New family violence sector guides aimed at providing consistent and effective help to both victims and perpetrators have been announced.

The documents were yesterday released by Justice Minister Amy Adams and Social Development Minister Anne Tolley at the Family Violence Summit in Wellington.

Over 120 key players in the family violence sector attended the Summit to build on conversations about how to work together better to tackle New Zealand’s horrific rate of family violence.

Justice Minister, Amy Adams says thousands of New Zealand families are affected by family violence every day and too many of them are not getting all the help they need.

“The current system for dealing with family violence is too fragmented so in addition to the work we’re doing to improve it, including the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill and the Integrated Safety Response pilots, we’ve developed a framework which sets out common understanding of family violence, a clear protocol for assessing risk, and a consistent approach for supporting victims and perpetrators,” she says.

She says the Risk Assessment and Management Framework aims to ensure that no matter who a victim or perpetrator approaches for help, the risks they face will be consistently identified, assessed and managed.

Social Development Minister, Anne Tolley says, alongside that framework, a guide outlining the capabilities needed by those in the family violence sector to successfully support victims, perpetrators and their families was also launched.

“The family violence workforce is large and complex, involving government agencies, family and sexual violence specialists, NGOs and practitioners. There is a wide range of different practices and understandings, resulting in varying degrees of effectiveness,” she says.

She says the Workforce Capability Framework outlines the skills, knowledge and organisational support the workforce needs in order to provide an integrated, consistent and effective response to victims, perpetrators and their families.

“Both frameworks have been developed with the help of the sector, some of whom are at the Summit today. By working together we stand a much stronger chance of achieving better outcomes for victims and their families,” Mrs Tolley  says.

Work from the summit will feed into and inform the work of the Ministerial Group on Family Violence and Sexual Violence. Sector members who could not attend the Summit are invited to give their views via an online survey

The framework can be found here.