social work and domestic violence essay

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Introduction, specialist dfv support services, non-specialist support services, data and methods, non-specialist services and dfv: new empirical evidence from administrative data, improving dfv data collection: lessons for non-specialist service providers, implications for social work policy, research and practice, acknowledgements.

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Responding to Domestic and Family Violence: The Role of Non-Specialist Services and Implications for Social Work

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Christine Ablaza, Ella Kuskoff, Francisco Perales, Cameron Parsell, Responding to Domestic and Family Violence: The Role of Non-Specialist Services and Implications for Social Work, The British Journal of Social Work , Volume 53, Issue 1, January 2023, Pages 81–99, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcac125

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Social workers play a critical role in responding to the needs of individuals impacted by domestic and family violence (DFV). Social work literature has long been devoted to understanding the functioning, accessibility and effectiveness of specialist DFV services. In contrast, much less is known about how non-specialist services can, and do, support victims of DFV. This study addresses this important gap by empirically examining the links between DFV and a non-specialist service designed to assist people experiencing financial hardship. To accomplish this, we draw on an expansive administrative database of assistance records ( n  = 305,176) from the St Vincent de Paul Society, one of the largest non-specialist support providers in Australia. Descriptive analyses of DFV-related records ( n  = 4,374) yield novel insights into the socio-demographic profile of clients seeking assistance due to DFV, the types of assistance they required and how non-specialist providers respond to DFV-related requests for assistance. Our results demonstrate that non-specialist services play a critical yet under-recognised role in responding to people impacted by DFV. This has significant social work practice implications, highlighting the importance of specialist DFV services working in tandem with non-specialist services to deliver the best outcomes for victims.

Social work is at the forefront of societal action to respond to domestic and family violence (DFV). DFV—defined as any form of violence committed within an intimate partner or family/kinship relationship ( AIHW, 2019 )—is not simply a pervasive injustice and crime in society; it also causes multiple harms that require victims and their families to seek support to manage its consequences. Indeed, the WHO (2018) estimates that intimate partner violence alone affects nearly one in three women worldwide. Moreover, the direct and indirect costs of DFV have been estimated at a staggering US$1.3 trillion, or nearly 2 per cent of world Gross Domestic Product ( UN Women, 2016 ). The literature illustrates that social work has played a key role in responding to DFV primarily through specialised DFV services ( Mandara et al. , 2021 ). Despite these significant contributions, however, the pervasiveness and severity of DFV within society, coupled with the high support needs of victims, renders the problem far too vast for specialist DFV services to respond to alone ( Mandara et al. , 2021 ). Non-specialist services therefore play an equally critical role in providing wraparound support to individuals impacted by DFV. Whilst much research has been conducted into specialist DFV services, there is a vacuum of evidence on the role that non-specialist services also play—possibly unknowingly—in responding to people impacted by DFV. It is therefore necessary that we expand our knowledge to service systems where social workers specialising in DFV may not be employed to understand how non-specialist services can work in tandem with specialist DFV services to ensure that ‘no one is left behind’ ( Kendall, 2020 , p. 6).

Emergency relief (ER) is one particular form of non-specialist support that is prominent in countries such as the UK, the USA and Australia (where the present study is based). ER is defined as ‘the provision of financial and material aid to people in immediate need, or a referral to link people with specialist community services’ ( ACOSS, 2011 , p. iv). Originally designed as a crisis response to people experiencing severe financial hardship, ER now seeks to support people experiencing deep financial disadvantage to participate more fully in society over the long term. Existing social work scholarship demonstrates strong links between financial hardship and experiences of DFV, suggesting that a proportion of people who access ER support may also be experiencing DFV ( Engels et al. , 2012 ; Slabbert, 2017 ). ER therefore represents one type of non-specialist support service that merits further investigation into its role in assisting people who are impacted by DFV. Throughout the article, we refer to ER support as non-specialist support.

