This paper presents the state of knowledge on practices or processes used by child protection services and specialist domestic violence services or family law services to work better together and improve service responses for women and children living with and separating from family violence.

A framework of interagency working was used to help identify the types of interagency components – including infrastructure and service components – involved in each model. Processes taken to support or facilitate the interface with child protection were also considered.

The paper identified 24 models of interagency working involving some degree of child protection involvement. It found that while working together towards similar goals for families seems a logical way of improving processes to reduce fragmentation, gaps, overlap and redundancies in service provision, there is currently insufficient evidence that these changes improve outcomes for children and families. 

Key recommendations arising from this paper include investing more funding and support into evaluation and implementation of models, and considering evidence for interagency models outside this field where there may have been more rigorous evaluations. 

ANROWS current research and impacts on policy and practice will be reported at ANROWS’s Inaugural National Research Conference on Violence against Women and their Children in Melbourne, 23-25 February 2016.  www.anrowsconference.org.au