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DATA NEEDS IN RELATION TO ‘RESPONSES’ ELEMENT OF THE FRAMEWORK
DATA NEEDS IN RELATION TO ‘RESPONSES’ ELEMENT OF THE FRAMEWORK
By definition, informal responses do not involve reporting to services or systems providing formal responses to FDV, so the only opportunity to collect data on the informal responses of victims is through victimisation or other surveys where victims of FDV are randomly sampled. Surveys may ask about victims’ reliance on family, friends and other networks for support through disclosure after an incident(s). Currently, there is no direct information collected through surveys in Australia about informal responses to FDV by or for a perpetrator.
Surveys can also estimate the proportion of victims who respond more formally to FDV through reports to police and/or the utilisation of professional and other services. This provides an indication of the total demand for, and usage of, such services.
Finally, systems providing services in response to FDV - for example the criminal justice system, health services, and child protection services - keep records of their clients, the services provided and outcomes. This provides opportunities for the collection of administrative by-product data about the workloads, resourcing and performance of the systems, provided that appropriate confidentiality is observed. These administrative by-product data therefore complement survey data, and provide an indication of potential under-reporting and under-utilisation of services. This information can then feed into policy approaches and evaluation of service provision.
There are many survey and administrative data sources relating to the ‘Responses’ element of the Framework, but again, not all areas of data need will necessarily be covered.
Potential units for analysis
While there are many potential avenues that victims and perpetrators may pursue in response to experiences of FDV, information about these interactions with formal and informal support and services may be reflected through the following primary counting units:
- People (both victims and perpetrators of FDV);
- Incidents (of FDV); and
- Transactions (services provided in relation to FDV).
It should also be noted that one of the major limitations of administrative by-product data is that the counting units used are generally transactions. As a result, deriving person counts across multiple transactions to obtain multiple victimisation counts or multiple service accesses may not be possible.
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