In this article, we take on this task by providing new and unique insights into how non-specialist support providers respond to clients seeking DFV-related support. To accomplish this, we leverage unique and powerful administrative data from the St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland (SVdP Queensland), one of the largest providers of non-specialist support services in Australia. The term administrative data refers to data that are routinely gathered by an organisation for operational rather than research purposes ( Connelly et al. , 2016 ). In our context, administrative data represent both a highly valuable and an underutilised source of information. Indeed, in 2013, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women called for United Nations Member States to ‘Improve the collection, harmonization and use of administrative data … and improving the effectiveness of the services and programs provided’ ( UN Women, 2013 , p. 14). The United Nations foregrounds the value of administrative datasets because they have the ability to improve our understandings of the number and characteristics of individuals accessing specific services due to DFV, the costs of providing a particular service to individuals impacted by DFV and the capacity to meet the demand for a specific service ( Kendall, 2020 ). Knowledge on each of these factors is key to ensuring that the needs of individuals impacted by DFV are adequately met.

As well as enabling us to respond to the United Nations call for improved use of administrative data, our use of such data in the current study enables us to illuminate a major ‘blind spot’ in the literature on responses to DFV. Specifically, it allows us to determine if and how non-specialist services play a role in responding to people whose lives are impacted by DFV. Drawing on an analysis of SVdP Queensland’s administrative data, this article addresses three questions: (1) who are the DFV clients requesting non-specialist support? (2) what types of assistance do they request? and (3) how do non-specialist services respond to the needs of DFV clients?

The answers to these questions bring us a step closer to identifying who may be slipping through the gaps of the specialist DFV service system, and how social work can play an active role in reimagining service systems to better meet the needs of people impacted by DFV. In particular, we highlight the importance of: systematic and rigorous administrative data collection; DFV training for social workers, other staff and volunteers in the non-specialist sector; and utilising the full capacity of referral systems to improve linkages between DFV and non-DFV support services. Together, these recommendations present opportunities for how specialist and non-specialist services can work in tandem to ensure the service system as a whole is responding to DFV in the most effective and efficient way possible.

Specialist DFV support services are specifically targeted at responding to the range of complex and intersecting issues experienced by those who are impacted by DFV. Typically, specialist DFV services are administered by a range of professionals to victims of DFV and include various forms of support to help keep women safe and prevent them from experiencing future violence. These supports include temporary accommodation to enable victims to leave the perpetrator and access a safe living environment ( Murray et al. , 2022 ), and financial support to provide victims with the financial capacity and budgeting skills to enable them to begin to live independently of the perpetrator ( valentine and Breckenridge, 2016 ). They also include legal services that provide advice, representation and advocacy, and facilitate women’s fair and equitable access to the justice system ( Stubbs and Wangmann, 2017 ), as well as counselling services, to provide victims with mental-health support and enable them to process their trauma ( Spangaro, 2017 ). Social workers play a key role in these responses as both providers of intervention alongside other professionals, and as a source of referrals for people requiring other forms of support ( Spratt et al ., 2022 ).

Much research has been conducted internationally and in Australia on the role of specialist services in supporting victims of DFV—for instance, to ascertain and improve their efficiency and effectiveness ( Morrison et al. , 2007 ; Kelly and Dubois, 2008 ). In Australia, specifically, there is an increasing focus on the nature and characteristics of the specialist DFV workforce ( Wendt et al. , 2020 ; Mandara et al. , 2021 ). However, knowledge regarding some types of services—such as women’s refuges—remains limited ( Theobald et al. , 2021 ). Moreover, despite the range of specialist services available, not all DFV victims access these supports. The existing literature points to multiple barriers that may prevent DFV victims from seeking help from specialist DFV services. One such barrier is the tendency for specialist services to focus on supporting victims to leave the perpetrator ( Keeling and van Wormer, 2012 ). Indeed, many of the services provided to victims—including temporary accommodation, legal services, security services and financial support—are premised on the assumption that for the violence to end, victims must remove themselves from the home of the perpetrator ( Goodmark, 2018 ). For victims who are unable to leave their perpetrator or who do not want to (e.g. for fear of being unable to financially support themselves and their children alone), many specialist DFV services may have limited support to offer.

