Measurement Domains
Developing an evidence-driven view of domestic and family violence service accessibility and effectiveness requires an understanding of all aspects of victim survivors’ journeys through the system.
Safety Measures will explore a range of different factors influencing the scale and nature of need, demand, supply, capacity and impact of specialist services, and how these measures interact.
Demand – In this program, demand refers to how much and what kind of domestic and family violence support is required by victim survivors who present or are referred to specialist services. That is, people who know about these services and try to access them.
Supply – Funding, targets and reporting arrangements are some of the indicators for domestic and family violence service supply.
Capacity – A wide range of factors intersect and combine to influence capacity of agencies to deliver support, including resourcing activity that isn’t reflected in funding agreements, workforce capability and system complexity.
Impact – While many services collect client feedback, fewer collect data on client outcomes – that is, the changes that take place for people because of engagement with support and the impact that service activity and initiatives can have.
Need – While we have robust, population-level prevalence data, this cannot be considered a proxy for domestic and family violence service need. Not all people who have experienced domestic or family violence want or need intervention from a specialist service, and many seek other kinds of support. We also know that there are significant barriers to service access, and many reasons why people who require specialist support may not seek it out, including individual and community experiences of exclusion, marginalisation and oppression.
