Acknowledgement of Country
Language statement
Acting Secretary’s message
About the Framework
Our commitment to engagement
Delivering on our commitment
Our commitment to our stakeholders and communities
Why we engage
Who should use the Framework
How to use the Framework
Integrity of engagement
Terminology
On this page
Acknowledgement of Country
We proudly acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Nations peoples and Traditional Custodians of the land and waters on which our lives depend. We pay our respects to ancestors of this country, Elders, knowledge holders and leaders – past, present, and emerging.
Victoria’s Aboriginal communities continue to strengthen and grow with the ongoing practice of language, lore, and cultural knowledge. We recognise the contribution of Aboriginal people and communities to Victorian life and how this continues to enrich our society more broadly. We acknowledge the contributions of generations of Aboriginal leaders who have come before us, who have fought tirelessly and fearlessly for the rights of their people and communities.
We acknowledge Aboriginal self-determination is a human right as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and we commit to working with Victoria’s Aboriginal communities towards a future of equality, justice, and strength.
Finally, we acknowledge that there are long-lasting, far reaching, and intergenerational consequences of colonisation and dispossession. The reality of colonisation involved the establishment of Victoria with the specific intent of excluding Aboriginal people and their laws, culture, customs, and traditions.
Over time, the development of Victorian laws, policies, systems, and structures explicitly excluded Aboriginal people, resulting in entrenched systemic and structural racism. We acknowledge that the impact and structures of colonisation still exist today.
The majority of Aboriginal people never have, and never will become involved in the criminal justice system as victims and/or offenders. However, it is important to recognise that the historical legacy of colonisation is still felt today, and that the disruption experienced by Aboriginal families left many marginalised, disadvantaged, and vulnerable to contact with the justice system. For the minority of Aboriginal people who do become involved in the criminal justice system, their experiences not only adversely affect the individuals involved, but significantly impact their families and the communities to which they belong.
Despite the past and present impacts of colonisation, Aboriginal people, families, and communities remain strong and resilient.
Language statement
We recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living in Victoria and involved in the justice sector have diverse cultures. The term ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’ is used when referring to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia. When referring to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living in Victoria, the term ‘Aboriginal’ is used. Terms such as ‘Koori’, ‘Indigenous’, and ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’ are retained in the names of programs, publication titles, and in reference to published data.
We acknowledge that all Aboriginal people are Traditional Owners of Country, either here in Victoria or elsewhere in this nation. Any references to ‘Traditional Owners’ in this document specifically refer to representatives of Traditional Owner group entities or Registered Aboriginal Parties that have been formally recognised by the Victorian Government.
Acting Secretary’s message
A justice and community safety system for all Victorians
In 2021, the Victorian Government launched its Public Engagement Framework 2021-2025 (External link) (PEF), committing to meaningful, principled and inclusive public engagement.
Strong relationships and meaningful engagement with our stakeholders are central to realising our vision of a justice system that works together to build a safer, fairer, and stronger Victoria. This vision is embedded in our Statement of Direction 2019-2023 and Corporate Plan 2022-26 and guides our work as a department.
The Engagement Framework for a just and safe Victoria (Framework) will help us implement the PEF and puts engagement at the centre of our work at all levels of the department.
The Framework is a strategic and practical guide for consistent, meaningful, effective, inclusive, and best practice engagement across the department. It represents our commitment to embed partnerships where possible in the design, delivery and evaluation of the justice and community safety systems.
The Framework will help us to deliver engagement that:
- prioritises meaningful connection with people
- strengthens our relationships with stakeholders and communities
- informs decision‑making to deliver our reform agenda.
Importantly, the Framework highlights our commitment to seeking out and listening to people whose voices are rarely heard and have been traditionally limited or excluded from shaping reform. This includes people who may have had negative experiences with justice and community safety systems. It also includes people with other experiences of discrimination, disadvantage and inequality.
This Framework is the culmination of many months of work, and I would like to thank all the staff and stakeholders who contributed to its development.
look forward to continuing to work with you to deliver our ambitious reform agenda.
Peta McCammon
Acting Secretary
Department of Justice and Community Safety
About the Framework
The Framework clarifies why, when, and how we engage with our stakeholders.
It is a practical and scalable guide that will drive a consistent and meaningful approach to engagement across the department.
The Framework is flexible to respond to the competing demands of government and stakeholders. We have addressed this by incorporating the standards for stakeholder engagement set by the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). The IAP2 Spectrum includes five levels of engagement, ranging from 'inform' to 'empower'. This will allow us to tailor and resource engagement activities depending on the timeframe, context, and nature of the work.
