Australia Needs to Boost Social Service Responses to Vulnerable Groups During Crisis: Study

A mother and her child pose in a room in a temporary apartment of the Home association in Paris, France, on Nov. 22, 2016. Geoffroy Van der Hasselt/AFP via Getty Images

Australia has insufficient social service responses in place to keep at-risk families safe during a crisis, a study has found.

Front-line social services responses to family violence, sexual assault services and child protection in Victoria were stretched during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the research led by Centre for Family Research and Evaluation at Drummond Street Services, RMIT’s Centre for Innovative Justice and the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

“Services must be able to support and promote safety for disadvantaged populations by considering the overlapping cycle of preparation, response, aftermath and review to prepare for future crises,” Beth McCann, Director of the Centre for Family Research and Evaluation at Drummond Street, said.

The research noted an increase in service demand for clients with disabilities, single-parent households, people who spoke a language other than English at home, and for First Nations clients, during the pandemic.

Ms. McCann added that the visibility of children and young people had been “lost to the system” during that time.

The researchers called for a boost in government and service collaboration, funding, and capacity building across all sectors to ensure more preparedness in case of a next crisis.

In addition, the lack of skills and workforce also remains a problem in providing adequate social service responses to vulnerable groups.

“The high turnover in staff will likely continue to have broad-reaching implications including a loss of corporate knowledge and professional experience, increased pressure on the existing workforce and a reduced capacity to transfer knowledge and build the skills of new graduates and the emerging workforce,” Rachel Carson, Executive Manager of Family Law, Family Violence, and Elder Abuse at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, said.

Meanwhile, Ms. McCann emphasised the need to future-proof the family violence service system as crises and disasters become increasingly common.

Frontline Stress

Earlier, a School of Population Health UNSW research said that many frontline domestic and family violence (DVF) practitioners saw an increase in physical and sexual abuse cases during the pandemic. Their research also found a noticeable increase in coercive and controlling behaviours with COVID-19 being used as a way to keep partners at home and prevent them from seeking help.

The research said that the pandemic pushed the DVF practitioners into a “double frontline” as they took additional work load.

The practitioners also needed to adopt a work-from-home setup to provide services, which they found challenging due to the collision of work and home life, vicarious trauma, more workload and unpaid work, digital fatigue, and professional isolation, according to the study.

“The risks of vicarious trauma were also greater when working from home without colleagues around for support. One worker reported feeling like they were bringing the violence into their own home, saying, ‘it feels like it’s here all the time,’” lead author Patricia Cullen of the School of Population Health UNSW said.

“Another worker told of a colleague working from their bathroom, to ensure their children would not be exposed to their work.”