Another critical barrier to accessing specialist DFV support is concerns about child-protection intervention. The literature documents how some mothers who are victims of DFV fear that disclosing the situation to specialist services may result in their children being removed due to a threat of violence or failure to protect ( Keeling and van Wormer, 2012 ). Other scholars have pointed to a reluctance to access DFV-specific support services because of the shame and stigma associated with DFV ( Pajak et al. , 2014 ). Some women do not even recognise that the behaviours they are being subjected to are, in fact, abuse, and therefore do not present to specialist services available to DFV victims—a barrier that can be exacerbated by cultural practices that marginalise women ( Afrouz et al. , 2021 ). At the same time, high levels of demand for specialist DFV support can overwhelm the system and prevent services from assisting all those who require support. In Australia, persistently high rates of DFV coupled with consistent under-funding by government, have stretched the specialist DFV sector to its limits. As a 2017 DFV workforce survey revealed, nearly one in three specialist DFV practitioners were considering leaving their job due to burnout ( Pfitzner et al. , 2022 ). Given these factors, it is crucial to understand if and how victims draw on non-specialist services to access the support they require.

In contrast to specialist DFV services, non-specialist support services provide more general support for people experiencing hardship or other forms of disadvantage. In Australia, such services tend to provide three primary forms of support: (i) health and mental-health care, to ensure equitable access for people with limited means ( Department of Health, 2020 ); (ii) housing assistance, to assist people experiencing—or at risk of—experiencing homelessness ( Parsell et al. , 2013 ); and (iii) ER, to provide immediate financial and practical assistance to people who are experiencing a financial crisis ( ACOSS, 2011 ). In Queensland, as in the rest of Australia, these non-specialist supports are typically funded by government and provided by not-for-profit and charitable organisations. Like specialist DFV services, these organisations employ both professional staff (including social workers) and volunteers ( Parsell et al. , 2021 ).

An increasing body of literature examines how and why victims of DFV engage with non-specialist services. For example, Spangaro’s (2017) systematic review demonstrates that the health system is a key point of entry to specialist support systems for victims of DFV. This is driven by fewer barriers to accessing mainstream health services as opposed to specialist DFV services. Furthermore, given that DFV can often result in physical injuries and mental-health problems, victims seek medical help as a direct consequence of those injuries. As a result, scholars advocate for the establishment of procedures to support health professionals to identify DFV, appropriately respond to disclosures of DFV and refer victims to specialist DFV services ( Spangaro, 2017 ; Dawson et al. , 2019 ).

Similarly, Spinney and Zirakbash (2017) and Murray et al. (2022 ) comment on the role of general housing assistance services in responding to DFV. Spinney and Zirakbash (2017) argue that women who experience homelessness as a result of DFV may seek support from general housing services, but will not identify themselves as victims of DFV. Murray et al. (2022) , on the other hand, suggest that general housing services may serve as a ‘last resort’ for victims of DFV who are unable to be accommodated through specialised services due to limited resources and places available. Problematically, general housing services are not well equipped to respond to the safety risks or other support needs of DFV victims (e.g. trauma support, protection from violent perpetrators) ( Spinney and Zirakbash, 2017 ). Spinney and Zirakbash (2017) and Murray et al. (2022) thus foreground the importance of encouraging clients of housing services to recognise that their experiences constitute DFV, to self-identify as having experienced DFV and to access appropriate specialist services.

Whilst the role of generalist health and housing services in responding to DFV has been examined in existing literature, considerably less is known about the role of ER. ER is a type of crisis support that can take a variety of forms, including cash, food parcels and/or food vouchers, clothing, furniture and other household goods, as well as payments to utility providers and creditors ( ACOSS, 2011 ; Engels et al. , 2012 ). In addition to financial or material aid, assistance can also be provided in the form of information, advocacy and referrals to other organisations ( ACOSS, 2011 ). Previous studies of ER users in Australia show that they are predominantly female, aged between twenty-five and forty-five years, more likely to be born in Australia, more likely to be single parents or single individuals and are usually receiving government support ( Engels et al. , 2012 ; Homel and Ryan, 2012 ).

