Synopsis
This Grand Round explores the role of health professionals in family violence identification and response.
Professor Kelsey Hegarty will discuss how the consequences of family violence are commonly seen in health care settings, and the high intersection of domestic violence and child abuse means that paediatric and women’s health settings have a major role to play in early intervention. Drawing on international work and systematic reviews she will outline a health system model at the practitioner and policy level for this complex, sensitive problem that underlies many paediatric presentations. Implementation of such an interdisciplinary model is likely to enhance children’s and women’s safety and well-being.
Ms Linda Gyorki will talk about how legal problems can have a detrimental impact on health and wellbeing. Many patients disclose family violence as well as their legal issues to frontline health professionals. This puts frontline health professionals in a powerful position to act as catalysts for referrals for further support. Inner Melbourne Community Legal provides a free, generalist legal clinic on-site at the Royal Children’s Hospital each Wednesday morning in the Family Hub. Linda will outline the capacity of Health Justice Partnerships to improve access to support for Victorians who are experiencing vulnerability to violence, and provide an overview of the on-site legal clinic. Information will also be provided about a current RCH project called ‘Strengthening Hospital Responses to Children Affected by Family Violence’.

Speakers
Professor Kelsey Hegarty is an academic general practitioner and Chair of Family Violence Prevention at the University of Melbourne and the Royal Women’s Hospital. She is co-chair of the Melbourne Research Alliance to End Violence against Women and their Children. Her research program includes the evidence base for early interventions; education and complex interventions around identification of and response to family violence online and in health care settings.
Ms Linda Gyorki is a Senior Lawyer at Inner Melbourne Community Legal and manages three health-justice partnerships with major metropolitan hospitals in Victoria. In 2014, she undertook a Churchill Fellowship which saw her travel to the USA, Canada and the UK to research barriers to integrating legal assistance into a health-care setting. Prior to working at IMCL, Linda worked in private practice and also spent a year working with the Judiciary in the Pacific-island nation of Kiribati.