Our practice

As Victoria’s largest family violence refuge provider, Refuge Victoria has a deep commitment to supporting all women escaping family violence.

As part of this commitment Refuge Victoria is helping lead a shift to harm minimisation in refuge settings, partnering with Just Practice to develop a consistent practice approach to supporting women who use alcohol and other drugs (AOD) across its refuge sites.

Our work

We designed an AOD practice framework and phased implementation roadmap for Refuge Victoria. The work brings together Refuge Victoria’s commitment to harm minimisation with the workforce and organisational changes needed to deliver it.

Our discovery process brought together:

• published evidence, existing practice models and guidance on integrated family violence and AOD service responses
• workforce expertise gathered through consultations with Refuge Victoria staff and leaders, harm reduction experts, specialist family violence advisors and allied sectors including specialist homelessness services
• consultations with victim/survivor advocates
• a review of Refuge Victoria’s existing practice documentation, policies and procedures.

Designing a whole-of-service practice framework

The framework takes a systems lens to the conditions that shape practice responses to substance use: policies and procedures, leadership, partnerships and collaborative approaches, power dynamics, and mindsets. It identifies where these conditions need to shift so harm minimisation is supported across the organisation and sustained in everyday practice.

The framework is organised across seven interconnected practice areas. Staff can draw on the guidance, tools and resources most relevant to their role and each woman’s circumstances, helping them apply this knowledge in everyday client work.

Planning for implementation

We developed a phased roadmap to move the framework into everyday practice. The roadmap provides a sequence for this work, with opportunities to involve staff, reflect on progress and adjust the approach as learning emerges.

What this means for practice

Refuge Victoria now has a clear organisational position on harm minimisation and a workforce development model to guide AOD-responsive practice across its refuge sites.

For women and young people who use substances, the framework will support individualised, value-neutral and non-judgemental service responses that respect their rights, autonomy, choices and goals.

Developed for Refuge Victoria, the practice framework’s principles and practice approaches are highly applicable to other family violence and residential services supporting people who use alcohol and other drugs.

Read the framework

In 2025 Odyssey Victoria practitioners reported increases in women with gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) dependence, including young people and pregnant women. They were identifying concerning intersections between women’s use of GHB and experiences of family violence, sexual violence and substance-use coercion, alongside barriers to accessing health care and safety.

Workers had limited consistent sector guidance for these situations. Published research provided important information about GHB’s clinical risks, but much less about how those risks intersect with violence and coercion.

Odyssey Victoria wanted to understand the emerging needs and develop a response that workers could use across complex service situations.

Our work

Odyssey Victoria partnered with the Centre for Impact & Change and Just Practice. Odyssey Victoria’s aim was to strengthen workforce capability to respond to the unique health and safety risks and harms experienced by women who use GHB.

We didn’t start with an end product in mind. We used a discovery process to explore the issue and design the response. The result was an evidence-based, practice-informed and intersectional practice guide, co-produced with the workers it was developed for.

The Centre for Impact & Change led the evidence review that underpins the practice guide. Just Practice brought this evidence together with sector consultation and lived experience insights, translating the findings into workforce guidance.
The discovery process brought together:

• an evidence brief synthesising national and international research
• insights from the Victorian AOD sector to build an understanding of GHB use among women, and best practice responses, including:
  • a frontline AOD workforce survey
  • consultations with AOD practitioners, peer workers, addiction medicine specialists, nurse practitioners, AOD antenatal specialists and family violence clinicians
• consultations with victim/survivor advocates.

Our discovery process showed gaps in existing guidance, inconsistent service responses and areas where workers needed clearer support. In response we developed: Supporting women who use GHB: A practice guide for the alcohol and other drug workforce.

Victorian AOD workers are the guide’s end users, so we co-created it with them. This meant the content and design have been shaped by what works for AOD workers in everyday practice.

The practice guide

Grounded in a harm reduction approach the practice guide embeds intersectional practice every step of the way. It provides:

• context for understanding how GHB use and dependence in women intersect with family violence, sexual violence, substance use coercion and pregnancy.
• evidence-based, practice-informed actions workers can take to recognise risks, reduce harm, coordinate care and advocate for access to services.
• supporting tools and resources.

What this means for practice

This practice guide is written for frontline AOD workers and service leaders in Victoria. While it is based on Victorian legislation, policy and service systems, many of its practice considerations are relevant across Australia.

It is also a resource for primary health and community services, supporting shared understanding and stronger collaboration to improve safety and outcomes for women who use GHB.

The project has created opportunities to share findings and contribute to broader sector learning.

Together with Odyssey Victoria, we have presented the project at:

• the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (ISSDP) conference, Perth.
• Australian Winter School Conference, QNADA Queensland.

VicHealth’s Place-based Approaches team wanted to design and trial a new approach to operationalising its Partners in Place investment model.

Our work

We designed and facilitated two workshops with VicHealth’s Place-based Approaches team to help the team test ideas and operational approaches. We then translated what we learnt into an operational practice framework for a three-month pilot.

The team designed the model. Our role was to facilitate the process, surface questions and turn their thinking into clear guidance for working together.

How we did it

Workshop 1: Testing the model

In a three-hour workshop the team tested assumptions about the proposed model, explored opportunities and risks, and identified questions to resolve before implementation.

Workshop 2: Designing the operating system

In a full-day offsite workshop the team mapped how the operational approach would work in practice. They agreed roles and portfolios, responsibilities and decision-making processes, set operational rhythms, and planned ways to reflect on and adjust the approach. The day ended with agreement on a three-month pilot.

We designed both workshops around the team’s preferences for working together. We allowed time for deeper thinking in the morning, varied pace throughout the day and kept technology to a minimum. Adaptive leadership, reflective practice, participatory approaches and continuous learning informed the design.

The operational practice framework

We brought the workshop decisions together in a framework setting out:

• governance and accountability
• team roles and responsibilities
• decision-making processes
• meeting, planning and review routines

The framework provided a common reference point for the three-month pilot and a resource for introducing new staff to the team’s ways of working.

What this means for practice

VicHealth’s Place-based Approaches team turned a proposed operating model into an agreed way of working, with clear responsibilities, decision-making processes and regular structured opportunities for learning throughout the pilot. Designing it together with the team brought VicHealth’s commitment to participatory practice into the team’s own work, applying the same principles it supports through its place-based investment model.