Final Report – Volume 6: Families, data and research, and establishing a new entity

Recommendation 102: Implement and improve upon the Defence Strategy for Preventing and Responding to Family and Domestic Violence

In addition to, and as part of the implementation of the Defence Strategy for Preventing and Responding to Family and Domestic Violence 2023–2028, Defence should:

1. recognise the nexus between family violence and suicide, including the inclusion of family violence indicators within approaches to suicide prevention, and consideration of suicide risk within responses to family violence
2. implement all recommendations made by Defence Families of Australia (DFA) in its issues paper on Australian Defence Force families and domestic violence and work collaboratively in an enduring fashion with the DFA to deliver ongoing reforms to prevent family and domestic violence and support victims of family and domestic violence
3. establish and communicate a set of minimum standards to guide its approach to family and domestic violence that are publicly available and:
   1. clearly articulate victim safety (including that of children) as the primary consideration in decision-making
   2. define how Defence will ensure that any protection orders that may be in place can be upheld in the workplace, including how it will ensure that postings and workplace arrangements prioritise the safety of the victim
   3. include clear expectations regarding disclosure by Defence members who are the respondent on a protection order relating to family violence
4. take steps to ensure that Defence property, equipment and resources are not used to perpetrate family and domestic violence, including that Defence housing stability is not used as a means to exercise coercive control or to create barriers to safe separation
5. ensure that there are no impediments to Defence personnel accessing emergency services responses while on base, in relation to family and domestic violence. All materials regarding family and domestic violence should include emergency services response information and be regularly reviewed for currency.

Recommendation 103: Improve the support, communication and services provided to Defence families

In recognition of the critical role that Defence families play in Defence capability, and the stressors that service life places on the member and their family unit, Defence should:

1. increase and enhance the suite of family support programs and initiatives available to Defence families, informed by co-design with members, families and Advocates. This should include:
   1. systematically analysing data from the Defence Member and Family Helpline to better understand issues and trends, and create opportunities to better assist members and their families
   2. removing barriers to families directly accessing information and services provided by Defence Member and Family Support (DMFS)
   3. providing an evidence-based suite of information and resources to support families, especially at times of peak stress including postings, return from deployment and member transition
   4. facilitating greater access to or provision of family therapy, and services that support partners and children of Defence members
   5. an enhanced DMFS communications strategy
2. ensure that systems are in place to communicate directly with families on an ‘opt out’ basis to provide information on available services and supports, assisted by a refreshed DMFS communications strategy and greater efforts to publicise the supports available
3. develop and implement a framework to evaluate outcomes, including the efficiency and effectiveness of all current and future DMFS initiatives, with this material to be made public to demonstrate transparency and accountability for the performance of DMFS
4. work with the Australian, state and territory governments to investigate and improve arrangements for facilitating employment opportunities for partners of Defence members as well as opportunities for remote working, or preferential employment of this cohort in appropriate roles
5. work with the Australian Government, following the completion of the Defence Childcare Review and the Productivity Commission Review into Early Childhood Education and Care, to identify and realise opportunities to improve the provision of child care services to Defence members.

Recommendation 104: Improve the profile, resourcing and impact of the Defence Family Advocate

To achieve the best possible representation of serving and ex-serving members and their families, the Australian Government should:

1. improve the profile, resourcing and impact of the Defence Family Advocate, by:
   1. providing the Defence Family Advocate with appropriate staffing, budget and remuneration, with a salary and employment conditions at an equivalent rate to comparable executive positions, supported by full-time staff with the same employment conditions as their counterparts in Defence and the public service
   2. formalising the relationship between the Defence Family Advocate and the Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner
   3. working with the new Defence Family Advocate to implement the recommendations made in the ‘Our Community’ and the PricewaterhouseCoopers reviews to refine and improve the governance and outcomes of the Defence Family Advocate
2. appropriately staff and resource the Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner and their office to improve outcomes and ensure that veteran families are represented in policy design, decision-making and advocacy
3. investigate whether shared administrative support for both office holders may further assist collaboration and support the efficiency of their operations.

Recommendation 105: Improve coordination with coroners and the National Coronial Information System

The Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department should work with its state and territory counterparts to establish mechanisms that improve coordination between coroners, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA), the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the National Coronial Information System and work towards:

1. aligning coronial practices related to making determinations of intentional self-harm to improve the consistency and timeliness of national suicide reporting
2. implementing communication strategies between Defence, the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force, DVA and coroners to support the streamlined provision of information and reduce the risk of stress on families
3. sharing good-practice support regarding trauma-informed care.

Recommendation 106: Establish a suicide database of serving and ex-serving members

Defence should design and develop a new suicide database that is appropriate for the purpose of suicide monitoring and reporting of all relevant data of permanent, reserve and ex-serving members. The design and development of the database should:

1. leverage data collected throughout the service journey from recruitment to discharge and beyond
2. capture a broader range of risk and protective factors, including but not limited to recording incidents of unacceptable behaviour and injuries, which is necessary to improve understanding of suicide, suicidality and self-harm
3. be informed by best-practice approaches from other countries, including the United States.

Recommendation 107: Establish the National Veterans’ Data Asset

To improve understanding of deaths by suicide and provide better support to veterans and their families, the Australian Government should:

1. provide appropriation funding to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the National Suicide Prevention Office (or any subsequent body assuming its functions) to establish and maintain a National Veterans’ Data Asset that brings together data from Defence, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, and states and territories, to enable timely monitoring and surveillance of suicide and suicidality of serving and ex-serving Australian Defence Force (ADF) members
2. provide appropriation funding to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the National Suicide Prevention Office to:
   1. use the National Veterans’ Data Asset to produce discrete annual public reports and other research to monitor and improve understanding of suicidality and deaths by suicide, and the associated risk factors for serving and ex-serving ADF members and their families
   2. commission an independent program of evaluation of the implementation and functioning of the National Veterans’ Data Asset, including an interim evaluation and a post-implementation evaluation.

