Specialist Financial Counseling for Women Affected by Domestic and Family Violence: Staff and Client Perspectives on an Australian Initiative.

This article examines staff and client perspectives on an initiative providing co-located specialist Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) financial counseling in women's legal services. An exploratory mixed-method study in five service locations captured perspectives via a client survey ( = 42), online interviews with staff ( = 15), and a review of services' progress reports. For staff and clients, integrating financial counseling into women's legal services contributed to a more comprehensive model of support which helped address the economic harms associated with violence.

Waiting for redress: Child sexual abuse survivors' experiences of Australia's National Redress Scheme.

Background: Governments in multiple countries have established redress schemes to acknowledge institutional responsibility for child maltreatment; to provide survivors with access to compensation, counselling and apologies; and to prompt better practice to prevent child maltreatment. Establishing a National Redress Scheme was recommended by Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The Scheme commenced in 2018 and will run for a decade.

Adapting Service Delivery during COVID-19: Experiences of Domestic Violence Practitioners.

COVID-19 rapidly altered patterns of domestic and family violence, increasing the complexity of women's needs, and presenting new barriers to service use. This article examines service responses in Australia, exploring practitioners' accounts of adapting service delivery models in the early months of the pandemic. Data from a qualitatively enriched online survey of practitioners ( = 100) show the ways services rapidly shifted to engage with clients via remote, technology-mediated modes, as physical distancing requirements triggered rapid expansion in the use of phone, email, video calls and messaging, and many face-to-face interventions temporarily ceased.

COVID-19 lockdowns, intimate partner violence and coercive control.

2020 was a year like no other, with the COVID-19 virus upending life as we know it. When governments around the world imposed lockdown measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, advocates in the domestic and family violence (DFV) sector recognised that these measures were likely to result in increases in violence against women, particularly intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV can take many forms, including physical, emotional, psychological, financial, coercive controlling behaviours, surveillance and isolation tactics.