNWomen, 2025). Despite the pervasiveness of violence there are significant barriers for women in both seeking assistance, and in escaping the violence they are experiencing. These barriers include a lack of resources, a lack of information on how to leave a violent situation and on where and how to find safety, a lack of affordable housing, fear about re-establishing one's life after leaving, and concerns about safeguarding children when violence may be ongoing. These factors have led to the establishment of women's refuges and support services across the world designed to provide at least temporary safety and support for women and children (Bowstead, 2019). Yet while these are significant and highly valued resources, what is less available are services that can provide advice and support for women before they leave and while they are weighing up their options. In this paper we examine one service established in the Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia - the Newcastle Domestic Violence Resource Centre (NDVRC) located at Jenny's Place. This service provides early intervention support services for women while they are deciding their future, offers advice about safety, and allows them to access legal, financial, policing and housing advice. While an obvious critique of the model is that it may maintain women and children in unsafe situations, the NDVRC staff would argue that it may actually keep women safer in the longer term. In this paper we examine the NDVRC, drawing on research conducted with staff in 2023. This research draws out the advantages of such a service and suggests ways to support women and children before a crisis point is reached and while they have the capacity to plan.

Violence Against Women in Australia

In Australia, official figures suggest that approximately 8 million adults have experienced physical or sexual violence, and 1 in 4 women have been victims of intimate partner violence since the age of 15 (ABS, 2023). Further, 9 out of 10 hospitalisations for assault injury by a partner in Australia are for women (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW, 2021b). Meanwhile domestic and family violence (DFV) contributed 1.4% of the total disease burden in Australia in 2018 (AIHW, 2021a) and for women and girls, it contributed to:

46% of homicide & violence total burden, 19% of suicide & self-inflicted injuries burden, 15% of depressive disorders burden, 17% of early pregnancy loss burden, 11% of anxiety disorders burden and 4% of alcohol use burden (AIHW, 2021a; n/p).

The Impact of Domestic and Family Violence

Research consistently shows that DFV has negative effects on the immediate and long-term mental health of the victim/survivor. Primary mental health impacts include depression and anxiety (Dokkedahl et al., 2022; Lohmann et al., 2023; Lövestad et al., 2017; Yastıbaş-Kaçar et al., 2023), post-traumatic stress disorder (Dokkedahl et al., 2022; Ferrari et al., 2016; Lohmann et al., 2023), suicidality and self-harm (Dillon et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2021; McManus et al., 2022; Rasmussen et al., 2021) and sleep disorders (Dillon et al., 2013; Mahoney et al., 2022; Yastıbaş-Kaçar et al., 2023).

Studies have also shown a range of impacts on physical health including injury (AIHW, 2021b; Vishal Mahesh et al., 2021) and activity limitation (Sanz-Barbero et al., 2019). Traumatic brain injury, resulting from strangulation and assaults to a victim's head, is also increasingly recognised as a significant enduring concern by medical professionals and researchers (Colantonio & Valera, 2022; Vishal Mahesh et al., 2021). Victims also perceive, experience and report poorer health and activity limitation (Sanz-Barbero et al., 2019; Seon et al., 2022; Stubbs & Szoeke, 2022) and risk-taking behaviours have been associated with domestic and family violence. For example, women's substance misuse and substance disorders have been associated with victimisation (Mehr et al., 2023; Pallatino et al., 2021).

Australian Services

In response to DFV, support services for victims of violence are evident across Australia and include small community-based services, charitable organisations and government supported agencies. These provide a range of interventions for women who have experienced DFV and focus on various impacts of violence. These might include screening and brief interventions, usually in the context of medical/health care, legal or policing contacts, and they tend to focus on domestic violence identification and education, safety planning and referral (Condino et al., 2016).

