Extension of the Lighthouse Project

The expansion of the Lighthouse Project commenced nationally on 28 November 2022. The funding for state and territory legal aid commissions is supporting the expanded Lighthouse Project by increasing the legal aid commissions’ capacity to provide representation services to parties and appoint independent children’s lawyers.

Since expansion, 24,353 eligible matters have been filed, of which 88% (21,383) have had at least one party being sent the risk screen. This has resulted in 24,193 individual parties completing the risk screen in 17,104 matters, which equates to 80% of matters having at least one party completing a risk screen.

Following completion of a risk screen, the Court provides safety planning and service referrals as part of the online Family DOORS Triage process, in addition to a specialised document outlining national and local services available. In high-risk cases, a Triage Counsellor will be allocated to undertake further review and assessment of the risk identified. Since expansion, a total of 24,809 triage events for individual parties have been facilitated by Triage Counsellors. This has consisted of 16,551 Case File Reviews, and 8,258 Triage Interviews conducted following the Case File Review, which has resulted in the provision of more tailored service referrals and the development of safety and wellbeing plans.

For the 4,447 matters placed on the family violence specialist Evatt List, these matters benefit from close and careful case management, coupled with the making of safe and appropriate orders which cater to the needs and circumstance of each individual family. Since expansion, of the Evatt List matters that have been finalised, 56% finalised within 12 months of filing, and only 18% proceeding to final hearing before a Judge.

More information is available at Lighthouse overview - Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia.