Bourke Family Focussed

Gawimarra Burrany Ngurung, Picking Up the Pieces: The Birrang Intensive Family-focused Case Management and Support Model

The Third Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022 includes $25 million for Indigenous specific activities to address family violence in Indigenous communities.

“Indigenous women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised because of family violence than non-Indigenous women. Indigenous children are more than five times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be hospitalised for assault and eight times more likely to experience child abuse or neglect,” Minister Scullion, 28 October 2016

This Bourke based program is a direct response to the challenge set by Minister Scullion to address these shocking statistics of violence in Indigenous communities highlighted as a national priority under the Third Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022. The specific strategies will focus on the provision of intensive family-focused case management to address behaviours that lead to family violence.

The family violence outcomes that this service aims to achieve are to reduce the violence in the community and the family, reduce the number of children who are being placed in out of home care due to family violence, improve family functionality, cause behavioural changes in the perpetrator and to assist the family in overcoming the impact of the trauma.