Session 02.2 Balancing Risk and Resolution - How a Court's Approach to Family Violence Informs Systemic Change
Tracks
Track 2: Room LG18
| Monday, July 28, 2025 |
| 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM |
| LG18 - The David Li Kwok Po Lecture Theatre |
Overview
Panel Session
Chair: TBC
Panellists:
- Judge Kylie Beckhouse, Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia
- Ms Anne-Marie Rice, Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia
- Ms Janet Carmichael, Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia
Details
Overview
As a consequence of the introduction of a range of funded services for separated families, and the requirement to attempt mediation before filing in Court, the risk profile of court users in the Australian family law system has increased dramatically over recent years. In the 2023/24 financial year, data showed that allegations of family violence were present in 83% of matters, allegations of child abuse were present in 73% of matters, and 70% of matters before the FCFCOA had allegations of 4 or more risk types including family violence, child abuse, mental health issues and substance abuse.
The FCFCOA has responded to this emerging profile with a range of world leading initiatives, resulting in earlier and improved identification and management of risk, more effective use of social science expertise, increased numbers of registrars with delegated judicial powers, the introduction of common framework and language for conceptualising child safety and family violence throughout the courts, and enhanced opportunities for families to safely negotiate child focussed agreements through a transformative dispute resolution model. All of these initiatives have been enabled by a fundamental change to the Courts’ case management pathway which has seen the management of cases shift to being the responsibility of registrars (court employed legal officers) and the introduction of dispute resolution into the early part of the case pathway.
The presenters will deliver a panel session in which the three following elements of the FCFCOA reforms will be outlined and discussed:
- The confidential online screening tool completed at the point of filing and the consequent triaging process designed to ensure that parties are connected to appropriate services, have appropriate safety plans in place for attending court events and are directed into the appropriate case management pathway (referred to as Lighthouse)
- The synergistic combination of the new type of preliminary social science assessment with the new dispute resolution model (including assessments of safety and supports to ensure productivity)
- The integration of the Safe & Together Model of family violence into the work of the FCFCOA’s judges, registrars and social scientists, and the impact that this has had on the Australian family law system more broadly, including on the responses of legal practitioners to family violence dynamics.
Abstract 1
Lighthouse
Working directly with its original authors, Professor Jennifer McIntosh and Relationships Australia (SA), the FCFCOA has adapted the well validated, online risk screening application known as Family Law DOORS to be a bespoke, confidential screening tool that FCFCOA parties are invited to complete at the point of initial filing. Information obtained through the tool is used to provide parties with targeted advice about support services. For parties whose responses indicate a high-risk profile, a triaging process is conducted by a specially trained Triage Counsellor. This triaging involves a comprehensive review of the filed material and, where appropriate, a one-on-one assessment interview with the party. Information obtained through the online tool and the social science triaging process is then used to:
1. provide parties with tailored referrals to services,
2. identify what safety plans are required for court attendance, and
3. refer the matter to a Judicial Registrar to determine whether the matter is suitable for the FCFCOA’s high risk Evatt list or another specialist list.
This panel session will provide information about the online screening tool, the triaging process and the high-risk list. It will also provide data demonstrating the uptake, profile and consequent pathway of matters, as well as accounts of party’s experiences of this early, confidential risk screening and assessment process and the impact on subsequent case management and resolution of the matter.
Abstract 2
Child Impact Reports and Dispute Resolution Conferences
While continuing to provide expert social science evidence for trial, the FCFCO has pivoted to focussing on how it can more effectively use social scientists early in the court pathway. A new form of early, child focussed, preliminary assessment, known as the Child Impact Report, is now available soon after the first Court event. This report presents risk information through the lens of the impact on the child and is designed to keep the child’s experience, needs and voice front and centre throughout the Court pathway.
While attempts to mediate disputes is now mandatory before filing in Court, the FCFCOA recognised that there were many matters in which the opportunity to participate in a dispute resolution process within Court proceedings provided a further chance for parents to reach early, workable, child focussed agreements. Using a risk informed, transformational model of legally assisted mediation, the Court’s legal officers (Registrars), often assisted by the Court’s inhouse social scientists (Court Child Experts), are delivering high volumes of dispute resolution conferences early in proceedings.
Three years after the introduction of these two initiatives above, the positive impacts of each are clear. What has also become clear is the exponential effect of using legal officers and social scientists in this synergistic way early on in proceedings. This panel session will provide information about the FCFCOA’s dispute resolution model and the Child Impact Report, and will explain how these interact to bring about outcomes that protect the safety and wellbeing of children.
