Dispute Resolution Centers

The accounts of victims of intimate partner violence being reduced to a "dispute" has often been contested by Family Relationship Centers.  They have often stated that they assess victims and the Family Court has backed this in their statements.  By law, the victim(s) do not have to participate.  This does not prevent a victim being coerced by a practitioner into participating with threats of supplying the court with a certificate stating that they refused to participate.  The resolution Dispute industry is very open to the employment of fathers rights advocates who intend on sabotaging the processes designed to protect victims as the protections themselves are in reality a mirage that appears politically attractive.  Below is a training guideline to becoming recognized as a qualified dispute resolution practitioner. 

To their credit, they have a component to responding to family domestic violence in family work.  However, I cannot say in what context the course refers to domestic violence and whether it is taken seriously and understood as a gender-based issue according to the articles set out by the united nations on violence against women.  

To find out, we did a random search and discovered a position description which is often inclusive of the roles and responsibilities that is required in a legal employment contract.  This is not the only provider that is short on requesting specific skills necessary, so I do request that readers look beyond the name of the organization for scrutiny as there is a larger contributing factor at fault here:

Note that there are no skills required in previous experience or training on domestic violence:

From the Attorney Generals Office on information for providers:  
How are they accountable?  Case notes.  If they write good case notes on the situation as if they are going to be held accountable, then they are as they like to put it, "Above the Law".  Good cases notes can include:

1. Tearing out pages and rewriting them before being audited or subpoenaed(source:Child Protection Insider).
   
2. Writing it in a way that it questions the sanity of the client that is most likely to threaten legal action.
3. Writing that they did things to ensure their safety such as making a phone call for a referral when it never occurred.
4. Writing up an appointment that never transpired.
5. Stating that they advised safety plans and the client had consented to something that they didn't consent to.

These are some of the actions that counsellors can and have done to "save their behind" from litigation.  

In reality, there are many workers that are under qualified for the job and pressured to conform to actions that would be regarded publicly by anyone as inhumane.  The whistleblowers act does not protect workers from speaking out against these situations and in some cases workers who do not conform to organizational abuse against their client can be defamed in their sector and deemed unemployable.     The counseling industry is unfortunately another ugly spawn of the industrial revolution unless it is done with a genuine motivation of good will to heal and understand others.  If one were to view large counseling organizations as we view fast food giants, one can truly grasp where the ethics fall to wayside whilst the greed to please the powerful becomes pure motivation.  What is rising is the fathers rights above children's rights trend and for the children it is a nightmare beyond the fairy-tales of a "happy Family".  The evidence lies in how many parenting agreements are made when there is a history of violence.  Not to mention how much the government is saving at the price of freedom from torture.  In fact, according to the Australian Associated Press in this article, it has saved 36.9 million dollars.