Craven et al.'s (2023) systematic review of DFV counselling interventions serves as a reminder that women experiencing violence come from a variety of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, are subjected to different levels and types of violence and will be faced with a range of diverse effects. Additionally, it is important to understand that women's needs change across time from a focus on immediate safety, shelter and psychological support to social support and economic and personal independence (Albanesi et al., 2021). There is also increased international recognition that women require comprehensive – and often non-linear – interventions that address multiple areas simultaneously, as their needs increasingly shift from a safety to healing focus (Craven et al., 2023; Katerndahl et al., 2021; Poleshuck et al., 2018; Sabri & Gielen, 2019; Schmidt, 2014). Yet there is a surprising lack of attention to early intervention in the context of DFV.

Is Early Intervention the Answer?

Early intervention generally refers to programs and practices that intervene “in such a way that there is a high probability that the intervention will resolve the problem or issue and stop it from becoming worse”. Early intervention strategies – for women and children at risk of, or experiencing, domestic violence – aim to identify violence early, prevent escalation, and offer safe referral pathways (NSW Government, 2016). However, the term early intervention is used variably across human service sectors, policy documents, and locations. For the purposes of this paper early intervention features a combination of the following strategies or principles: (i) it includes safety planning, (ii) it includes counselling, psychological or psychosocial support (iii) it is trauma-informed, (iv) it is women-centred and empowerment-centred, and (v) it involves advocacy for, and/or referral to practical supports such as housing, financial and legal support.

Newcastle Domestic Violence Resource Centre

To understand the impacts of early intervention services the writers undertook an evaluation of the Domestic Violence Resource Centre NDVRC, located in the Newcastle Hunter region of NSW. The NDVRC was established in 2008 as part of Jenny's Place, an emergency crisis service which had been operating in Newcastle since the 1970s. Jenny's Place, the service that supports the NDVRC provides support and accommodation for women fleeing violence. It was established in the 1970s and has been active in the Newcastle region since. Yet in the early 2000s it became clear there was a gap in the service provision for women who were experiencing violence but who didn’t need accommodation.Driven by a feminist philosophy, the NDVRC model initially aimed to improve access to information, counselling and support for women experiencing domestic and family violence. As the NDVRC grew it increasingly supported women experiencing domestic and family violence, who had not reached crisis point and who remained in their homes. It offered longer-term interventions including casework, education, practical and emotional support as well as safety planning.

Work generally commences when a woman identifies -– or begins identifying – that her domestic experience is abnormal or unacceptable. When a woman first calls or attends the service, an initial intake/assessment will determine and prioritise immediate needs, such as safety and accommodation, alongside the suitability of referral to the NDVRC. The NDVRC and early intervention strategies are actioned through personalized and flexible case plans. It is women-centred and client-led, in full recognition and encouragement of women's strengths, resilience and agency. Clients may use other services and programs provided by the service across time. For example, women may decide to leave a partner and move into the refuge or transitional housing provided by the service. Referrals may also be made back to the NDVRC when refuge and housing staff identify unmet DFV needs.

We wanted to target women who didn’t need accommodation but were experiencing DV, and if they got to the point where they were ready to leave, we would help them do that. That's still the main aim of the program (Staff member 1).

Another staff member noted the significant funding pressure that providing a new type of service created for the organisation.

We started the resource centre with no money at all, and I remember the days when we used to go to Bunnings and have BBQ's fund-raising and selling sausage sandwiches, applying for grants, and we’re not professional grant writers, but we all had a go, we all tried to get external funding, wherever, just to keep that service going (Staff member 5).

In 2023 the manager of the service contacted the Social Work department at the University of Newcastle regarding undertaking an evaluation of the NDVRC. As a result, funding was secured from the University of Newcastle matched industry funding grant with half being provided by the service and half by the University.

Methodology

Research Aims and Questions

The subsequent research project aimed to evaluate the NDVRC to understand how effective the early intervention service is in supporting women and children experiencing domestic and family violence. Prior to commencement of the data collection approval was gained from the University of Newcastle's (Australia) ethics committee.

Project Design

The evaluation was informed by a systematic literature review of early intervention strategies. Subsequently the applied research component utilised a mixed method approach and included:

interviews with key stakeholders (staff (9), clients (5))

content analysis of archival and secondary data including

Annual reports (2019- 2023)

Board reports (July 2022 – November 2023)

10 de-identified client files

File Outcomes Data (September – December 2023)

a questionnaire was also completed by 15 clients or former clients.

