Learning from family violence deaths
This is the introduction to a 7-part series about one of the most significant contributions to eliminating family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand in the last decade.
You’ve probably never heard of the Family Violence Death Review Committee (FVDRC).
It is a committee made up of people involved in the field of family violence with expertise in a variety of areas:
issues from a service user/family perspective
child abuse and protection issues
service provision and operational policy in the social sector
Māori family violence issues and Māori families affected by family violence
other ethnic groups' family violence issues
social science and health research
family violence law
mortality review systems
risk assessment
medical expertise
FVDRC is located within the Health Quality and Safety Commission and has up to 8 members appointed by the Commission. It advises the Commission and make submissions to laws. Most importantly, members study data from family violence related deaths to recommend improvements to systems and processes that will improve NZ’s response to family violence.
The Committee believes family violence is a very important issue for government and society generally. Family violence deaths by themselves are only the tip of an iceberg of serious harm. Violence within families has serious, widespread, and long-lasting detrimental effects on health and wellbeing. Addressing family violence is an essential part of improving health care.
To date, the FVDRC has issued eight reports, with the most recent one released in March 2023. We are going to highlight most of the reports from the FVDRC this week in a series so that you may become more familiar with their studies, their recommendations, and follow any forthcoming outcomes.
Next month marks 10 years since the publication of the Third Report, which signalled an exciting new phase of the Committee because it did more than just analyse the data from death reviews, it took action and made strong recommendations based directly on the evidence. Because the first two reports were managed under a slightly different system, we aren’t going to include them.
We hope you learn more from this series and use this information in your personal activism, to increase your knowledge, and to understand the complexities behind death due to family violence in our society.
