• Kerrie James, Jan Breckenridge
• Australian Domestic & Family Violence Clearinghouse

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13 December 2010This paper proposes a multi-systemic practice framework to help counsellors assess for and respond to homicide risk in family violence contexts. The framework outlines the four main system domains that counsellors may need to address: the client system; the therapeutic relationship; the organisational context; and the system of services.

Recently, there have been a number of high profile cases reported in the Australian media where men have murdered their wives or partners, sometimes their children and/or other close family members, and then, in some instances, have themselves committed suicide. These cases are often preceded by long histories of domestic violence and coercive control of the female partner.

Contexts such as these underscore the need to develop appropriate intervention strategies to ensure that counsellors and frontline workers are able to assess and intervene with a woman who is being abused by her partner and is at risk of serious injury or death. This paper aims to address these difficulties by providing a multi-systemic framework incorporating practice directions for counsellors and organisations who do not specialise in domestic violence but who may nevertheless encounter victims of domestic violence in their practice. This work builds on and is informed by an action research project undertaken in partnership with Relationships Australia, South Australia (RASA).

The rationale for developing such a framework is twofold. Firstly, organisations are accountable for their policies, processes and decisions made by the client’s counsellor or other workers involved with a client, when that client of an organisation is killed as a result of domestic violence. We, therefore, propose this framework to be used to guide organisations to develop, implement and evaluate best practice in assessing and responding to domestic violence across a number of ‘domains’ of their operations. Secondly, this framework can be used by organisations to ensure that they are part of a comprehensive, multi-systemic response to domestic violence. In presenting this framework, the authors aim to provide directions for best practice, while recognising that domestic violence-related homicides cannot always be predicted or prevented.

Before presenting the framework and principles, this paper will provide a brief summary of the literature and research that specifically inform the definitions used in the paper and that provide the theoretical context for the development of the framework.