While the study is informed by the reports, deidentified client files and file outcomes data, and these give measurable indicators of the success of the NDVRC, this paper focuses solely on the staff interviews. This decision was taken early in the analysis phase for several reasons including that we wished to focus on the early intervention model which was best understood by staff; that we felt there was significant depth to the staff interviews which was worthy of a dedicated focus; and that the interviews with women service users, and questionnaire responses provide a different, but equally supportive, perspective on the service that was felt to be worthy of a separate paper.

Interviews with staff were conducted in a private office with one researcher and one staff member or client at each interview. This facilitated an in-depth free-ranging discussion about women's experiences and the effectiveness of the centre. Data was audiotaped and then transcribed. All identifying information was removed and transcriptions returned to the interviewees for verification. Data was stored on a password protected server and only available to the three team members. Analysis proceeded according to the Braun and Clarke six step method of data analysis. This included familiarising ourselves with the data; generating the initial codes; generating initial themes, reviewing themes; defining and naming the themes and writing up (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Data analysis was ‘blind’ as team members were not necessarily aware of all interviewees and was done thematically. Files were read independently by each team member, dominant themes were noted, codes were developed and emergent themes were noted. The research team maintained objectivity through independent coding by the research team and triangulation with external data. A code book was developed and coding of interviews was done separately by the team members and discussed as a group to ensure validity and reliability of the findings. Braun and Clarke's (2006) model of analysis including identifying, analysing and interpreting patterns within the data was adopted. Any convergent and divergent themes were discussed before finalisation of the analysis.

This paper focuses on staff responses only. Our analysis of the interviews with NDVRC staff indicate four identifiable themes: (i) change takes time,: honoring a women's journey through empowerment focused casework, (ii) wraparound partnerships, (iii) organisational culture & (iv) saving resources and lives.

Change Takes Time: Honoring a Woman's Journey Through Empowerment Focused Casework

One of the prime strengths of the NDVRC is the capacity for staff to dedicate time to a woman's unique circumstance and journey. The staff in this research described domestic violence as a complex attack on multiple aspects of a woman's life, including their relationships with children. Women may not identify their situation as violence or abuse, and this is especially so when coercive control is used. They may present to the NDVRC after long periods of confusing, distressing and/or traumatic events that impact their self-worth, confidence and security. Women arriving at the service are scared. Additionally, the work with clients often requires multiple (re)engagements with the woman as each new hurdle arises. It requires the worker to be alert and responsive to the woman's needs and timing. NDVRC staff actively reach out to women, even when engagement has stalled, in order to check in, to let a woman know that she is cared for and that the service is available when she is ready to re-engage:

Leaving violence is really hard and having the commitment to be able to speak to someone about it is really hard. A lot of people will make a call ready to do it, and then even half an hour later that resolve may be gone, something's happened, they’ve changed their mind, they don’t feel as strong (Staff member 6).

The approach taken by NDVRC is a unique multi-faceted approach that offers long term support. Staff emphasised the time it takes to build rapport and real trust, to explore alternate understandings, and to support a woman to reclaim voice and power:

We’ve got women coming in who have got no support from anyone and have no self- esteem whatsoever, they’re just totally crushed. We can’t turn that around quickly. … So, you’ve got to walk the journey with them for a period of time (Staff member 1).

Early intervention casework at the NDVRC draws on the woman's expertise in planning for the future and particularly her safety. As staff member 1 noted:

We don’t know these men, we don’t know what they’re capable of; only the woman may have an understanding of that. So, we work around her knowledge and belief and what she thinks, and feels, and fears.

Staff consistently stated that NDVRC casework is founded on the notion of empowerment and enacted through values and principles of respect, non-judgment and collaboration:

Just having someone there to support you, acknowledging your experience. … making them believe in themselves, to know that there's people there that care. … Whatever their needs are they get the support and there's no judgement, there's just no judgement (Staff member 5).

