Elle's story - helping women and children escape family violence

Helping women and children escape family violence

Reflecting the prevalence of family violence within the general community, we prioritise helping women and children, like Elle and her family, escape violent relationships.

For Elle, like many women who experience family violence, her interaction with the law started with the police putting an intervention order in place to protect her and her three young children.

However, single parents like Elle typically experience heightened vulnerability, resulting in substantial and multiple legal problems. Although the intervention order allowed Elle to separate from her partner safely, she still had a range of legal issues that had compounded as a result of the separation.

Trying to respect her children’s right to see their father, Elle was supervising time between them and her ex-partner. However, Elle was uncomfortable with this arrangement due to the history of family violence, her ex-partner’s long criminal history and his drug and alcohol abuse.

Her ex-partner was also breaching the intervention order whilst they were unsuccessfully trying to come to a parenting agreement in mediation.

Making things more difficult for Elle were her traffic fines which had resulted in the suspension of her driving licence. As a single parent, Elle needed her licence to drive her children to appointments. She turned to IMCL for help. 

IMCL assisted Elle to complete an application for supervised contact to be conducted by a contact centre and to complete an application to extend the intervention order. We communicated this to Elle’s ex-partner so the order wasn’t breached.

IMCL was also able to secure a grant of aid from Victoria Legal Aid for Elle to re-engage with mediation with her ex-partner with the hope of coming to a more permanent parenting arrangement.

With our help, the suspension of Elle’s licence was repealed, leaving her with only a fine and the freedom to transport her children.

IMCL continues to help Elle by handling her victims of crimes application.

Elle and her family are now living happily and safely, allowing them to achieve their full potential.