In this article, we examine the role that non-specialist services play in responding to requests for DFV-related support. Little is currently known about who is accessing non-specialist support for DFV-related reasons, what forms of assistance they require or how well the non-specialist service system is equipped to respond to their needs. Given the barriers to help-seeking faced by people impacted by DFV, it is critical that we improve our understanding of if, and how, people with DFV-related needs access non-specialist support. It is equally important to understand how non-specialist services respond to these needs, and how it may work in tandem with specialist DFV services. The purpose of this article is to begin to develop this knowledge.

In this study, we draw on administrative data to investigate the role of non-specialist support services in responding to DFV. An ethics exemption for the use of de-identified data was provided by our institution’s Human Research Ethics Committee. The data used are derived from the Compassion, Advocacy, Response and Empathy (CARE) database maintained by SVdP Queensland. SVdP Queensland is a non-profit organisation providing non-specialist material support (e.g. food, clothing, furniture, finance) to disadvantaged populations in Queensland. Support is primarily administered by conferences, or local parish groups comprising voluntary members. Each conference is tasked with providing support to clients that are located within their specific geographic area.

The data used here span the period from January 2018 to April 2021. They encompass 305,176 records of assistance corresponding to 76,044 clients. The database itself contains two main types of information for each client. The first captures the client’s socio-demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, Indigenous status, country of birth and main income source. The individuals in our database are predominantly female (59.1 per cent), aged between twenty-five and forty-four years (51.6 per cent), mostly born in Australia (86.5 per cent) and overwhelmingly recipients of government income support payments. These characteristics reflect the characteristics of ER users found in national-level Australian studies, suggesting that our Queensland sample is broadly representative of the Australian population ( Engels et al. , 2012 ; Homel and Ryan, 2012 ). The second type of information pertains to details of the assistance request and the corresponding assistance provided to the client. This includes, amongst others, the type of material assistance requested, the monetary equivalent of the assistance provided to the client, whether the client was referred internally or externally to other organisations and the time spent assisting the client. In addition, each client record contains two free-form text fields—reason for assistance and further information—which can be used to provide additional background on the client, including their exposure to, or history of, DFV. These two text fields, which were populated for 94.3 per cent of assistance records, constitute an important component of our analyses.

Given the large number of assistance records, we deployed a semi-automated text mining procedure using Stata 16 to identify DFV-related requests. Specifically, we identified keywords or phrases associated with DFV such as ‘DV/DFV’, ‘domestic abuse’, ‘violent ex’, ‘abusive relationship’ and ‘fled home’. We then tagged assistance records containing any of these keywords in either of the two free-form text fields. To ensure that all tagged records were indeed DFV related, we manually screened a randomly drawn subset of records. We also drew random subsamples of assistance records not tagged as DFV related to ensure that no DFV cases were missed out in the screening process. Following this procedure, we identified a total of 4,374 records involving DFV. This corresponds to 1.4 per cent of all assistance records. The remaining records originated from assistance provided for non-DFV-related reasons (e.g. housing eviction, loss of employment) and were used to compare support provided for DFV and non-DFV-related requests.

In this section, we provide a detailed quantitative description of the DFV-related records focusing on three main dimensions: the profile of clients making DFV-related requests, the types of assistance requested by these clients and the level and nature of resources provided to these clients.

Who are the DFV clients seeking non-specialist support?

Before analysing the characteristics of DFV clients requesting ER, it is important to understand how they become involved with SVdP Queensland. Similar to non-DFV clients, this occurs primarily through a system of referrals. Referral sources are highly varied, encompassing self-referrals, family and friends, government agencies and other actors in the social service sector. Our analyses revealed that, of these different sources, self-referrals are the most common, accounting for 95.7 per cent of DFV-related requests. Requests originating from community and health services (2.4 per cent), other programmes run by SVdP Queensland (0.5 per cent) and the government agency in charge of administering welfare payments in Australia, Centrelink (0.4 per cent), are much less prevalent. These patterns are similar to those of non-DFV clients, where 98.2 per cent of requests originate from self-referrals.