Workers often spoke about the mechanisms of violence that erode a woman's capacity to make choices for herself and her children. As such, NDVRC staff work incrementally to identify and challenge these mechanisms, while increasing women's choices and sense of self:

Family violence and domestic violence, at its core, is about women and often children too, in the house constantly modifying their behaviour, and a woman constantly modifying her behaviour to make herself safe, and to make herself and her children safe. … A woman will say to me, “It's fairly settled this week,” and you have an opportunity then to say, “Is it settled, or are you still modifying your behaviour to make sure it's settled? (Staff member 9)

It's about helping women to create change for themselves, and a lot of women don’t know what their choices are, and just empowering women again really. … Domestic violence … can play out in all sorts of ways with women, they might struggle just to make a decision around whether they want tea or coffee, to start with, they just can’t decide anything (Staff member 3).

Empowerment focused work requires a flexibility that may not be possible in other programs/models, where funding criteria might exclude women with specific needs from accessing support (for example those in active addiction). As a result, Staff member 4 noted that their work can be unpredictable.

What my role looks like on a day-to-day basis can be anything from accidental counselling, educating, trying to find support services, safety planning, exit planning, looking at housing accommodation, basic support. Yeah, it's different every day, and every client that I work with is different, and their needs are different, so I guess it's day by day, whatever it is that's happening at the time and trying to support them and walking them through that (Staff member 4).

Staff members 6, 7 and 8 noted the need for a personalised intake approach that allows an immediate response during a period of crisis. For example, staff member 8 expanded on the diversity of the clientele.

We have a lot of CALD clients, Culturally Diverse. We get a lot of young people coming in, so youth, we get 70-year-old ladies coming, so we have a wide variety of clients. We go to a lot of schools, or unis, and just being out in the community … I will get a feel in the intake around, “What caseworker's going to work really well with this client?” a little inkling to our coordinator, or the allocations officer just so we’re matching clients with personalities that they’re able to relate with. That makes a world of difference because then they just open up (Staff member 8).

Staff member 6 notes the critical importance of staff being alert and responsive to shifting relational dynamics and crises as they arise.

I had a client a couple of weeks ago who was suicidal, and at quite high risk, and the hospital discharged her, and I was at the refuge and not able to leave at that time, and I was able to just ask her to come [to the NDVRC]…they stopped everything, sat with her and did that immediate help, and it was really invaluable (Staff member 6).

Importantly, the NDVRC aims to create sustained change, and to break cycles of trauma and abuse for women (and their children). Empowerment focused work prioritises women gaining control and autonomy over their lives:

I believe in never doing anything for someone who are capable of doing for themselves, we don’t want a revolving door, we want a situation where clients don’t have to come back … we leave the door ajar and if they need to come back, they absolutely can. If we fix things for our clients then we foster dependence, we are not fostering that independence (Staff member 7).

Finally, it is important to recognize that violence and trauma precede - and often intersect - with this work. As such, safety must take priority for women, their children and staff. Interviews with staff revealed their acute attunement to elements that might prevent further abuse and a flexibility to ensure it (for example meeting in safe spaces, no caller id, children playing in a room adjacent to counselling to reduce exposure to further trauma). Work might also include practical assistance with security upgrades and/or referral for trauma-specific counselling.

Wraparound Partnerships

The NDVRC has established an enduring set of important relationships and partnerships with key government, community, corporate and human service organisations, including Centrelink, Victim Services, Legal Clinics, Counselors/Psychologists, Safety Action Meetings & Charities such as Friends with Dignity. These may extend to other critical services. For example:

Some of the other really good relationships we have are working with real estate (agents), and that's … again, a point of difference for here, we’ve got MOUs with two real estate (agents). That's really good because quite often what we’ll find is that women have been in a mortgage, so they don’t have a rental history, or they’re not on a mortgage, or they’re not on the lease (Staff member 7).

Staff provided evidence of a breadth and depth of service provision potentially contributing to the specific complex – and often shifting – needs of women and children:

The wraparound service is really – it's important that the partnership with all our CALD services, our Aboriginal services, the mental health services, the police, counselling, Centrelink… Every service has a vital role to play in supporting this client (Staff member 5).