The Framework encourages staff to think about who they need to engage with to meet their objectives. Gathering information may require a broad approach, an in-depth analysis of issues through targeted engagement or a combination of both. It may also need to include stakeholders who have not traditionally engaged with government. The Framework will support staff to plan engagement well and safely to meet their individual circumstances.
Our commitment to engagement
We will strengthen stakeholder partnerships to deliver a justice and community safety system that works together to build a safer, fairer, and stronger Victoria.
We will achieve this through investment and action to achieve clear objectives, guided by our principles of engagement.
Delivering on our commitment
Realising the department’s vision involves taking tangible steps to deliver on our commitment to engagement.
To do this, we will focus on what we need to invest, what we need to do, what we expect to happen and what we want to happen as a result. By taking these steps we can deliver quality engagement.
What we will invest
We will invest in:
- leadership and direction
- people to plan and deliver engagement
- research to understand stakeholder context
- appropriate resourcing.
What we will do
We will:
- develop better practice engagement tools/resources
- establish governance for better practice engagement
- train staff
- budget appropriately
- learn more about stakeholders to better engage with them
- maintain a library of shared materials and resources
- use evaluation to support continuous improvement.
What we expect
This will help us deliver engagement that is:
- just
- unified
- skilled
- tailored
- intentional
- contextual
- evolving.
What we want
This will help us:
- build strong effective partnerships
- increase our engagement with diverse communities and people with lived or living experience
- make stakeholders feel like engagement is high quality
- make stakeholders feel like their input matters
- ensure engagement informs our decisions.
What we will deliver
Quality engagement that helps us to realise our vision for:
A justice and community safety system that works together with stakeholders to build a safe, fair and strong Victoria.
Our commitment to our stakeholders and communities
We will work proactively with our stakeholders. Diverse groups have invaluable expertise, insights and lived and living experienced of the justice and community safety systems.
Our commitment to Aboriginal people
Aboriginal self-determination is a human right enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
We recognise the desire of Victorian Aboriginal communities for greater self-determination, particularly through the Aboriginal Justice Agreement and are committed to embedding Aboriginal justice considerations in all our programs, policies and practice, consistent with principles of self-determination.
Self-determination is critical to empowering Aboriginal communities to improve justice outcomes and achieve long-term generational change, as they hold the knowledge and expertise about what will work best for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Aboriginal people need to be involved in the design, delivery, and decision-making for justice policies, programs, and services that impact on their lives. This is fundamental to realising self-determination, creating a culturally safe and responsive justice system, and ensuring that past injustices and ongoing inequalities experienced by Aboriginal people are appropriately redressed.
When we engage with Aboriginal people we will:
- prioritise self-determination
- build relationships based on mutual trust and respect
- value Aboriginal expertise
- acknowledge diversity
- protect cultural rights
- support cultural strengthening and safety
- take an approach that is strengths-based, trauma-informed and therapeutic
- address unconscious bias
- promote accountability.
The AJA partnership structures are the key mechanism for engaging with Aboriginal stakeholders on development, delivery, and decision-making for justice policies, legislation, and service delivery that will have an impact on Aboriginal communities.
These are well-established governance mechanisms and include:
- Aboriginal Justice Caucus,
- Collaborative Working Groups,
- Regional Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committees (RAJACs)
- Local Aboriginal Justice Action Committees (LAJACs).
They facilitate regular formal and informal engagement with Aboriginal communities and provide advice to the department on how to best engage with the Aboriginal community on different projects and pieces of work.
Our commitment to people with lived and living experience
We define people with lived or living experience as people who hold a personal experience of the Victorian justice system or our services, or who have experienced trauma, discrimination, disadvantage, and/or inequality in their lives.
In our context, a person with lived or living experience could be someone who has been in custody or in prison. They may be an offender, a victim of crime or both. They may be someone who has received services during an emergency such as fire or flood, or they may be someone who experiences discrimination and disadvantage because of their identity. They may be an individual, a family member or carer. They may be all the above.
One individual can identify with several diverse perspectives and experiences of our systems and services. Intersectional factors such as gender, culture, faith, disability, age, sexual orientation and socioeconomic background – including education, employment and housing status – influence a person’s experience of the world.
Our engagement needs to recognise the diversity of the Victorian population and people with lived and living experience, particularly of our systems and services, and also the unique needs and values of individuals. That includes recognising that often people have intersecting identities and experiences. People with lived and living experience are not a homogenous group – they are individual people with unique experiences, stories, and identities.
