Purpose
To limit the harm caused to victims-survivors of sexual violence and to support their engagement with the criminal justice system, MSD piloted a psychosocial court support service in Auckland through Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation (Auckland HELP) from June 2018 until July 2019. Further funding was sought through Budget 2019, which provided $6.348 million over four years to invest in court support services. This literature review was commissioned to inform the design of the service.
Specifically, the literature review seeks to understand what psychosocial support looks like in other parts of the world. The review examines literature on a range of court support models to understand what is considered ‘best practice’ in different jurisdictions. It identifies key commonalities and challenges, and makes recommendations for the Aotearoa New Zealand context.
Methodology
The New Zealand Law Commission’s 2015 report, The Justice Response to Victims of Sexual Violence, identified several international court support models that are considered to represent best practice. This review provides an overview of these models and others. It explores the key commonalities of what is considered ‘best practice’, challenges for implementation and recommendations for the Aotearoa New Zealand context. Accessible academic and grey literature was reviewed and sorted by relevance, and the findings synthesised and summarised from the identified evidence.
To inform decision-making about the expansion of the court support pilot in Aotearoa New Zealand, the agreed method was a rapid narrative review.
Key Results
- Victim-survivor-centred, integrated programmes, such as one-stop-shops and wrap-around service models, are perceived as best practice in responding to victims-survivors of sexual violence. These models enable victims-survivors to access a range of services and support at one location, including medical care, legal advice, counselling and advocacy, thus increasing access to justice and helping to reduce re-victimisation.
- Strong relationships, collaboration and communication between medical and legal services, police, counsellors, advocates and other support services can help better support victims-survivors throughout the justice process and ensure victims-survivors get access to the services and support they need.
- It is more challenging to implement multi-agency, wrap-around support programme because they are resource intensive and more expensive to run than stand-alone services. Furthermore, insufficient resources, including staff and services, can create a rural-urban divide.
- Victims-survivors feel more confident to participate in and cope with the challenging nature of the CJS when they have ongoing access to a qualified and/or specially trained sexual violence advisor/advocate, who can provide personalised and holistic support and advice throughout.
- It is important that service providers receive specialist training to respond effectively to the diverse and complex needs of victims-survivors of sexual violence. This includes the needs of indigenous people, ethnic communities (migrants and refugees), people with disabilities, people with mental health issues, and the LGBTQ community. Providing specialist care Literature review on international best practice court support models for victims-survivors of sexual violence and culturally appropriate services can help avoid the re- raumatisation and re-victimisation of victims-survivors.
- Recommendations for implementing a court support model in Aotearoa New Zealand will need to consider whether findings from ‘best practice’ international models are applicable to the local context, particularly for Māori victims-survivors of sexual violence and other ethnic groups in Aotearoa New Zealand (e.g. Pasifika, and migrant/refugee background communities). Other considerations include the scope of services available in New Zealand, such as the availability of specialist staff and regional resources.