Workers also noted the importance of drawing from their professional knowledge and relationships to develop women's skills in service navigation:

I think a big part of the role that services like this play is helping people navigate a system. So, people don’t always know what services are out there; we connect the dots (Staff member 7).

Importantly, workers referred to the importance of investing in purposeful connections that ultimately increased the standard of support offered to women:

So, the wraparound is choosing the referral that you know is good rather than just the random person – so, it's about that care and quality (Staff member 9).

Another component of building important relationships, and referral pathways is the community education that the NDVRC offers. This research uncovered solid evidence that education, through multiple mediums and forums increasingly alerted a diverse range of women to the NDVRC:

So, a client, she was like, “I was reluctant to access your services initially because I knew there were women in greater need than myself, but listening to the speakers at your Change Event impacted me greatly. [Worker] spoke like someone who understood my situation, and when I heard one of your ladies say that women who work in health-related fields were three times more likely to find themselves in an abusive relationship, it made me feel less stupid (Staff member 8).

Organisational Culture

Staff member 1 expanded on the commitment of the staff who provide the solid basis to the organizational culture.

The commitment of staff, the empathy, and the passion they’ve got for our clients and the work they do: For most of our staff it's not just a job, it's something that gives meaning and value to them in the work that they’re doing to support clients (Staff member 1).

Throughout this research, staff consistently spoke about their personal commitment to, and passion for, supporting women and children experiencing domestic violence (and its aftermath). The larger service, and the NDVRC specifically, employ staff with significant levels of domestic and family violence related expertise. This experience appears to be well scaffolded by an organization dedicated to evidence-informed practice approaches, professional standards and upskilling workers. The critical foundations of the organizational culture identified were:

the incorporation of best practice guidelines, and resourcing, upskilling, training and educating staff;

a cohesive culture with staff supported by management;

an organisational commitment to professional boundaries;

staff supervision, workload flexibility and additional leave to mitigate vicarious trauma.

Saving Resources and Lives?

I have no doubt whatsoever that this service has saved women and children's lives (Staff member 7).

In addressing the significance of their own service, staff described the current crisis model that operates predominantly across domestic violence services nationally. Here, women and children often arrive at a service after a significant traumatic event, which may involve police and medical intervention. Women may have left the home and slept in their car overnight. They are then faced with a range of temporary, and often highly unsuitable, accommodation options. Women are dependent on the options available to them at that time, and often return to abusive partners because the housing options are unsuitable or simply not available.

In contrast, the NDVRC model works to engage with women and their children early, to keep them safe while remaining in the home, to work towards sustainable change, by potentially mitigating crisis, and often bypassing unstable and unsuitable accommodation options:

We are able to support the woman to find alternative accommodation and through connection with other community charities such as Friends with Dignity are able to have the home furnished and furbished and work with the woman on a safety exit plan so she can move straight into her own property. We can then continue to provide support and link them in with other services in the area depending on their needs and what they have put in their case plan (Staff member 1).

Staff highlighted the benefits of thorough and informed case planning in reducing the physical and psychological impacts of violence, as well as significant reductions in public service usage:

There's reduced impact on hospitals, in particular, or reduction of injury, and reduction around mental health crisis because someone's got somewhere safe to go. It's not all fixed, but safety has an impact on people's wellbeing, and health in general (Staff member 2)

We can work with them around the DFV and if they chose to leave, we can bypass crisis altogether, to bypass SHS services, bypass police call out to an episode of DV, bypass hospitals all of which cost the State a lot of money, way more than funding our service would cost them (Staff member 1).

They also noted the importance of a service that women can turn, or return, to for advice and support as they establish a new life. Does this service save lives? Staff were adamant that their work and the model of service delivery does save lives. They described the value of the NDVRC in relation to the healing and growth they have witnessed in women, and the feedback received:

Some of them say to you, “You’ve saved my life,” and some people say, “If I’d stayed, he’d have killed me, I know he would have killed me,” so they say different things, but mostly they’re just so appreciative of the support that they get, and the information, and that there's somebody out there that cares about what they’re going through, who really understands what they are going through and who has the experience and knowledge to really help (Staff member 1).

