Information sharing guidance for the family violence sector

Overview

The Family Violence Act took effect on 1 July 2019. The Act created new rules allowing family violence agencies and social services practitioners to collect, use, request and share personal information for purposes related to family violence.

Safe and appropriate information sharing will allow better coordinated responses to assess and manage family violence risk. Together, the law encourages the family violence sector to collaborate to identify, stop, prevent and otherwise respond to family violence.

From August – September 2018, the Ministry of Justice used this consultation page to seek feedback from the sector on a guidance document, designed to support family violence agencies and social services practitioners to apply and use the new laws.

Summary of feedback report and final guidance document

In January 2019 we released a summary of the feedback received during this consultation from victims, practitioners, agencies and the public on the draft family violence information sharing guidance.

In June 2019, the final version of the guidance was released, along with a decision tree poster and factsheet about the new information sharing laws.

These documents can be found on the Ministry of Justice website, at:

Information sharing guidance