Abstract 3
The Integration of the Safe & Together Model into the FCFCOA
The internationally renowned Safe & Together Model was developed to assist child protection agencies achieve outcomes that are best for children. The model, and its associated tools, guide these authorities in the formulation of case plans that allow children to remain in safe relationships with non-violent parents through the framing of intimate partner violence as a parenting behaviour for which violent parents are held to account.
While, legally, the private law jurisdiction of family law differs markedly from the public law of child protection, the FCFCOA recognised the cross over in its litigant population and sought to determine if a model developed for child protection agencies could provide a meaningful framework for working with parenting disputes. As a result, a partnership between The Safe & Together Institute and the Court was established. What followed was a highly collaborative and robust exchange of ideas exploring how the model could be integrated into the work of family law report writers, registrars and judges and the development of a comprehensive training program that has been delivered to all FCFCOA cohorts over the last 4 years.
This session will articulate how the model’s core principles have come to be embedded within practices across the FCFCOA, the impact of this on the outcomes for children and the impact on the approach required of legal and social science professionals working in family law system.
As a consequence of the introduction of a range of funded services for separated families, and the requirement to attempt mediation before filing in Court, the risk profile of court users in the Australian family law system has increased dramatically over recent years. In the 2023/24 financial year, data showed that allegations of family violence were present in 83% of matters, allegations of child abuse were present in 73% of matters, and 70% of matters before the FCFCOA had allegations of 4 or more risk types including family violence, child abuse, mental health issues and substance abuse.
The FCFCOA has responded to this emerging profile with a range of world leading initiatives, resulting in earlier and improved identification and management of risk, more effective use of social science expertise, increased numbers of registrars with delegated judicial powers, the introduction of common framework and language for conceptualising child safety and family violence throughout the courts, and enhanced opportunities for families to safely negotiate child focussed agreements through a transformative dispute resolution model. All of these initiatives have been enabled by a fundamental change to the Courts’ case management pathway which has seen the management of cases shift to being the responsibility of registrars (court employed legal officers) and the introduction of dispute resolution into the early part of the case pathway.
The presenters will deliver a panel session in which the three following elements of the FCFCOA reforms will be outlined and discussed:
- The confidential online screening tool completed at the point of filing and the consequent triaging process designed to ensure that parties are connected to appropriate services, have appropriate safety plans in place for attending court events and are directed into the appropriate case management pathway (referred to as Lighthouse)
- The synergistic combination of the new type of preliminary social science assessment with the new dispute resolution model (including assessments of safety and supports to ensure productivity)
- The integration of the Safe & Together Model of family violence into the work of the FCFCOA’s judges, registrars and social scientists, and the impact that this has had on the Australian family law system more broadly, including on the responses of legal practitioners to family violence dynamics.
Abstract 1
Lighthouse
Working directly with its original authors, Professor Jennifer McIntosh and Relationships Australia (SA), the FCFCOA has adapted the well validated, online risk screening application known as Family Law DOORS to be a bespoke, confidential screening tool that FCFCOA parties are invited to complete at the point of initial filing. Information obtained through the tool is used to provide parties with targeted advice about support services. For parties whose responses indicate a high-risk profile, a triaging process is conducted by a specially trained Triage Counsellor. This triaging involves a comprehensive review of the filed material and, where appropriate, a one-on-one assessment interview with the party. Information obtained through the online tool and the social science triaging process is then used to:
1. provide parties with tailored referrals to services,
2. identify what safety plans are required for court attendance, and
3. refer the matter to a Judicial Registrar to determine whether the matter is suitable for the FCFCOA’s high risk Evatt list or another specialist list.
This panel session will provide information about the online screening tool, the triaging process and the high-risk list. It will also provide data demonstrating the uptake, profile and consequent pathway of matters, as well as accounts of party’s experiences of this early, confidential risk screening and assessment process and the impact on subsequent case management and resolution of the matter.
Abstract 2
Child Impact Reports and Dispute Resolution Conferences
While continuing to provide expert social science evidence for trial, the FCFCO has pivoted to focussing on how it can more effectively use social scientists early in the court pathway. A new form of early, child focussed, preliminary assessment, known as the Child Impact Report, is now available soon after the first Court event. This report presents risk information through the lens of the impact on the child and is designed to keep the child’s experience, needs and voice front and centre throughout the Court pathway.
