INTRODUCTION

Family and Domestic Violence is a community-wide problem that requires involvement from all levels of government across the health, welfare, family and community services and crime and justice sectors. The multi-disciplinary nature of Family and Domestic Violence service provision and information collection/research has meant that much of the data relevant to this field has remained invisible, under-utilised and distributed across sectors, jurisdictions and levels of government.

The Family and Domestic Violence Directory, 2013 (Directory) aims to improve awareness, and ultimately the use of Family and Domestic Violence-related data, collected by or on behalf of Australian governments. The Directory provides researchers, policy analysts and practitioners with a single place to identify information about Australian and State and Territory Government sources of publicly available statistical information related to Family and Domestic Violence.
The information provided can be used by readers to:

• better understand the purpose, collection methods and outputs available from each data source;
• inform an assessment of whether data from a particular source are likely to meet their information needs; and if so,
• locate published data sources or contact data custodians to request data, where available, via the contact details and hyperlinks included.

Readers are advised to confirm information about the data availability and methodology directly with the data source contacts listed in the Directory.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) acknowledges the support of the National Centre for Excellence to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (NCE) which under the auspices of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children provided funding support for the 2013 Directory.

The ABS would also like to acknowledge the collaboration and support of the agencies and organisations that contributed to the update of this Directory.

REVISED DIRECTORY AND FAMILY AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FRAMEWORK

Since the release of the 2011 Directory there has been substantial progress in family and domestic violence information. The Directory of Family and Domestic Violence 2011, (cat. no. 4553.0) entries reflect the Framework elements described in the publication Conceptual Framework for Family and Domestic Violence, 2009 (cat. no. 4529.0). The 2013 updated Directory is based on the Defining the Data Challenge for Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence, 2013 (cat. no. 4529.0) that is a combination of the previous framework and The Sexual Assault Information Development Framework, 2003 (cat. no. 4518.0). The listing of available sexual violence data remains out of scope of this Directory.

This latest Directory provides a summary of the six element Framework consisting of context, risk, incident/experience, response, impact/outcome, and programs, research and evaluation is used to assess the conceptual breadth of the data collection is presented. This is followed by a detailed analysis of the presence of identified data units in each collection grouped within the four information units; context, person, incident/event and transaction assisting the reader to view the data source within the context of all potential reporting items.

LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT

The collection of data sources listed in the Directory reflects the respective responsibilities of the Australian federal and state and territory governments, as does the arrangement by jurisdiction of the Directory entries.

The Australian Government takes the lead in developing national approaches to Family and Domestic Violence policy, with most of the associated services delivered through funding arrangements with the states and territories. These entities have primary responsibility for crime prevention programs, law enforcement, prosecution, corrective services, behavioural change programs, public health, disability and medical services, child protection and other specific Family and Domestic Violence services and are required to report on the associated federally funded programs.

Such reporting ensures that there are national level administrative data sources, complemented by the reporting of Australian Government agencies such as the Family Court, and national surveys undertaken by or on behalf of the Australian Government.

Separate reporting initiatives by individual state and territory governments also provide additional Family and Domestic Violence data collections.

Further information about Family and Domestic Violence support and services delivered by each jurisdiction, including the Australian Government is outlined in the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children.

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