Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer's Report

Sam Horsfield

Chairperson

Joanna Fletcher

Chief Executive Officer

Promoting healing in the legal system for victims of family violence: the potential of restorative justice

Family violence is on the political, media and public agenda in a way that it has never been before. With the Royal Commission into Family Violence in Victoria tasked with making practical recommendations to the Government to improve responses, we have a unique opportunity to convert this level of attention into real and lasting change.

Our impact through innovation

In this impact report you will read about the many ways in which Women’s Legal Service Victoria (WLSV) innovates to respond to the needs of women experiencing family violence:

•  As part of the multi-agency No More Deaths Victorian election campaign we secured wide-ranging state election commitments from all major political parties on reform of the family violence system.
• We held our first digital interactive discussion forum in partnership with Deakin Centre for Rural & Regional Law and Justice – on family violence, family law and safety of children.
• In this year alone, our economic wellbeing project, Stepping Stones, assisted nearly 150 women. Delivering integrated legal and financial counselling services to women who are experiencing financial hardship in the context of family violence, the project reduced clients’ collective debt by over $200,000.