Ensure that all Aboriginal family violence interventions are evaluated in a culturally appropriate manner

Slot gameDhelk Dja: Safe Our Way – Strong Culture, Strong Peoples, Strong Families (the new Aboriginal 10 Year Family Violence Agreement 2018-2028) was launched in October 2018. Dhelk Dja is the key Aboriginal-led Victorian Agreement that commits the signatories – Aboriginal communities, Aboriginal services and government – to work together and be accountable for ensuring that Aboriginal people, families and communities are stronger, safer, thriving and living free from family violence. It outlines 5 Strategic Priorities in achieving its vision, one of which is ‘Aboriginal-led and informed innovation, data and research’. Ensuring Aboriginal community and services are supported to build evaluation capacity will be a key component of Dhelk Dja and its 3 Year Action Plans, the first of which will be developed in 2019.

The Family Violence Outcomes Framework, revised program evaluation standards and a system-wide evaluation capability are being developed to improve evaluation processes across social services. This approach to evaluation will include culturally appropriate approaches to outcomes and evaluation.

An overarching Aboriginal Health, Wellbeing and Safety Evaluation Framework (Aboriginal Evaluation Framework) is being developed by Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA) and the University of Melbourne to respond to the need for Aboriginal-led research, evaluation and monitoring across several government strategies. Part of this work involves developing a Monitoring, Evaluation and Accountability Plan for the Dhelk Dja Agreement. This will enable Partnership Forum members to strengthen their oversight and monitoring of progress against the Dhelk Dja Agreement and plan appropriate evaluation activities. The Aboriginal Evaluation Framework will be developed with Aboriginal communities to ensure appropriate outputs and measures. It will also identify considerations for building the evaluation capacity of Partnership Forum members and representatives of Aboriginal organisations, to enable effective engagement and oversight of monitoring and evaluation activities.

Slot gameWork has commenced on an evaluation project including evaluation capacity building for the Preventing the Cycle of Violence (PCV) Aboriginal Fund and Community Initiatives Fund (CIF). An Aboriginal-led evaluation team will evaluate initiatives funded through the PCV Aboriginal Fund (11 funded projects) and CIF (up to 22 funded projects), and work with funded organisations to build their evaluation capacity. This represents the first time that CIF funded projects will be evaluated. The project will ensure that culturally appropriate evaluation methodologies are utilised and that Aboriginal organisations are supported to participate in the evaluation and build internal capacity.

Forecast implementation date: 30 June 2021