How does Information Sharing allow us to understand Risk and Safety
Undertaking information sharing allows us to build a picture of what is occurring in the family, and what has been an effective intervention in the past.
We cannot under the FVISS or CISS schemes request all information about their engagement with the AoD service. However, we can request:
- information about what the service was
- whether there was any notes related to the risk and safety of family members noted during their engagement
- their engagement in the program, did they actually attend
Together, with the person who experienced the violence, we can then have a discussion about whether they felt that the violence used by their family member increased or decreased while they were engaged in that program. If they felt that the violence decreased, the service sector needs to look at how we can possibly reengage the person using violence into a similar program.
While the aim is to always remove the violence completely, identifying which interventions has/hasn’t been effective, doesn’t just allow us to work with adults using violence in their current relationship, but acknowledges that they may go on to have other relationships and identifying a pattern of interventions that have been effective, is just as important as understand what has been ineffective.
The practitioner who received the L17 for the person using violence, is able to establish that prior to the most recent incident, they had been staying in an acute mental health hospital. They undertake an information sharing request. They are not entitled to information that does not pertain to risk and safety, so they are unable to find out formal diagnosis, or what led them to be in the hospital.
However, what could be shared is their perception of the relationship with their (ex) partner, who they believed they were very much in a relationship with and their ongoing use of family violence while admitted in the hospital, which were repeated phone calls which had been documented and overheard by staff.
This information, along with information from the family members experiencing violence was able provide practitioners with an understanding of the mental state of the person using violence which allowed for an accurate assessment of risk for the family.
In this instance it allowed for quick referrals to a high risk management panel, as a response to the risk the family in was outside what could be provided in the service sector.