We acknowledge that some people with whom we engage are living their experience now – for example they might currently be in a custodial setting, receiving support or going through court processes as a victim of crime and/or currently engaging with justice services. It is important that we understand that the experiences people have are not binary or linear. Also, whilst a particular event may have happened in the past a person may continue to experience the impacts into the present. Therefore, it is important to recognise both ‘lived’ and ‘living’ experience. Our understanding of lived and living experience acknowledges the trauma people experience because of engagement with justice systems and institutions, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who live with intergenerational trauma resulting from the historical legacy of colonisation.
We also understand that we as staff are not separate from the Victorian community we live and work within. We are people who bring our own lived and living experience to our work; we may identify with or belong to the same identities and groups as the people we engage with. We may also have experienced trauma in our lives and could experience re-traumatisation or vicarious trauma through our work. Therefore, we need to consider the safety of stakeholders and staff, particularly on sensitive and contentious matters.
We commit to engaging with people with lived and living experience on matters that affect them to make better decisions and improve Victoria’s justice and community safety system.
To demonstrate our commitment, we will:
- prioritise resourcing for people with lived and living experience to provide their views when decisions are being made on matters that affect them
- foster a participatory culture of ‘working in partnership with’ people with lived and living experience
- be clear about roles and responsibilities
- be clear about what can be achieved and how much influence people with lived and living experience can have when they engage with us.
Our commitment to being inclusive
We commit to seeking diverse views when engaging with Victorians on matters that affect them. We will create accessible and equitable opportunities for stakeholders to provide their diverse perspectives and experiences. This includes seeking out the voices of people who are rarely heard but may be significantly affected by government decisions about justice and community safety.
We will strive for engagement to be meaningful for all participants. We will set timeframes in relation to delivery dates, communicate clear expectations and keep participants informed as to how their input will impact and/or has impacted the outcome. We will respect the context of stakeholders when planning and delivering engagement by valuing, resourcing, and remunerating their participation where appropriate, thereby acknowledging and overcoming power imbalances and barriers to participation. We will also recognise historical experiences of our stakeholders, including over-consultation, exclusion, and their experiences with the justice system.
Barriers to engagement can manifest in many ways and can be intersectional. This means that for some stakeholders, experiences of discrimination, disadvantage and inequality can intersect or overlap, creating unique forms of inequality. Intersectionality and systemic barriers should be considered as part of a stakeholder analysis when undertaking engagement.
More information on intersectionality and building a system that is inclusive, safe and responsive can be found in the UN Women Intersectionality resource guide and toolkit (External link)
Our commitment to the safety of our stakeholders and staff
We recognise the importance of safe environments when engaging with stakeholders. We take a trauma-informed approach and manage risks to stakeholder and staff safety. This involves creating environments that consider and respond to risks of harm, and promote physical, emotional, and cultural safety.
Specifically, a trauma-informed approach means our engagement is informed by a deep understanding of the impact of trauma and victimisation and works to reduce and prevent re-traumatisation. This approach acknowledges that many people live with the ongoing effects of past and current trauma, and that our stakeholders may also have had poor experiences of service system responses.
This can impact how they process information and react to different environments, and to people they have not met before or who represent the department.
For more resources on understanding the impacts of trauma and applying a trauma-informed lens to our work, visit The Blue Knot Foundation (External link)
Evidence shows that better engagement leads to better decision-making and better outcomes for stakeholders and our community.
Benefits of engaging with stakeholders in a meaningful and timely manner include:
- policies and services that fulfill their intended purpose
- money well-spent on appropriate resources for stakeholders and the broader community
- better identification and management of risk
- increased trust and confidence in Victoria’s justice and community safety system
- exposure to innovative approaches and new information
- obligations to stakeholders and requirements under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities are met.
Why we engage
Our principles
Participation is a human right
The Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities enshrines every Victorian’s Right to take part in public life
For us, this means engaging with Victorians in building a strong justice and community safety system by:
For our stakeholders, engagement provides an opportunity to:
- placing Aboriginal Victorians at the centre of our work
- embracing the diversity of our community
- engaging with people who have lived or living experience
- seeking out people whose voices are rarely heard.
- share their unique opinions, insights, and experiences
- gain experience and confidence in the way the department works and to better understand an issue from the government perspective
- be heard and impact change.
Justice underpins our work
J - Just: We create fair and equitable opportunities to contribute.
U - Unified: We bring together the interests of stakeholders.
S - Skilled: Our staff are appropriately trained.
T - Timely: Our engagement is timed to optimise impact for change.
I - Intentional: We consider individual needs and promote equity, inclusion, and empowerment.
C - Contextual: Our engagement practices are relevant and appropriate for the stakeholders we are working with.
E - Evolving: We strive for continuous improvement in our work.
Who should use the Framework
We are committed to helping our people to improve their engagement practice and empowering them to develop and maintain authentic relationships with stakeholders and communities.