Staff member 3 closed with: “I’ve seen women come through the Resource Centre and have worked with that program for a while, and the difference is just incredible, it's really quite remarkable”.

Challenges to Effective Work

The sad thing is that the children that came through when we first started, they’re coming through the refuge as adults now (Staff member 5)

Staff uniformly stated that DFV is an issue that is not dissipating. In fact, they believe that demand for the NDVRC is escalating (with increasing turn away and waiting list numbers). Currently NDVRC staff have high caseloads averaging 25 (and up to 33 clients) and around 250 women access the service each year.

The regions serviced by the NDVRC consistently report high levels of DFV. As staff noted throughout the interviews, these figures only represent the women who report their experience to authorities. A lack of social housing, lack of available and affordable private rentals, and the growing cost of living appear to have resulted in delays in women seeking support, a bottle neck in emergency accommodation (when DFV reaches crisis point) and undesirable temporary solutions such as women sleeping in ‘safe car-parks’.

With the housing crisis if they apply for a rental property, there's other people applying and then you’ve got people that are working, presenting well, no crying kids, she is struggling, she doesn’t stand a chance. It's so rare for them to get a private rental (Staff member 5).

Sadly, when it's DV, sometimes they might go back to the perpetrator just so they can put a roof over their kids, and their own heads, and have food on the table. They put themselves at risk to provide that roof over their heads (Staff member 1)

Staff suggested that women are increasingly recognising their experiences as abuse and seeking help as a result:

The reason that more people are asking, or seeking, support is because people are becoming more aware of what domestic and family violence is, and particularly with coercive control … They’re starting to recognise and identify, “Yes, that's happened to me,” or, “That's what that was,” that kind of thing (Staff member 4).

Some noted that this recognition, while promising, may be less so for women experiencing coercive control and those in long-term abusive relationships. Staff described a trend in single women seeking support and older women leaving relationships/marriages that spanned 3 or 4 decades. The NDVRC are increasingly working with women who enter the housing/accommodation service arm of the service, before DFV is recognised or revealed (generally as the prime source of homelessness).

Staff also spoke about an increased complexity in women's lives and presentations. This includes the types of violence and surveillance women are exposed to due to technology-facilitated abuse. It includes presentations from women who may need to travel from rural locations for support, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women who are unable to be safely housed in Indigenous-specific accommodation. They noted women are presenting with interwoven and compounding mental health, drug and alcohol and/or child protection histories.

It's complex, very, very complex. When I first started it was domestic violence and some mental health issues maybe. And every now and then you’d get somebody with drug and alcohol issues. But at the moment it's so complex. … There's a lot of mental health issues, there's so much mental health – substance abuse, financial …. The effect on the children is huge, they miss out on so much schooling also (Staff member 5).

When asked about the challenges to the NDVRC, the overwhelming response was “resourcing”. The focus on securing adequate ongoing funding appeared to detract from client work at times. The potential impact on service provision, and the lives of women and children, weighed heavily on management and staff:

The Resource Centre is unfunded; we’re constantly looking for future funding for the resource centre. Each and every year, we get a grant from a Corporate and think “Okay, well that's covered for this period” Then we are looking at where we can get the money to cover the next, it's just this ongoing thing and we’re trying to keep the ball rolling and keep the Resource Centre doors open (Staff member 1).

Staff also spoke about the benefits that would accrue from secure funding and the resources to meet the complex needs presented:

It would be helpful if we had more people, and more money, and be able to do things. Not that we’re not doing everything that needs to be done, but it would be helpful for people to understand that there's a real need for the work that we do (Staff member 4).

In imagining funding increases, staff referred to the capacity to increase the services and support for significant numbers of children presenting to the service:

Having enough funding we could possibly even have – wouldn’t it be wonderful to have some really good quality childcare onsite so that children can be offered that sort of therapeutic time as well while Mum's getting the support she needs without any potential for any vicarious trauma. It can impact on children when they hear women relive their story and talk about things that have happened (Staff member 3).

Additionally, staff visualised having the time to build constructive partnerships with General Practitioners (alongside other important services). They spoke about being able to support women in Family Law matters, offering more community education, employing the technological expertise to reduce technology-facilitated abuse and the provision of an after-hours response as features that would assist if they had the necessary funding.

