‘Just Say Goodbye’ (January 2013 online edition)

‘Just Say Goodbye’It is important for parents experiencing difficulties with separation to be ableto access appropriate services; it is also important those service providers areadequately trained to detect warning signs of risk to family members’ safety andare able to undertake effective risk management (discussed further below).Services should challenge any beliefs that may be used to justify family violencesuch as beliefs about men’s entitlement to relationships and that women are toblame for separation. Service providers can help clients address their anger andblame, accept the separation and focus on building healthy relationships. MichaelFlood (2008) suggests that responses to separated fathers be father-friendly,accountable and oriented toward encouraging positive and ongoing involvementin their children’s lives. He has pointed to the ‘potential to foster men’s positive andnon-violent involvement in parenting and families’ (Flood 2008). Encouragingparents to focus on their children’s needs is also clearly important.Contact details for services providing support to parents experiencing difficultieswith separation are provided in Appendix 2.Risk assessmentWorkers coming into contact with families in which there are concerns aboutthe safety of family members, or conflict in relation to separation, require skills(and tools) for effective risk assessment. Research indicates that despite ‘certainlimitations’, risk assessment frameworks and tools can ‘with some reliability,identify women who may be at risk of being killed by an intimate partner’(Campbell et al. 2003b).Risk assessment is likely to be most effective when implemented as a wholesystem approach based on a shared understanding, which includes appropriatereferral pathways. It is important that risk assessment frameworks be alignedacross sectors and jurisdictions. 139The Victorian Family Violence Risk Assessment and Risk ManagementFramework (Department of Victorian Communities 2007) involves consideringthe following three elements when assessing risk:• the victim’s assessment of their own safety• evidence based risk factors• professional judgment.It is well documented that the victim’s own level of fear and views about thelikelihood of future violence is a critical determinant of the level of risk of harm(Roehl 2005, Gondolf 2001). This discussion paper suggests this may need tobe extended to include fear about harm to children.139 The Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department is planning to develop a standardised framework forscreening safety risks across the family law sector. The project aims to create a shared understanding across thefamily law system about the predictors of risks to safety and how they can be effectively identified and managed.85