The vast majority (91.2 per cent) of DFV-related requests were made by women. This resonates with Australian ( AIHW, 2019 ) and international ( Buzawa and Buzawa, 2017 ) evidence that DFV is a highly gendered issue, with most victims being women and most perpetrators being men. This suggests that the majority of DFV clients seeking non-specialist support may be victims of DFV as opposed to perpetrators. However, visual inspection of textual data suggests that some requests may have been initiated by individuals who were indirectly impacted by DFV (e.g. extended relatives supporting victims) or perpetrators (e.g. due to unemployment upon exiting the criminal justice system, or displacement from their homes due to court orders).

Figure 1 provides a more detailed breakdown of the socio-demographic characteristics of clients making DFV-related requests. It shows that these requests are primarily initiated by individuals aged between fifteen and forty-four years, people who identify as Indigenous and people who were born in Australia. In particular, DFV-related requests from Indigenous clients accounted for 17/1,000 records compared to 13/1,000 records amongst non-Indigenous clients. Similarly, requests from Australian-born clients were more common at 15/1,000 records compared to 10/1,000 records for overseas-born clients. In addition to these characteristics, DFV-related requests are disproportionally made by those who are experiencing homelessness or housing instability (as proxied by not having a fixed address) and those with children. Indeed, clients with children were twice as likely to make a DFV-related request as clients without children.

Number of DFV records by socio-demographic characteristics.

What type of assistance do DFV clients seek?

Having established the link between DFV and ER, we now turn to specific forms of help sought by individuals impacted by DFV. In this regard, the data demonstrate that individuals impacted by DFV have greater needs for assistance than other clients. This is illustrated by greater shares of DFV clients seeking material assistance in the form of food, clothing, finance and furniture as compared to non-DFV clients. Strikingly, the share of DFV clients requesting clothing and furniture is more than double that of non-DFV clients ( Figure 2 ). Indeed, only 9.2 and 7.5 per cent of non-DFV clients request clothing and furniture, respectively, compared to 22.2 and 15.6 per cent of DFV clients. The greater need for clothing and furniture amongst DFV clients speaks to DFV being a key driver of homelessness and housing instability amongst victims. More broadly, these patterns highlight the economic burden associated with DFV. This may be direct, such as when violence results in damages to a victim’s property, finances and other material resources. At the same time, there are also indirect costs arising from DFV. This includes the costs of relocation (e.g. bonds, rental deposits and furnishings), health care costs to address the physical and psychological damages caused by DFV and legal costs associated with filing restraining orders and settling issues of child custody and support ( Spangaro, 2017 ). For clients with children, child-rearing expenses further exacerbate the financial pressures that result from DFV.

Distribution of emergency relief requests by DFV status and item requested.

Importantly, a considerable share of DFV clients makes repeat requests for ER. Out of the 3,499 individuals who made a DFV-related request, 602 (17.2 per cent) had at least two DFV-related records in the database. Moreover, these requests occur within a relatively short timeframe, with roughly one in three repeat DFV requests occurring within a month. The incidence of repeat DFV requests is nevertheless likely to be underestimated, as clients may not always disclose their DFV background when making a request. As DFV is generally an ongoing pattern of abuse rather than a one-off incident ( Stark, 2012 ), it is likely that DFV clients who make subsequent requests within short timeframes are still being impacted by DFV, even if they do not specifically identify as such. Summing up all requests per individual—including those that do not explicitly pertain to DFV—the incidence of repeat requests amongst DFV clients is substantially higher at 80.1 per cent compared to 57.7 per cent for non-DFV clients. In other words, eight out of ten clients impacted by DFV made a repeat request. Whilst this figure may result from reasons not directly related to DFV, it does highlight the presence of multiple overlapping issues faced by DFV clients. Particularly, it underscores the way in which DFV victimisation is a gateway into other forms of socio-economic exclusion and material deprivation. It also resonates with arguments that DFV may have long-term effects, and that there is a dire need for longer-term support for those impacted by it ( valentine and Breckenridge, 2016 ).