Imagine having the resources …. and not wait three months to have somebody's phone checked to make sure that they’re not being tracked, for example. Imagine being able to just be able to fund somebody to relocate really quickly, instead of trying to find a service that can pay that or wait for victim services for six weeks to fund that, for example (Staff member 2).

Discussion and Recommendations

The NDVRC responds to increasing numbers of women and children seeking support. Offical statistics suggest that rates of reported domestic violence related assaults have been trending upwards in the region served by the NDVRC over the last 5 years (BOCSAR, 2023a, 2023b). The service would appear vital, given the contribution of DFV to the total disease burden in Australia and the long term economic costs to Australian women, children and society (AIHW, 2021a; KPMG, 2016). The work undertaken by the NDVRC is complex, given the range of physical, mental, social, financial and housing impacts reported by the women, alongside the fear, mental health and behavioural impacts these women witness in their children. This mirrors current evidence about the immediate and long-term physical and mental health of victim/survivors (AIHW, 2021b; Dokkedahl et al., 2022; Lohmann et al., 2023; Lövestad et al., 2017; Sanz-Barbero et al., 2019; Stubbs & Szoeke, 2022), and their children (Bhuller et al., 2022; Gartland et al., 2014; Guo et al., 2023; Skafida & Devaney, 2023; Vu et al., 2016). Findings from this study attribute a range of service strengths to the NDVRC and early intervention including flexible, women-centred and empowerment-focused work that prioritises the safety of women and children.

Current research highlights that women and children's safety can be improved and indeed maximised through interventions that prioritise safety planning, empowerment and advocacy work and where the client/worker alliance is strong (Goodman et al., 2016; Halliwell et al., 2019; Rivas et al., 2016). These are all conditions that were found to exist at the NDVRC.

Another and strength of the NDVRC is the capacity to dedicate time to the unique situations of women and children, from education about the nature of violence to escaping violence, rehousing and reestablishing a life and maintaining long-term safety. This work often requires multiple client-led engagements to plan and adapt to emerging issues. This is highly consistent with current evidence that suggests flexible tailored service, that meets women and children's evolving needs, can lead to more meaningful long-term change (Cleaver et al., 2019; Ogbe et al., 2020; Paphitis et al., 2022; Trabold et al., 2020). Research also consistently shows that women prefer flexible, tailored and client-centred interventions (Iverson et al., 2016; McCarry et al., 2021; Poleshuck et al., 2018; Shayani et al., 2022) all of which are evident in the NDVRC model.

This aligns with current evidence and best practice that suggest the importance of comprehensive – and often non-linear – interventions addressing multiple areas of shifting need as women and their children move from a safety to healing focus (Craven et al., 2023; Katerndahl et al., 2021; Poleshuck et al., 2018; Sabri & Gielen, 2019; Schmidt, 2014). The NDVRC has established a range of enduring wraparound partnerships – across the human services and including the corporate sector – ensuring warm referrals to a diverse range of services that are well equipped to meet survivors needs, when these do not meet the remit of the organisation.

The timing and duration of the NDVRC's early intervention service is one of its most unique and important features. Working with women who are still experiencing DFV in their home and assisting them to leave the situation in a safe and timely manner, potentially averts violence and crisis and may bypass emergency responses from police, ambulance and hospitals. The physical, psychological and financial savings are difficult to measure, but cannot be underestimated in terms of lives, and social impacts. The NDVRC also works with women who present in crisis and extends its service well beyond leaving the perpetrator of DFV. The service model recognises a number of critical periods and conditions that put women and children at risk of a range of socio-economic deprivations and an increased risk of violence post separation and works to reduce these.

Interviews with staff, as well as a review of service data, supported the notion of a robust organisational culture within the overarching service, and an organisation which is staffed by an experienced, passionate and dedicated workforce, who truly understand the mechanisms of violence that erode a woman's trust in herself and others. Unfortunately, our research also found that the NDVRC is unable to fully meet the demands of steadily increasing service requests and the growing complexity of client presentations, in conjunction with unprecedented socio-historic and economic conditions. This study found that a shortage of funding, and particularly secure and ongoing funding, remains the prime barrier for the NDVRC to support DFV victims in this region.

