SAFE project
System Audit Family Violence Evaluation
Project Lead: Heather McKay
Project Team: Heather McKay, Kelsey Hegarty, Elly Taylor, Jenny Chapman and Jean Cameron
Project Partners: The Women’s, Collier Charitable Fund
The System Audit Family Violence Evaluation (SAFE) Project
The University of Melbourne and the Royal Women’s Hospital obtained a grant from the Collier Charitable Fund to undertake research to assess the impact of the Strengthening Hospital Responses to Family Violence (SHRFV) program. The SAFE Project developed a System Audit Tool (SAFE Tool) to evaluate how hospitals and health services organisations are realising change at the patient, staff, and organisation levels to address family violence.
What is the SAFE Tool?
The SAFE Tool provides an Overall Score derived from individual scores weighted across ten domains: one Patient Domain focused on identification and response to patients (13 indicators) two Staff Domains focused on staff support and training to undertake the work (13 indicators) seven Organisational Domains focused on system factors needed to support staff including: policies, procedures and guidelines; governance and leadership; intersectionality and diversity; collaboration; infrastructure; culture; and quality improvement (45 indicators)
The SAFE Tool, a System Audit Tool, has been successfully implemented across eighteen Victorian health services by the Royal Women’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne.
Exciting announcement: SAFE Project Expanded
The University of Melbourne, in collaboration with the Royal Women’s Hospital, have received Commonwealth National Partnership funding for an expansion of the System Audit Family Violence Evaluation (SAFE) Project. Work will be conducted over 2023 and 2024.
We are now recruiting 20 new hospitals and health services to participate in the SAFE Project Expanded and inviting all sites who participated in the original SAFE Project to also be part of this exciting work. Recruitment is being conducted via an expression of interest (EOI) process. The EOI form and further information about participation can be found here.
What do we know from this project?
We know that auditing and feedback are powerful mechanisms to change behaviour individually and across organisations. The SAFE Project shows where sites are progressing system change within their organisations to address family violence, and highlights the investment needed and the work still to be done to ensure women and families are on a pathway to safety and well-being across Victoria and nationally.
