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Follow the links below to find material targeted to the unit's elements, performance criteria, required skills and knowledge

Elements and Performance Criteria

1. Elements define the essential outcomes
2. Engage person in a supportive process
   • Analyse existing case information about the user of domestic and family violence as the basis for work
   • Establish an appropriate physical space that conveys safety and privacy
   • Establish trust and collaboration with the person who has been subjected to family violence, including explanation of the process
   • Use engagement and questioning techniques that invite the person to share their perspectives and concerns
   • Maintain an ethical relationship with the person with appropriate boundaries
   • Attend to the appropriate cultural context for the client
3. Acknowledge the seriousness of domestic and family violence on individual well being
   • Convey messages that acknowledge the traumatic impact of domestic and family violence
   • Listen for the specific safety concerns of the person involved
   • Interrupt self-blame using supportive communication techniques
   • Recognise how the dynamics of domestic and family violence have impacted the person’s ability to make decisions and plan
   • Recognise how the health status of the person has been impacted by domestic and family violence
4. Prioritise safe interventions
   • Clarify the current situation and circumstances of the person and their dependents
   • Clarify the client’s perception of safety
   • Manage dynamics of power in worker client relationship using interpersonal skills
   • Prepare a safety plan with the client based on identified needs
   • Provide accurate and current legal information according to the person’s needs
   • Identify the need for, and action referrals according to organisation procedures
5. Identify and explore presenting problems
   • Encourage the person to describe the presenting problems and explore their understanding of their concerns
   • Encourage the person to notice and discuss their concerns in relation to associated behaviours or situations
   • Elicit the person’s understandings of attempts to manage their concerns in the past
   • Encourage the person to describe actions they have taken to resist, minimise and avoid violence
   • Encourage the person to describe relationships of respect and trust they have experienced
   • Elicit the person’s understanding of ways to build respectful and trusting relationships
6. Attend to practical concerns
   • Explore safe accommodation options for the person
   • Collaboratively identify and explore the concerns and issues that impact on the person’s situation and life
   • Collaboratively explore the person’s support networks and sources of assistance
   • Make relevant referrals according to organisation policies and procedures and the person’s specific needs
7. Promote realistic and achievable actions that support safety
   • 6.1 Recognise and work with the impact of diversity and cultural obligations on the client's ability to change their circumstances
   • 6.2 Recognise and work with the significance of the client's perception and assessment of safety
   • 6.3 Recognise the client's ability to take appropriate actions in the timing most appropriate for the individual involved
   • 6.4 Support and encourage actions that promote the individual's control of their situation

Performance Evidence

The candidate must show evidence of the ability to complete tasks outlined in elements and performance criteria of this unit, manage tasks and manage contingencies in the context of the job role. There must be evidence that the candidate has:

provided effective interventions and developed and documented plans for at least 5 different clients who have been subjected to domestic and family violence

explored the full range of practical considerations, including:

financial issues

legal issues

work related issues

support networks and assistance

matched intervention modalities and techniques to clients needs, goals, and values, using each of the following on at least 1 occasion:

cognitive behaviour therapy

solution-focused

narrative

image

systemic.

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Knowledge Evidence

The candidate must be able to demonstrate essential knowledge required to effectively complete tasks outlined in elements and performance criteria of this unit, manage tasks and manage contingencies in the context of the work role. This includes knowledge of:

legal and ethical considerations for the domestic and family violence work, and how these are applied in organisations and individual practice:

codes of conduct

discrimination

duty of care

human rights

mandatory reporting

practitioner/client boundaries

privacy, confidentiality and disclosure, including limited confidentiality rationale and processes

policy frameworks

records management

rights and responsibilities of workers, employers and clients

specific legislative frameworks that apply to domestic and family violence, including:

family law

child protection

domestic violence

work role boundaries – responsibilities and limitations in a therapeutic relationship

work health and safety

individual and systemic therapeutic models and their application, including evidence-based therapies and culturally sensitive approaches

strengths, limitations, and contraindications of specific therapy models, including risks of harm associated with models that incorporate assumptions of family dysfunction, pathogenesis, or cultural deficit

the development of theories of intervention

difference between supportive and interventionist counselling

counselling models, their principles and how they are used, including:

cognitive behaviour therapy

solution focused

narrative

image

systemic

how to distinguish between content and process issues

timing and appropriate termination of counselling

group work models and how they are used

advocacy, community work and community development models

issues affecting family relationships and their impacts and dynamics, including:

domestic and family violence

all abuse types

mental health

disability

post-traumatic stress disorder

socioeconomics

inter- generational issues

dynamics of intimate relationships

complex interpersonal interactions, power in relationships, abuse and conflict

support groups available to people who have lived with family violence

issues the affect different groups in the community

own values, family of origin work.

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