Carol and her husband Rod are part of an immigrants program at your community centre, you have noticed some concerning behaviour and signs of domestic abuse, you quietly pull Carol into a room while Rod is distracted with another team member. Carol and Rod were both born overseas, sharing a country of origin where they met and lived together for some years before marrying and immigrating to Australia. English is not their first language. They have two children who are now adults. Carol and Rod have been together for twenty- five years. Carol completed high school and obtained an industry qualification. She now works part-time. Rod is university educated, has a professional qualification and works in highly-remunerated employment. Rod's work requires him to travel overseas, working at remote locations for extended periods, returning home periodically. Carol describes their long relationship as turbulent and dysfunctional and recognises that Rod's controlling behaviours began in the early years and has gradually escalated. When the couple were still living overseas, Rod sought to isolate Carol from her close family and support network by insisting on buying property some distance away from the town where her many family members resided. When Carol needed to buy business wear that was often expensive Rod would monitor her spending. On the advice of a friend, Carol carried a red texta pen so she could mark the tags as sale price before bringing them home for Rod to scrutinise. Carol opened a separate bank account of her own for her earnings and made sure the statements weren't posted to their address; Rod insisted however that her earnings be exhausted first on groceries and household expenses before he made a contribution. As time went on, as well as his financially controlling and socially isolating behaviours, Rod became physically violent towards Carol, often punching and at times strangling her over man vears. Rod would not allow the children to eat meals with him and Carol: he told them he wanted their mother to himself. Rod also often told the children Carol was mad, and when the children were adults, he announced to them and other of Carol's family members that she was dying. At one stage during a previous attempt to separate, Rod tried to have Carol declared an unfit mother alleging alcoholism and mental illness; he subpoenaed her medical records, however was unable to substantiate his claims. Carol has tried to leave the relationship previously, returning each time because she found it too difficult to care for the children properly. Carol did not have adequate financial resources of her own, and Rod would regularly turn up at the homes of friends or family where she was staying and try to claim her back. Case study 2: Tim is 9 years old and is a client of your youth outreach program due to his genetic disability. His parents are Lonnie and Gary who have been in a defacto relationship for 11 years now and have another child who is 5. You become concerned about Tim's home life after some strange comments and decide to have a private conversation with his mother Lonnie at their next visit. Lonnie had previously been in an abusive relationship, and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of a physical assault by a stranger. She completed secondary education and is employed in a sales position. Gary is on a disability support pension, earns little or no additional income, and has an alcohol and drug dependency. Gary has had protection orders made against him in two different states as a result of committing domestic and family violence in two separate prior relationships. Gary's violence towards Lonnie began a couple of years into their relationship. He would strike out at her physically, splitting her lip; emotionally abuse her, diminishing her self-esteem; and be forceful in his sexual demands, which Lonnie would strongly resist. Lonnie has a horse she has cared for and been emotionally attached to for many years. Gary would threaten to shoot the horse, or slit the horse's throat; he also threatened to kill Lonnie's parents. One significant incident involved Gary karate kicking Lonnie in the leg while she was holding their young child. Both Lonnie and the child were hospitalised, and Child Safety formally intervened and arranged for their temporary safe accommodation. Lonnie has not ever fully recovered from her leg injury, which requires expensive surgery. Lonnie has previously confided in close friends about the violence she was experiencing and her concerns about bringing up children in that environment. Whilst she was alert to their advice to leave the relationship she also believed that doing so was likely to escalate Gary's violence. Lonnie wishes to seek out counselling without Gary's knowledge, to develop strategies to cope with the violence. Lonnie hopes to gain the confidence and resources to leave the relationship and relocate to an area a considerable distance away from Gary to ensure her own and her children's safety. However, she fears that Gary would track down Lonnie and the children and seek to re-enter their lives. Lonnie insists she only wants what's best for her children, also insisting they need a father and that if Gary was to promise to be a responsible father towards the boys, not get into trouble with alcohol or drugs, not be violent, and not attempt an intimate relationship with Lonnie, she would again allow Gary to be in their lives. Case study3: You are a drug and alcohol program coordinator and Liam is a new client who appears to be unhappy with attending the weekly meetings. Liam has openly told you and the group that he doesn't need to be here and his partner Gillian is the problem. You arrange a one-on-one meeting with Gillian without Liam's knowledge. Gillian and Liam have been in a defacto relationship for around six years. They have two children together. Gillian has a certificate qualification and has been consistently employed in her specialised area of work. Liam has a trade qualification, however has been unemployed for most of the relationship due to a chronic pain condition. Liam is a heavy drinker and prescription drug user; and Gillian suspects he has a form of anxiety and depression, however is not aware of any diagnosis. Liam also has a police record including offences relating to unlicensed firearms, drink driving and assaulting police. Gillian has an older child from a previous relationship who lived periodically with the father and with Gillian and Kyle. Gillian has a good relationship with the child's father. Gillian and Liam met through Gillian's previous partner and father of her eldest child. The relationship was on again-off again at the start. After needed surgery, Liam's health deteriorated and Gillian spent some weeks caring for him. He developed longer term chronic pain, and started relying on a range of prescription medications while resuming a heavy drinking habit. Gillian describes Liam's reaction to his misuse of alcohol and medication as psychotic and terrifying. He is considerably bigger and stronger than Gillian and would, when in that state, throw heavy objects at Gillian and smash up the house. Liam's verbal and emotional abuse of Gillian worsened during their first pregnancy, and after the birth, his drunken rages and throwing episodes became a regular occurrence, even when Gillian was holding the baby. Not long before Gillian gave birth to their second child, Liam gave Gillian a solid shove in her stomach. Liam has also grabbed and held Gillian forcefully until she was screaming and a friend had to pull him off her. She was severely bruised on her arms and neck as a result. Gillian has learned to anticipate his behaviour and take preventative action to avoid being harmed. She says she's good at devising escape plans for herself and the children. Sometimes, she would sleep in the car overnight; other times, they would seek refuge at her mother's house. Gillian lost contact with friends during her relationship with Liam as they didn't want to be around him when he was drunk and abusive. Gillian has a close relationship with her mother who had re-partnered, however she tried to shield her mother from a lot of the trauma she was experiencing. Gillian wants the relationship to continue, but doesn't know how to help Liam, she had convinced him to attend the A meetings in exchange for further finances. 