Roles and responsibilities – our commitment to supporting effective engagement
| Roles | Responsibilities |
|---|---|
| Executive |
|
| Staff undertaking engagement |
|
| Stakeholder Engagement and Intergovernmental Strategy Branch |
|
| Stakeholder Engagement Community of Practice |
|
| All staff |
|
How to use the Framework
We will build engagement into our practice across the department when planning or delivering projects where stakeholder views will support better decision-making. We will use a range of processes and resources to achieve meaningful, respectful and appropriate engagement.
Types of engagement
The international standard for defining the promise to stakeholders and a stakeholder’s role in an engagement process is the International Association for Public Participation’s (IAP2) Spectrum (External link).
This is the benchmark for better practice engagement and has inspired many governments’ public engagement frameworks, including the Public Engagement Framework 2021-2025 (External link).
The IAP2 includes five distinct levels of engagement and provides an opportunity for the department to build stronger relationships with our stakeholders and communities. A project may use just one level of engagement, or it may use different levels for different parts of the project or with different stakeholder groups.
Increase opportunities to build and strengthen relationships with stakeholders
- Inform: Share information about the department, our work, our focus areas and decisions made. For example, give a presentation to the Municipal Association of Victoria on fines reform.
- Consult: Seek advice and feedback on specific areas of our work to inform decisions being made. For example, Consult with LGBTIQ+ communities on development of the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021.
- Involve: Work directly with stakeholders throughout a process, with a focus on sharing and learning from each other to inform decisions being made. For example, Involve service providers for victims of crime in developing guidance for engaging people with lived and living experience of the justice system.
- Collaborate: Partner with stakeholders to make joint decisions about desired outcomes and develop programs. For example, Collaborate with Youth Affairs Council Victoria to run peer‑based engagement with young people to help develop child safety standards
- Empower: Enable stakeholders to take action to build a safer, fairer and stronger Victoria, placing decision-making in their hands. For example, empower the Aboriginal Justice Caucus to decide on the priorities for the Aboriginal Justice Agreement.
It is essential to understand the context and expectations of our stakeholders so that we can clearly determine and communicate the type of engagement we would like to undertake with them. Each type of engagement above also implies various methods of engagement and will require different levels of resourcing, capability and capacity.
Minimum levels of engagement may be required with key stakeholders. For example, through the Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Framework we have committed to pursuing engagement with Aboriginal communities towards the collaborate and empower end of the spectrum.
Unless confidentiality is required, other stakeholders should be kept informed about our work as the absolute minimum.
It is always important to be clear and upfront about the purpose and scope of engagement. This includes what stakeholders can influence, to what extent, what the timeframes are, and how we will report back to stakeholders.
Selecting engagement type based on risk level
Engaging with our stakeholders is an integral part of managing the inherent risks associated with our work in justice and community safety.
You can use the table below to select the best type of engagement depending on the risk of not engaging with stakeholders in relation to a specific issue, for a project or stage in a project, or in the day-to-day course of your work.
Activities 1-2
Low risk – the risk of not engaging is the potential to damage relationships or cause reputational risk to the department. Keeping stakeholders informed is a way to build and strengthen relationships with our stakeholders.
Activities 3-6
Medium risk – the risk of not engaging is that we do not have all the information we need to provide advice to government. Collaborating with the right stakeholders helps to properly understand the problem and give advice on the best possible solution.
Activities 7-9
High risk – the risk of not engaging is that we deliver outcomes that are not fit for purpose, or we fail to meet legislative requirements or government commitments. Collaborating with and empowering stakeholders is particularly important in giving practical effect to the government’s commitment to self determination for Aboriginal people.
Steps for success
The eight steps to successful and meaningful engagement with stakeholders are identified in the Government’s How-to guide for public engagement (External link).
Engagement is an integral component of project planning and delivery. The steps to successful engagement below are aligned with the project phases in the department’s Project Management Excellence Framework (External link).
A robust approach to both project management and stakeholder engagement supports our work to improve Victoria’s justice and community safety system.
In larger projects delivering broader outcomes, stakeholders may be engaged to inform a particular phase of the project.
| Steps to successful engagement | Project Management Excellence Framework |
| Define the purpose of the engagement | Phase 1: Concept
|
| Understand stakeholder and community interests, values and opportunities for engagement | Phase 2: Initiation
|
| Design an appropriate engagement process | |
| Deliver genuine, inclusive and respectful engagement | Phase 3: Delivery
|
| Review and interpret the engagement information and data | |
| Apply the outcomes of the engagement to inform the decision-making process | |
| Report feedback and ‘close the loop’ on the public engagement | Phase 4: Closure
|
| Evaluate the success of the engagement and share lessons learned |
Examples of how the eight steps of stakeholder engagement can be used
- Phase 1: Clarify the problem being addressed by the project and define the project scope.
