Provide funding and other resources to support LGBTI services and communities

Government has developed resources for educating and informing people from lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) communities about family violence and how to get help.

The community education materials developed align with other Victorian and national family violence initiatives.

An LGBTIQ family violence training module was developed and rolled out to mainstream family violence service providers in 2019-20.

Two safe accommodation projects have been funded and implemented to capture good practice, build capacity within the homelessness and family violence accommodation sectors, and develop and pilot sector-specific training materials and resources.

Slot gameThe W/Respect LGBTIQ specialist service  was launched in September 2018 and contains community information to raise awareness about family violence and available services and supports, as well as resources for practitioners to support inclusive service responses. The website continues to be expanded and regularly updated, most recently with information relating to COVID-19.

A community education campaign was launched during the 2020 Midsumma Festival, including promotional material directing people to the W/Respect website.

Slot gameRainbow Health Victoria was funded to develop an LGBTIQ family violence training module for family violence service providers to support LGBTIQ-inclusive policy and practice, with implementation occurring over 2019-20. Funding was provided to deliver the module to staff in the first tranche of 20 specialist family violence supported to undergo Rainbow Tick accreditation. The module is available on a fee-for-service basis to other services.

Slot gameA project to build capacity in housing and homelessness services in the western and northern metropolitan areas to provide inclusive services was funded by the Department of Health and Human Services Western Melbourne Area and Family Safety Victoria (FSV) in 2018-19, including a training package and resources for workers. FSV provided an additional year of funding to support extension of the learnings and resources to a statewide level.

The LGBTIQ Inclusive Refuge Demonstration Project was funded in 2019-20 to build the capacity of two dispersed refuge services to provide safe and inclusive accommodation, including a toolkit to support the sharing of learnings and the development of better practice in this area of service provision.

Forecast implementation date: 30 June 2021.