 Planning for support Explain how you prepared for providing support to the client. Consider resources needed, the planning that you did, the policy and procedures that you referred to, the discussions that you had with colleagues and others, safety considerations, planning for special needs and client history. Did you review any legislation, refer to codes of practice or reflect on the values and principles which underpin responding to domestic violence? Did you review your rights and responsibilities and those of the client? 

Establishing a rapport Describe how you established a rapport with the client. What were the interpersonal skills that you used to develop a relationship? How did you develop a sense of confidence in the client? How did you empower the client to share their stories with you? What communication strategies did you use to support the client? How did you tailor your approach to this client's specific cultural needs? 

How did you build a shared understanding about rights and responsibilities? How did you explain the client's right to privacy (and its limitations) to them? Identifying and assessing needs Discuss how you identified and assessed the client's immediate and longer term needs. What assessment tools did you use? What information did you gather so that you could prioritise the urgency of the client's need in relation to safety? 

How did you differentiate between whether the client required urgent, crisis-based support, longer term support or both? What were the assessment processes and protocols that you used? How did you apply your organisation's processes to making decisions about the provision of services and prioritising service delivery? What strategies did you put in place to ensure that the client's cultural safety was considered?

 What were the relevant policies and procedures that you relied on? What was the process for seeking approval for the allocation of resources to this client? Were children involved in the assessment of this client's needs and. if so, how did you incorporate their needs into the assessment process? Which of your organisation's procedures, processes and standards did you rely on in relation to the children? 

Describe the areas of need which you assessed and identified for this client (for example, physical safety, emotional safety, establishing safety plans, legal support, medical support, accommodation, transportation, children and young people. What were the goals that you established for support and services for this client?

 Developing and documenting a support plan Describe how you relied on the information which you identified and assessed for this client to develop and document a support plan What responses to indications of risk did you include in the plan? How did you develop strategies to mitigate threats to the client's safety? 

What strategies did you use to prioritise the client's needs? How did you work collaboratively with the client to negotiate and agree on the strategies for intervention and to ensure that you had their agreement before beginning work on implementing the plan? What strategies did you put in place to ensure that the client's cultural safety was considered in the support plan?

 What process did you use to document the plan including protecting the client's right to privacy (and its limitations) under legislation? Which of your organisation's policies and procedures did you apply to developing and documenting the plan? How did you ensure that the plan you developed considered the client's cultural, mental and physical wellbeing needs? What processes did you use to ensure that the client had equal access to services and support? 

Discuss how you applied the underpinning values and philosophies of responding to family and domestic violence to formulating a response plan to this client's needs? Implementing and providing support Describe how you implemented the client's support plan and provided ongoing support. What was the process that you used to prioritise the provision of services? Were there any limitations (your scope of practice, resourcing, organisational capacity and so on) which necessitated you referring the client to external services? 

What process did you use? What information did you provide to the client about the services which you were providing? Describe the records which you kept throughout the process - what was the purpose of record keeping? How did you ensure the security of documents and the protection of the client's privacy? Reference relevant organisational policy and procedures. Professional practice Describe your professional practice. Did you communicate with the client about safety? What steps did you take to plan for an emergency/to manage risks and to ensure that you met your duty of care to the client?

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

Planning for Support In preparing to provide support to the client I ensured I had access to relevant resources including domestic violence awareness ... View the full answer