Introduction
Housing instability is among the most common presenting issues in Australian social work, and it rarely arrives alone. Specialist homelessness services assisted approximately 273,600 clients in 2022-23; family and domestic violence was the most frequently recorded main reason for seeking assistance, and children under 15 accounted for roughly one in four clients (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2024b). Single-parent households headed by women are consistently over-represented, reflecting low and variable income, caring responsibilities and a tight private rental market (Productivity Commission, 2024). The overlap is not incidental: approximately one in four Australian women has experienced violence by an intimate partner since the age of 15 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2023), and housing disruption is among its most persistent material consequences (AIHW, 2024a). This coursework develops a case management plan for an invented, de-identified family in metropolitan Melbourne, moving from assessment and scored risk through planning, referral and critical reflection. All names are pseudonyms and identifying details have been altered.
Case Summary
Mira, aged 32, is the sole parent of Zoe (aged 8, Year 3) and Theo (aged 4, kindergarten). The family has rented a two-bedroom unit in Melbourne’s western suburbs for 26 months. The school wellbeing coordinator referred Mira to the community service after Zoe’s attendance fell to 76 per cent over a term and Mira disclosed that the family might have to move.
Mira separated from her former partner 14 months ago, and a family violence intervention order made under the Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic) remains in place with conditions limiting contact. Mira described the history briefly at intake, stated that she has “already told that story too many times”, and asked that it not be revisited. That request has been respected; only what is required for safety planning is recorded.
Mira works 12 hours per week in school-hours administration and receives Parenting Payment Single and Family Tax Benefit, the latter including Commonwealth Rent Assistance. Combined weekly household income is approximately $1,150 and rent is $520. The tenancy is $2,080 in arrears, equivalent to four weeks, accumulated after she reduced her hours during the separation and met relocation costs from savings. The agent has issued a breach of duty notice. Mira’s parents live in regional Queensland, she has one close friend nearby, and she previously declined a specialist family violence referral because she “did not want a file opened” on her.
Assessment must be equally attentive to strengths (Saleebey, 2013). Mira maintains consistent routines, both children are immunised and enrolled, she holds a Certificate III in Business, and she sought help before any eviction notice was issued.
Assessment Through an Ecological and Systems Lens
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) nested systems generate a different practice question at each level. The microsystem comprises Mira, the children, the school, the kindergarten, the workplace and one supportive neighbour. The mesosystem concerns the links between those settings, which are currently weak: the school knows about the attendance decline but not the arrears, and the housing service knows about the arrears but not the intervention order. The exosystem covers settings the family does not occupy but that shape it directly: the agent’s escalation of the breach notice, employer rostering, Services Australia payment rules and the social housing waiting list. The macrosystem comprises rental market conditions, gendered economic inequality and the stigma attached to income support.
Reading the case this way relocates the problem. Framed individually, it is a parent who has fallen behind on rent. Framed ecologically, it is the predictable outcome of a low and variable income meeting a market in which affordable stock has contracted (Productivity Commission, 2024). Zufferey and Yu (2018) argue that housing insecurity among women is produced by structural and gendered processes rather than individual deficit, and Healy (2022) notes that a systems orientation directs the practitioner to alter transactions between systems, not the person alone. Figure 1 illustrates the family’s network as an ecomap.
The ecomap makes visible what a narrative summary obscures. The strongest ties are informal and to the school, making it the most reliable point of leverage, while the connections carrying the greatest risk, the agent and the family violence service, are the most strained or least developed. Early effort belongs there.
