Practice Area 5 – Coordinating service systems and developing partnerships
As we know from Practice Area 3, some victims and survivors of child sexual abuse never disclose, and many of those who do experience a poor response. When a victim or survivor does not receive the help they need, the trauma of child sexual abuse can compound over time. Victims and survivors (and their families, kin and supporters) may continue to engage with a broad range of service systems related to these traumatic effects or to help manage them, while never receiving the necessary support to heal and recover from the original childhood trauma.
Depending on the person’s age and life stage, these services can include child protection, out-of-home care, education, health, welfare, justice, housing, employment, and alcohol and other drug services. Victims and survivors frequently describe service systems as poorly coordinated, siloed, fragmented, complex, confusing and difficult to navigate – leading to frustration and a sense of entrapment.
When child sexual abuse is not the core business area of your organisation, workers may not have the knowledge, skills or confidence to respond to a disclosure and may limit the assistance they provide to the organisation’s main service-delivery function. The ‘no wrong door’ approach described in this Practice Area seeks to ensure a victim and survivor receives a trauma-informed response or warm referral to appropriate services, regardless of which service or worker they disclose to.
The importance of joined-up, holistic responses
When reflecting on their help-seeking, many victims and survivors have expressed support for ‘joined-up’ services; that is, where services and workers communicate and cooperate with one another to provide holistic, integrated, person-centred, and family-focused responses. Having joined-up services reduces the number of times a victim and survivor must tell their story and can improve the service experience and outcomes for the victim and survivor.
You may see a number of other terms used to describe joined-up and holistic responses to child sexual abuse, other sexual violence and complex trauma. The most common are:
Integrated service provision
- Integrated or wrap around services are mostly offered through service networks and by developing warm referral pathways with other agencies, including government departments in a given state or territory or local services in a geographic area.
- Separate services may be linked through their shared use of a trauma-informed framework, and information- and resource-sharing protocols and agreements between government departments or service providers in a geographic region.
Coordination of care (sometimes called casework or case management)
- When an organisation or worker is unable to meet a victim’s, survivor’s, or supporter’s needs due to limitations in funding, workforce constraints or a specific contractual focus, the caseworker or case manager coordinates the care required with other services to make sure the person’s needs are met.
- When a worker is responsible for coordinating care, they assist a victim or survivor to navigate the relevant service systems so that they do not ‘fall through service gaps.’
Collaboration (sometimes identified as multi-agency, interagency or multidisciplinary response)
- A range of organisations with different priorities and goals may respond to child sexual abuse. Collaboration involves finding common ground between organisations and does not always require formal agreement.
- Organisations that collaborate may provide support, education, and advocacy to one another. This can build a common purpose and enable the sharing of protocols and processes, as well as raising the skill and knowledge level of the workforce overall.
You should seek consent from victims and survivors (and parents and carers of children and young people) prior to collaborating with other service providers, and ensure that any information-sharing is consistent with the laws in your state or territory. Your organisation may already have these processes in place.
This Practice Area outlines the knowledge and skills you may need to contribute to service systems that are coordinated, joined-up and victim and survivor-centred. It aligns with Standard 3 of the Minimum Practice Standards: ‘Services provide holistic, integrated supports that are inclusive of victims, survivors, and their support system, provide connection to community, and the broader service system’.