Dr Effie Zafirakis1
1Independent Consultant, Australia
Biography:
Dr. Zafirakis is a qualified lawyer ,forensic psychologist and art therapist. As a consultant she promotes therapeutic justice reform . She has extensively lectured in the tertiary education sector at RMIT University in Melbourne, in the Justice and Legal Studies, Criminology and Psychology and the Juris Doctor in Law programs. Dr. Zafirakis has also practiced as a duty solicitor with Victoria Legal Aid. She is an active committee member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Psychology (ATSIPP) Interest Group, Australian Psychological Society (APS) and of the Reconciliation and Advancement Committee– Law Institute of Victoria (LIV).
Reframing our perspective and responsibility for addressing family violence requires a ‘collective momentum’ for systemic collaboration, service integration and holistic innovation. Of primary importance is understanding the lived experience of Aboriginal children and families impacted by family violence and intergenerational trauma, and co-investing in new ‘ways of being’ and working together to achieve systemic responsivity of care. Reactive systemic responses focusing on mothers’ responsibility may inadvertently disempower women and perpetuate significant psychological harm and unwarranted child removal. Aboriginal women in particular, represent an exponentially growing prison population and are increasingly listed as respondents in family violence matters. It is proposed that responding to Aboriginal children and families experiencing family violence in the context of unresolved intergenerational trauma and complex needs, calls for a biopsychosocial wellbeing-informed approach and a recognition of the autonomic nervous system’s role in healing relational trauma. This requires a consideration of how service systems can effectively focus on mitigating the risk of trauma activation and cumulative harm by supporting relational resilience and wellbeing. Integrated Therapeutic Justice Care is proposed as a collaborative care network framework that calls for strength-based and integrated collaborative care system responses that prioritise family violence prevention and promoting care capacity for early intervention, family restoration and wellbeing. This further calls for collaborative and responsive systemic approaches that refocus our collective efforts on promoting more transformative and sustainable policy and service outcomes. The author briefly considers the empirical evidence in support of this promising approach and new directions for Integrated Therapeutic Justice Care reform.