Risk and Protective Factor Assessment
Risk was assessed across six domains using the service’s structured rubric. Each domain receives a risk rating and a protective rating on a five-point scale, where 1 indicates minimal and 5 indicates severe or, for protective factors, strong. The net score is the risk rating less the protective rating, so a positive value identifies a domain in which concern outweighs available resources. Ratings are shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Scored risk and protective factor assessment at intake
| Domain | Identified risks | Protective factors | Risk (1-5) | Protective (1-5) | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Housing and tenancy | Four weeks in arrears; breach notice issued; no savings | 26-month tenancy, no prior breach; agent open to negotiation | 5 | 2 | +3 |
| Income and financial capacity | Variable casual hours; income far below affordability threshold | Entitlements claimed; recognised qualification; budgeting skills | 4 | 3 | +1 |
| Safety and family violence | Recent separation; order conditions need monitoring; prior service refusal | Order in place; no current contact; police report lodged | 4 | 3 | +1 |
| Parent health and wellbeing | Disrupted sleep; reported stress; no mental health support | Regular GP; no substance concerns; help-seeking | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Children’s wellbeing and education | Attendance at 76 per cent; school change likely if relocated | Stable enrolments; engaged wellbeing coordinator; immunisation current | 3 | 4 | -1 |
| Social connection | No local extended family; withdrawal from earlier networks | One reliable neighbour; positive links to the school | 3 | 4 | -1 |
| Totals | 22 | 19 | +3 |
The totals convert into indices so cases can be re-scored over time. With six domains at five points each, the denominator is 30:
- Composite risk index = (22 / 30) × 100 = 73.3
- Composite protective index = (19 / 30) × 100 = 63.3
- Net vulnerability score = 73.3 – 63.3 = 10.0
A net score below 10 indicates monitoring only, 10 to 24 indicates coordinated case management with review at six weeks, and 25 or above indicates an intensive response with weekly review. A composite risk index at or above 70 additionally triggers a safety-first rule, so although this family sits at the lower boundary of the coordinated band, the index of 73.3 requires tenancy and safety actions to precede longer-term goals.
The housing domain is quantified separately because it drives that sequencing. Rental stress is conventionally measured as housing costs exceeding 30 per cent of gross income for low-income households:
- Rent to income ratio = (520 / 1,150) × 100 = 45.2 per cent
- Affordability threshold = 0.30 × 1,150 = $345 per week, a shortfall of 520 – 345 = $175 per week
- Arrears repayment over 26 weeks = 2,080 / 26 = $80 per week, lifting housing outlay to (600 / 1,150) × 100 = 52.2 per cent
The final figure is the analytically important one. A repayment plan negotiated in isolation would commit more than half of household income to housing and would almost certainly fail, generating a second breach and a stronger case for a notice to vacate under the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (Vic). Arrears relief must therefore come through brokerage or a private rental assistance grant rather than repayment alone. One caveat applies: structured professional judgement under the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management (MARAM) Framework governs the family violence domain, and a numerical rating supplements but never replaces it (Family Safety Victoria, 2021).
Case Management Plan
Table 2 sets out the plan negotiated with Mira across the first two appointments. Goals are recorded in her words where possible, consistent with strengths-based practice, and each carries a measurable review point (Saleebey, 2013).
Table 2: Case management plan, goals, interventions and review points
| Goal | Intervention | Lead agency | Timeframe | Review measure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “Keep the roof over our heads.” | Negotiate a sustainable repayment agreement; apply for private rental assistance; prepare VCAT evidence | Case manager and tenancy advocate | Weeks 1-4 | Arrears down 50 per cent by week 6; tenancy retained |
| Maximise and stabilise income | Entitlement review including Rent Assistance; crisis payment and advance options | Services Australia | Weeks 1-3 | Outcome confirmed in writing by week 4 |
| “Feel safe and in control of what happens next.” | Comprehensive MARAM assessment; collaborative safety plan; review of order conditions | Specialist family violence practitioner | Week 1, then ongoing | Safety plan reviewed fortnightly; domain re-scored at week 6 |
| “Keep the kids at the same school.” | Attendance support plan; kindergarten hours protected; parenting support | School and family services | Weeks 2-8 | Attendance at or above 90 per cent by week 8 |
| Secure long-term housing | Victorian Housing Register application with priority access evidence | Housing service | Weeks 2-6 | Application lodged and acknowledged by week 6 |
| Restore support and wellbeing | GP mental health treatment plan; counselling; single-parent group | General practice and community health | Weeks 3-10 | Plan in place by week 6; one session attended by week 10 |
Referral Pathways
Case management here is principally coordination, and referral strengthens the mesosystem. Table 3 summarises the pathways activated and the consent position attached to each, since the legal basis for sharing information differs by service type. Sequencing matters administratively, because priority access to the Victorian Housing Register requires documented evidence establishing eligibility (Homes Victoria, 2023).