How do non-specialist support providers respond to the needs of DFV clients?

Having established the intensity of need associated with DFV, we now turn to quantifying the amount of resources needed to assist DFV-impacted clients. Summing up the total amount spent by SVdP Queensland for in-kind assistance (e.g. food vouchers, prescription medicines, utility bills) and cash assistance, the data show that DFV clients received higher levels of assistance than non-DFV clients. On average, clients received AUD$132 in total per DFV-related request compared to AUD$96 for non-DFV-related requests. However, given the high level of need experienced by individuals impacted by DFV, this does not mean that SVdP Queensland was able to meet their requests. To gauge how well requests for assistance were met, we examined how ‘requests’ for assistance compared with the ‘actual’ assistance provided. Requests for food were addressed in approximately nine out of ten cases, either through in-kind assistance or electronic vouchers. In contrast, requests for furniture presented a greater challenge. Of the 682 requests for furniture made by clients impacted by DFV, only 380 (55.7 per cent) were either partially or fully addressed through in-kind or financial assistance. The relatively large share of unfulfilled requests for furniture may be explained by the constraints some conferences face in terms of the types of assistance they can provide, as well as a lack of furniture stock in SVdP Queensland’s warehouses.

These resourcing constraints are particularly important when we consider the concentration of requests across different conferences. Out of 185 active conferences, 19 (or 10.3 per cent) account for approximately 50 per cent of all DFV-related requests. Twelve of the nineteen conferences that have the highest number of DFV-related requests are located in regional areas, while only seven are in metropolitan areas. While these conferences are also amongst the largest in terms of non-DFV requests, their size does not fully account for the disproportionate number of DFV-related requests in these areas. Factors such as the availability of human and financial resources as well as existing relationships with other DFV service providers may explain the disparate trend in DFV-related requests across conferences.

The concentration of DFV requests in specific areas has repercussions for service delivery, as some conferences must impose limits on support or restrict the number of requests per client. The inability of the provider to respond to such requests suggests that the needs of many DFV clients are unmet, thereby forcing them to seek support from other service providers. This is particularly problematic because requests by DFV clients are concentrated in rural areas. In Australia, rural areas typically have significantly fewer support services available than urban areas, and several key measures of deprivation are higher in rural compared to urban areas ( Wendt, 2010 ). The scarcity of support services in non-urban areas results in longer waits for services, slower response times and higher costs of service provision ( Campo and Tayton, 2015 ).

In some instances, when conferences are unable to meet the needs of the client, they will refer the client to other service providers who may be better positioned to help support the client. However, the data illustrate that rates of referral for DFV clients are very low. In particular, only 1.1 per cent of DFV clients were referred internally to SVdP Queensland’s other programmes (e.g. housing programme, short-term financing programme, employment programme), while just 2.3 per cent were referred externally to other service providers. This suggests that, not only is non-specialist support often unable to fully meet the needs of DFV clients, but also that these clients are rarely assisted in accessing alternative forms of support.

The impact of DFV on victims, perpetrators and their families creates a need for various types of support. Previous studies have highlighted the role that specialist services play in addressing the needs of individuals who have been impacted by DFV ( Morrison et al. , 2007 ; Kelly and Dubois, 2008 ). Nevertheless, non-specialist services such as ER also play a unique role in the lives of individuals impacted by DFV. Our analysis illuminates a previously under-explored area by describing the profile of individuals seeking non-specialist support for DFV-related reasons, the types of support they are requesting, and non-specialist support providers’ responses to their requests.

Our analysis shows that people who are impacted by DFV do seek help from non-specialist support providers. Many of the socio-demographic characteristics identified in the data align with the profile of DFV victims in the broader literature ( AIHW, 2019 ). The data also demonstrate that DFV clients have high needs, and often make repeat requests for support. This reflects the pervasive nature of DFV and the recurrent support needs of clients ( AIHW, 2019 ). However, SVdP Queensland was unable to accommodate many requests for support, likely because of resourcing and budgeting constraints. This suggests that, although DFV clients are accessing non-specialist services for support, these services are neither designed nor resourced to effectively respond to their high and recurrent needs.