While attempts to mediate disputes is now mandatory before filing in Court, the FCFCOA recognised that there were many matters in which the opportunity to participate in a dispute resolution process within Court proceedings provided a further chance for parents to reach early, workable, child focussed agreements. Using a risk informed, transformational model of legally assisted mediation, the Court’s legal officers (Registrars), often assisted by the Court’s inhouse social scientists (Court Child Experts), are delivering high volumes of dispute resolution conferences early in proceedings.
Three years after the introduction of these two initiatives above, the positive impacts of each are clear. What has also become clear is the exponential effect of using legal officers and social scientists in this synergistic way early on in proceedings. This panel session will provide information about the FCFCOA’s dispute resolution model and the Child Impact Report, and will explain how these interact to bring about outcomes that protect the safety and wellbeing of children.
Abstract 3
The Integration of the Safe & Together Model into the FCFCOA
The internationally renowned Safe & Together Model was developed to assist child protection agencies achieve outcomes that are best for children. The model, and its associated tools, guide these authorities in the formulation of case plans that allow children to remain in safe relationships with non-violent parents through the framing of intimate partner violence as a parenting behaviour for which violent parents are held to account.
While, legally, the private law jurisdiction of family law differs markedly from the public law of child protection, the FCFCOA recognised the cross over in its litigant population and sought to determine if a model developed for child protection agencies could provide a meaningful framework for working with parenting disputes. As a result, a partnership between The Safe & Together Institute and the Court was established. What followed was a highly collaborative and robust exchange of ideas exploring how the model could be integrated into the work of family law report writers, registrars and judges and the development of a comprehensive training program that has been delivered to all FCFCOA cohorts over the last 4 years.
This session will articulate how the model’s core principles have come to be embedded within practices across the FCFCOA, the impact of this on the outcomes for children and the impact on the approach required of legal and social science professionals working in family law system.
Speaker
Judge Kylie Beckhouse
Judge
Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia
Balancing Risk and Resolution - How a Court's Approach to Family Violence Informs Systemic Change
Biography
Judge Kylie Beckhouse is a Judge of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2). Before her judicial appointment in 2020, she worked exclusively in family and child protection law, culminating in her leadership of the family law division at Legal Aid NSW, a major Australian family law practice.
As a Churchill Fellow, she authored a 2016 research paper on the administration of international child legal representation schemes. She has played a key role in establishing a range of family law services, including a national family violence scheme now implemented in all Australian family law courts. Recognised for her contributions to women and the law, she was awarded the 2017 NSW Women Lawyers' Award.
A former member of the Family Law Council of Australia and the NSW Children's Court Advisory Committee, she has also served on the Law Society of NSW's Family Law and Children's Law Committees.
Within the Court, Judge Beckhouse chairs the Family Violence Committee and is a member of the Children's Committee. She also serves as the Case Management Judge for Division 2, Sydney Registry.
Ms Anne-Marie Rice
Senior Judicial Registrar And Executive Director - National Registrar Operations And Practice
Federal Circuit And Family Court Of Australia
Balancing Risk and Resolution - How a Court's Approach to Family Violence Informs Systemic Change
Biography
Senior Judicial Registrar Anne-Marie Rice is a multi-award winning family lawyer and mediator.
Ms Rice is responsible for the expansion of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia’s family law Registrar programs and practices nationally. She has been delivering local, national and international keynote addresses and workshops for over 20 years.
Ms Janet Carmichael
Executive Director Court Children's Service
Federal Circuit And Family Court Of Australia
Balancing Risk and Resolution - How a Court's Approach to Family Violence Informs Systemic Change
Biography
Janet is the Executive Director of the Court Children’s Service in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (FCFCOA). In this role, Janet is responsible for the work undertaken by the social scientists (primarily psychologists and social workers) who are engaged by the FCFCOA to assist families, registrars and judges make decisions that are in the best interests of children.
Janet is a psychologist with over 30 years’ experience working with children and families across the areas of child development, child protection, mediation and family relationships, including nearly 20 years in direct service delivery roles. Prior to joining the Court in 2017, Janet held senior leadership roles with Centacare Sydney and Relationships Australia NSW (managing counselling, mediation and men’s behaviour change programs and the Sydney City Family Relationship Centre) and with the Commonwealth Department of Veteran’s Affairs’ Open Arms program. She also holds a Master’s degree in management.