Table 3: Referral pathways and associated consent considerations
| Need | Service | Access pathway | Consent position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eviction risk and tenancy rights | Tenancy advocacy service and community legal centre | Assisted referral with Mira present | Written consent to release arrears and income evidence |
| Housing assistance | Homelessness entry point; Victorian Housing Register | Assisted application with supporting letters | Consent sought per document |
| Income support | Services Australia, including a Centrelink social worker | Supported claim and appointment | Nominee arrangement offered, not assumed |
| Family violence risk | The Orange Door, specialist service, 1800RESPECT | Practitioner referral under MARAM | Sharing permitted for risk purposes; discussed with Mira where safe |
| Child and family wellbeing | Family services, school wellbeing team, maternal and child health | Consent-based referral | Child Information Sharing Scheme applies; Mira told what is shared |
Ethical and Legal Considerations
The AASW Code of Ethics (Australian Association of Social Workers, 2020) organises practice around respect for persons, social justice and professional integrity. Confidentiality is not absolute, and the Code requires that its limits be explained at the outset in plain language. That matters here, because Mira previously declined a service over concerns about record keeping. Two Victorian schemes qualify confidentiality directly: the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme and the Child Information Sharing Scheme permit prescribed services to share relevant information for risk management and child wellbeing, in defined circumstances, without consent. These powers should not be treated as an exemption from transparency. Wherever it is safe to do so, Mira should be told what has been shared, with whom and why, which preserves the trust on which the plan depends (Family Safety Victoria, 2021).
Mandatory reporting obligations are state-based and must be applied accurately. In Victoria the mandated professions are prescribed under the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (Vic) and include teachers, principals, medical practitioners, nurses, midwives, police and registered psychologists. Social workers are not currently prescribed in that jurisdiction, although they are in several other states, and the practitioner remains bound by organisational policy, by the Code’s duty to protect, and by the provision allowing any person to report a belief on reasonable grounds that a child is in need of protection. On the present facts no evidence meets that threshold: the children are enrolled, immunised, appropriately supervised and not exposed to contact with the person of concern. The reduced attendance follows from housing stress rather than harm, and treating it as the latter would misdirect the response. That assessment is recorded explicitly and re-examined at each review, because the threshold question is continuous rather than settled.
Critical Reflection on Power and Self-Determination
Reflecting on this plan, I am conscious that self-determination operates within a narrow field. Mira can choose whether to accept a referral, but she cannot choose whether affordable housing exists in her suburb, and the option set I present has already been filtered by eligibility rules and waiting lists. Fook (2016) argues that critical practice requires the worker to examine how professional authority constructs the client’s problem, and the scoring in Table 1 is a clear instance. Rating the housing domain at 5 exercises institutional power, because it produces a document determining access to brokerage funds and priority housing categories, in my vocabulary rather than hers.
Two tensions warrant attention. The first is paternalism disguised as efficiency: it would be faster to make the family violence referral directly than to work through Mira’s earlier refusal, but doing so would repeat the experience of decisions being made about her without her, the dynamic trauma-informed practice exists to avoid (Levenson, 2017). The slower path, explaining what the service does, what is recorded and what she may decline, respects her authorship. The second concerns the evidence assembled for priority housing access. A persuasive account of vulnerability requires narrating her hardship to a decision-maker, placing her in the position of having to be sufficiently damaged to qualify. Ife (2016) calls this the paradox of needs-based advocacy, in which claiming a right can undermine the dignity it protects. I can mitigate it without resolving it, by drafting the application with her rather than about her and naming the deficit language as the eligibility system’s rather than my own.
The plan should also be judged by what it does not do. It does not require Mira to attend a budgeting course, because the arithmetic demonstrates a structural shortfall of $175 per week rather than a skills deficit. Locating the problem accurately is itself an ethical act, since misdiagnosing a structural constraint as a personal failing shifts responsibility onto the person least able to alter it (Zufferey & Yu, 2018).
Conclusion
This plan responds to a family whose housing instability is the visible consequence of a structural gap between income and rent, compounded by the aftermath of family violence and the absence of local support. An ecological reading located the most effective point of intervention at the strained connections with the agent and the family violence service rather than within the parent. The scored assessment placed the family in the coordinated case management band, the risk index of 73.3 required tenancy and safety actions first, and the affordability calculations showed why arrears relief must come through brokerage rather than repayment. Success will be measured not only by whether the tenancy is retained at week 6, but by whether Mira reaches that review with more control than she had at intake.
References
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