- Phase 2: Inform a more thorough stakeholder analysis by engaging with community leaders or advocacy groups.
- Phases 2 and 3: Codesign delivery of the project.
- Phase 3: Develop and support communication of the project results.
- Phase 4: Formally evaluate a significant project to test its effectiveness with stakeholders.
At any point in a project, meaningful engagement supported by the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. principles help to develop and maintain effective relationships with our stakeholders.
Integrity of engagement
Ethical engagement
It is essential that engagement is conducted ethically. Without ethics, people lose faith in the engagement process, the engagement may be compromised, and participants’ human rights may be violated. Ethical engagement is particularly important with stakeholders who have experiences of trauma, discrimination, disadvantage or inequality.
Engagement activities undertaken for research or evaluation purposes may require ethics approval through the Justice and Human Research Ethics Committee (JHREC).
For all engagement, you should consider whether consent is required. This may not be needed for some engagements, such as sharing departmental information and news on a website or via social media. Or it may involve a more formalised consent process depending on the project, the group and the risk assessment. To support informed consent, we need to share the purpose of the engagement and other key details in plain language and in a format accessible to participants.
Gender Impact Assessments under the Gender Equality Act 2020
The Gender Equality Act 2020 came into effect from 31 March 2021. It requires the department to carry out Gender Impact Assessments (GIAs) as part of its work, specifically for all policies, programs and services that directly and significantly impact the public. This means that it is a legislative requirement for all areas of the department to undertake GIAs for engagement activities that fall within this category
A GIA is a process that assists with how to apply a gendered lens to all areas of work. The GIA should start when planning engagement activities and be revisited as the project evolves. The department’s GIA also requires you to consider the impact of your work from an intersectional perspective, recognising that multiple factors related to trauma, discrimination and disadvantage may impact a person’s experience and views. The Commission for Gender Equality in the Public Sector has developed the Gender impact assessment toolkit (External link), a step by step guide to conducting a best-practice gender impact assessment. The toolkit will enable you to analyse and assess how your work contributes to equality for people of all genders.
Privacy and information security
Engagement activities regularly include the use and collection of private information. It is a clear expectation that throughout engagement activities departmental staff continue to manage their privacy obligations. This includes following department policies that help us comply with privacy legislation and seeking advice and support when needed.
Teams should be diligent in considering what information will be collected from participants, how it will be stored and who it will be shared with.
A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) should be completed by a business unit whenever they are undertaking a project that involves the new collection, use or handling of personal and health information. A PIA needs to be completed at the outset of the project or during its design stage to ensure proper privacy protections are put in place.
Procurement
Engagement activities may require staff to purchase goods or services, or source suppliers. This may include external facilitators, catering or venue hire.
Any departmental procurement activities must align with the four procurement principles:
- value for money
- accountability
- probity
- scalability.
Social procurement
Social procurement creates an opportunity for the department to use its buying power to deliver positive impacts for our community. Social procurement can also empower the communities we are engaging with and further develop positive relationships with them.
Records management
Our ability to deliver a high standard of service depends on recording and accessing information in an ethical and timely manner, ensuring that records are complete, accurate and reliable. Good information and records management supports:
- informed decision-making
- clear accountability
- improved efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of services, both internally and to the public
- sound management of resources
- meeting of legal and evidential requirements
- business continuity
- data sovereignty.
Terminology
The following terms are used throughout this Framework:
Aboriginal includes all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Communities refer to groups of people with something in common such as identity, experiences, interests, or values. A community of people often share a sense of place and belonging, for example, a particular geographical area or a virtual space through communication platforms.
Engagement involves building and strengthening relationships between the department and our internal and external stakeholders. The aim of engagement is for stakeholders and communities to inform departmental decision-making on matters that affect them and build trust. Effective engagement benefits both stakeholders and the department.
Stakeholders are people and organisations who can make a positive difference by contributing their perspective, and who:
- have any influence over a decision being made
- have any interest in a decision being made
- might be impacted by a decision being made.
Our stakeholders are people who have influence over, an interest in or are impacted by decisions being made about Victoria’s justice and community safety system. These are often external to the department, however, working effectively with internal stakeholders – other individuals or teams within the department – is also essential for our work.
Stakeholders may be individuals, groups, or communities. Most of our stakeholders live in Victoria, however, we also engage with stakeholders outside our state.
We, our, us and the department means the Department of Justice and Community Safety.
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