When asked about areas for improvement, staff expressed a desire for more funding that would allow time to build stronger service relationships and pathways that would assist the women and children with whom they worked. This included establishing relationships with local General Practitioners to facilitate quick and easy access (similar to relationships they have already established with dental clinicians and real estate agencies). Others spoke about the value in having onsite child-care when working with women, and specialist care for children. Most spoke about the socio-economic conditions that hamper their capacity to support women to move to safety.

Limitations

While this study reveals the significant benefits of the early intervention model of domestic violence service delivery and the enthusiasm of staff in outlining its successes, there are limitations to the research. Chief amongst these is that the study is limited to one service providing the early intervention model. However the research team did not set out to undertake a quantitative appraisal of the model. Rather we were focused on understanding the effectiveness of a model that is unique and effective and located in one dynamic service. Within this service staff were invited to take part in the study and a majority of staff did join enthusiastically. Arguably these respondents were representative of the total number of staff at the service. Nonetheless that this study focuses on one service and a small number of interviewees limits the generalisability of the findings.

Another limitation of the study is that there very few violence services that offer the early intervention model and hence it is difficult to extend the study or to corroborate the findings. Nonetheless, our research reveals the hardship experienced by women and children when escaping an immediate violent threat. The nature of early intervention is designed to defray that possibility and to give space and time for women to organise a safer escape from violence.

Conclusion

Based on original research, this study reveals not only the increasingly disturbing rise in the numbers of women experiencing violence in a large regional area of Australia and examines the potential of an early intervention model of service to address these issues. Drawing on research with a domestic violence service, Jenny's Place, we discuss the early intervention model of service delivery adopted by the service. We argue that the early intervention model of service delivery addresses significant shortcomings in a traditional crisis response, providing more flexibility and more options for women. We suggest that this model could be more widely adopted thereby providing increased support for traumatised women and children. However, we also note the paucity of resources and inadequate engagement by governments and funding bodies despite the significance of violence against women in Australia, the overwhelming numbers of women experiencing violence and the lack of focused attention to one of the most disturbing issues of our time.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the women who experience violence in our community and the workers who walk the journey with women. We wish also to acknowledge Jenny's Place – the extraordinary service that was founded in the 1970s and continues to provide innovative support to women and children.

ORCID iD

Margaret Alston

Ethical Concerns

This research was approved by the University of Newcastle ethics committee.

Consent to Participate

Those interviewed were advised that they did not have to participate. A participant consent form was read to all participants.

Anonymised data is available for scrutiny.

We consent to publication.

Funding

Funding was received from the University of Newcastle's matched industry funding scheme with half being funded by the University and half by Jenny's Place DV centre.

Jenny's Place, University of Newcastle Australia matched industry funding scheme, (grant number This organisation gave matching funds for the asse, This was a new scheme set up to. facilitate indust).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Margaret Alston, Professor of Social Work, Social Work department, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia. She has published widely on gender, disasters, violence, rurality and social work.

Kylie Agllias is an Adjunct Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Newcastle. She is interested in research with vulnerable populations and sensitive topics.

Wendy Foote, A/Professor of Social Work, Social Work department, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia

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Do Early Intervention Services Improve Outcomes for Women Experiencing Violence? A Qualitative Case Study of the Perspectives of Staff at a Domestic Violence Resource Centre in a Regional Area of Australia

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Violence Against Women in Australia

The Impact of Domestic and Family Violence

Australian Services

Is Early Intervention the Answer?

Newcastle Domestic Violence Resource Centre

Methodology

Research Aims and Questions

Project Design

Change Takes Time: Honoring a Woman's Journey Through Empowerment Focused Casework

Wraparound Partnerships

Organisational Culture

Saving Resources and Lives?

Challenges to Effective Work

Discussion and Recommendations

Limitations

Conclusion

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

ORCID iD

Ethical Concerns

Consent to Participate

Funding

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Author Biographies

References