Significantly, 95.7 per cent of DFV clients accessing non-specialist support were self-referrals, which means that they had not been referred to non-specialist support services by a specialist DFV service. It is also possible that clients who self-referred had previously accessed (or were simultaneously accessing) specialist DFV services, but either did not feel that these services were able to fully support their needs, or had negative experiences engaging with the services ( Gondolf, 2002 ; Pajak et al. , 2014 ). It is also possible that clients who self-referred had not previously accessed DFV specialist services at all, or were forced to seek additional support from non-specialist services due to a lack of capacity and/or resources amongst specialist DFV service providers. Likewise, research points to multiple barriers that may prevent victims from accessing specialist DFV services ( Gondolf, 2002 ; Pajak et al. , 2014 ; Parsell and Clarke, 2022 ).

Importantly, the high rates of self-referral of DFV victims into non-specialist support suggest that they may serve as an underutilised pathway into more specialist DFV services. Our analysis shows that only 2.3 per cent of DFV clients who accessed non-specialist support were referred to services external to SVdP Queensland. This suggests that more could be done by non-specialist providers to identify DFV clients and refer them to specialist support services that may be better positioned to meet their needs. Critically, this raises the need for training and education for volunteers and professional staff in non-specialist services to better help them understand and respond to the needs of people impacted by DFV. Such training has become common practice in other sectors to enable workers to identify DFV, appropriately respond to disclosures of DFV and refer victims to specialist DFV services ( Spangaro, 2017 ; Dawson et al. , 2019 ).

By harnessing the unique features of administrative data, this study generated valuable insights on the use of non-specialist services by individuals impacted by DFV. As the first study of its kind to draw on administrative data to examine DFV clients’ use of non-specialist support, it revealed several data-related issues that merit further discussion. As foregrounded in the United Nations’ background paper on administrative data, there is a critical need to strengthen the collection and use of DFV-related administrative data to maximise its scholarly and practical benefits ( Kendall, 2020 ). As the background paper states, ‘the quality of administrative data is only as good as the human and information system resources that are collecting, entering, sharing, analysing and reporting on these data’ ( Kendall, 2020 , p. 13). The data limitations we discuss below thus hold important lessons for improving the collection of administrative data on DFV by non-specialist service providers, both to maximise their ability to respond effectively to DFV clients and to increase the usefulness of the data for future research.

The first limitation we encountered was the lack of a dedicated DFV indicator in the data, which prevented us from arriving at a more precise estimate of the number of DFV cases. To circumvent this issue, we utilised a text-mining procedure to search SVdP Queensland’s database for records that included certain DFV-related keywords. Whilst text mining is a conventional approach to analysing free-form text ( Kobayashi et al. , 2018 ), it does increase the likelihood of underestimating both the number of clients who have experienced DFV and the number of DFV-related requests made by each client. It is therefore likely that our analysis provides lower-bound estimates of these two statistics.

Secondly, the available data did not allow us to derive useful statistics on who initiated the request (e.g. the victim, the perpetrator or a victim’s relative), the nature of the relationship in which DFV occurred (e.g. an intimate relationship, within the immediate family or by carers) or the type of violence that triggered the request (e.g. physical, emotional, sexual or financial). Collecting this information in the future is vital for service providers to understand the nature and context of violence and ensuring that their service delivery is appropriately matched to need.

A third issue relates to how DFV cases are being identified in the data. In the case of SVdP Queensland, clients seeking assistance are not routinely screened for a history of, or exposure to, DFV. Rather, DFV clients are identified only when they choose to disclose their DFV experiences to workers and volunteers. On the one hand, this can exacerbate the under-reporting of DFV cases, particularly where victims or perpetrators have chosen not to disclose their experiences. On the other hand, DFV screening or the practice of asking clients whether they have experienced DFV may also present challenges when volunteers or workers are not adequately trained in providing trauma-informed responses to DFV ( Kendall, 2020 ). Altogether, these issues clearly point to a need for improved systems of data collection and recording in relation to DFV, as well as the need to train workers (both volunteers and professionals) on how to approach DFV cases. As we explain in the next section, this is an area where social workers can make a valuable contribution.

Drawing both on our findings and the data limitations identified before, our study points to three clear implications for social work. First, it is critical for data collection to be refined to ensure it fully captures the key information needed to adequately understand and respond to the client’s experiences. Indeed, the use of administrative data to understand the demand for support services and to develop tailored solutions to clients hinges on the accuracy and consistency of data collection ( Hood et al. , 2021 ). The UN ( Kendall, 2020 ) recommends nine minimum types of data to collect: the type of violence; the date the violence occurred; information about the person (e.g. the victim’s demographics and relationship to the perpetrator); the date the information is being collected; the city/state where the violence occurred; the place where the violence occurred (e.g. at home, at work, etc.); if cybercrime was involved; and if services were provided. Our study highlights the importance of this information for gaining a comprehensive picture of DFV clients’ needs as well as service providers’ ability to fulfil those needs. It is therefore imperative that non-specialist services begin integrating the collection of such data into their everyday practice. As data systems mature, social workers may benefit from using administrative data in conjunction with their own assessments to better assist clients. However, these benefits rely upon social workers playing a lead role in ensuring that administrative data meaningfully reflect the holistic nature of the work that they do ( Hood et al. , 2021 ).

Secondly, given that non-specialist service providers assist clients with DFV-related needs, it is critical that appropriate training is provided to all workers in this sector. This includes social workers who are not employed in specialist DFV agencies, but who may nevertheless encounter people who have been impacted by DFV ( Mandara et al. , 2021 ). As Mandara et al. (2021 , p. 2) argued, ‘social workers in other service contexts also need to be able to recognise DFV and know how to respond when it presents itself to social workers.’ In this regard, social workers operating within specialist DFV agencies have a critical role to play in building capacity both within and outside the social work sector. As the foregoing analysis showed, this is especially important for non-specialist service providers where there is an absence of a critical mass of social workers with DFV-specific knowledge. DFV training, particularly for workers in non-specialist services, should be grounded on policy frameworks aimed at providing an integrated and well-rounded response to DFV. In Australia, these include the family violence capability framework developed by Family Safety Victoria (2017) and adopted by the Australian Association of Social Workers (2018) .

Thirdly, this study uncovered a need to strengthen linkages between service providers by improving existing referral systems. Within SVdP Queensland alone, there is substantial scope to improve referrals given that material support is only one of the many services offered. Likewise, improving linkages between non-specialist providers is also important, particularly in cases where a particular provider does not have the capacity to fully address the needs of a client. Most importantly, non-specialist service providers must take advantage of their position as a ‘first port of call’ for DFV clients and actively refer these clients to specialist DFV services. At the same time, social workers in specialist DFV services also need to be aware of the unique role that non-specialist services play in addressing DFV. Ultimately, social workers need to think across both specialist and non-specialist sectors and work closely with other professionals and volunteers to deliver an effective and well-rounded response to DFV.

In addition, this study also highlighted the need for more research on the role of non-specialist services in responding to DFV. More specifically, future studies will be needed to understand how non-specialist support can be more responsive to the needs of DFV clients, including by considering the nature of DFV, the party requesting support (e.g. victim, perpetrator), the stage of need and the underlying reasons for the inability to assist DFV clients where applicable. Further research is also needed to examine whether the findings from this study apply to other forms of non-specialist support and to other country contexts where the provision of non-specialist support services may be different. More broadly, future studies should consider whether, and how, specialist and non-specialist DFV services work together to better support people whose lives have been impacted by DFV.

The authors are grateful to the St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland for sharing their data and to Richard Robinson, Nathan Middlebrook and Sangeetha Unbalagan for their valuable inputs.

This research was partially supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (project number CE200100025), an Australian Future Fellowship Research Grant (FT180100250), and the St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland.

Conflict of interest statement . The University of Queensland and St. Vincent de Paul Society Queensland have an ongoing research partnership, but the Society was not involved in the conceptualisation, analysis, and preparation of the study.

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