The Australian Government and state and territory governments, through their relevant agencies, should use the National Veterans’ Data Asset for the purposes of:

3. furthering their understanding of suicide, suicidality, and health and wellbeing among serving and ex-serving members and their families; and
4. preventing deaths by suicide and improving postvention for serving and ex-serving members and their families.

Recommendation 108: Ensure that all relevant jurisdictions and entities regularly provide data to the National Veterans’ Data Asset

So that all jurisdictions provide data regularly to the National Veterans’ Data Asset:

1. the Australian Government, and state and territory governments, through their relevant agencies, should provide relevant data at quarterly intervals to the National Veterans’ Data Asset (Recommendation 107)
2. Defence and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs should prioritise data governance arrangements in order to provide data for the National Veterans’ Data Asset to support its development and ongoing use.

Recommendation 109: Defence to report annually on its progress towards data maturity

Defence should report on its progress to improve data maturity, each year, to the Minister for Defence, using the 2021 Defence Enterprise Data Maturity Assessment as a baseline. Reports should be supported by surveys of Defence staff every three years in addition to the data capability maturity assessment tool.

Recommendation 110: Review Defence’s data assets and address issues with their quality, management, integration and use

The Defence Chief Data Integration Officer (CDIO) and Defence Data and Analytics Board should establish a program of review of Defence’s data assets. As part of this program:

1. the reviews should be conducted by Defence’s Data Division and focus on the quality, awareness, management, access, integration and use of the dataset
2. the CDIO should designate actions required of data custodians to address any issues identified by each review and be provided with follow-up reports from Enterprise Data Custodians on the progress of actions following completion of Data Division reviews.

Recommendation 111: Achieve a ‘gold standard’ rating for Defence datasets related to suicidality and suicide

The Defence Chief Data Integration Officer should direct data custodians to improve the data quality of datasets related to suicide, self-harm and suicidality so they achieve a ‘gold standard’ rating. This will ensure the data is reliable and supports accurate decision-making. The remediation should focus on addressing issues of duplicated, missing, incomplete and non-standardised data, and ensuring datasets can be integrated.

Recommendation 112: Include data on suicide and suicidality in the enterprise-wide Defence data catalogue

Defence should prioritise the inclusion of datasets related to suicide and suicidality in its enterprise-wide data catalogue. Defence should also make its data catalogue publicly available and include the quality rating of each dataset.

Recommendation 113: Ensure commanding officers access and use quality data for continuous improvement of wellbeing metrics

To better support Defence commanders and personnel, Defence should:

1. use data from the following sources to provide Australian Defence Force commanders with data for their units and teams, as well as relevant comparison points:
   1. the new Defence suicide database (Recommendation 106)
   2. the National Veterans’ Data Asset (Recommendation 107)
   3. internal surveys
   4. unacceptable behaviour reporting and injury reporting.
2. ensure the data is provided in a timely manner, in an accessible format and with necessary context, and provide training that supports commanders to use the data to inform decision-making.

Commanders should use this data for continuous improvement and to better understand the wellbeing of the members under their command.

Recommendation 114: Defence and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to prioritise research into veteran health and wellbeing, and publish their workplans

Defence and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs should publish research workplans showing research priorities on issues affecting the health and wellbeing of current and ex-serving members. These workplans should be updated annually and include information on planned research and the progress of research that is underway.

Recommendation 115: Defence and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to publish their research into veteran health and wellbeing

Defence and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs should conduct and, as a matter of course, publish research that includes information on the health and wellbeing of serving and ex-serving members.

Prior to publication, research outputs should be subject to review from independent researchers, including from the new expert committee on veteran health research (see Recommendation 117).

Recommendation 116: Improve the quality, evaluation, translation and sharing of research findings

Defence and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) should create evaluation and research teams in a central area of their respective departments to improve the quality and coordination of research and evaluation practices. These central research and evaluation teams should be given the following responsibilities:

1. take the lead on improving the research and evaluation culture
2. manage the evaluation of programs and policies within their respective departments, and ensure evaluations are appropriate and effective
3. develop and maintain the evaluation schedule of all mental health and suicide prevention programs
4. develop and maintain a central library of program evaluations and relevant research, ensuring that evaluation findings are used and incorporated into future programs and policies
5. monitor the integration of research outputs into policy, programs and practices, thus ensuring that research outputs are translated effectively
6. use data and research to provide timely, targeted and effective advice to improve suicide prevention, intervention and postvention support
7. implement the continuing joint Defence and DVA research agenda
8. in the case of the Defence evaluation and research team, develop a revised survey research program with surveys that:
   1. collect information that can be used to evaluate Defence programs and policies effectively
   2. capture data on the health and wellbeing of Australian Defence Force members
   3. capture data not otherwise included in Defence administrative datasets and the National Veterans’ Data Asset.

Recommendation 117: Establish an expert committee on veteran research

Defence and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) should establish an expert committee on veteran research, comprising experts from government, academia and the private sector who have skills and experience in military and veterans’ affairs, health care, rehabilitation and family support.

The committee should:

1. be informed by international examples of success from Five Eyes partners and other nations
2. include representatives with lived experience of service life, suicidality and mental health
3. fulfil the functions described in Chapter 29, Use of data and research by Defence and DVA, and provide advice to Defence and DVA on research and evaluation matters relevant to improving the wellbeing of serving and ex-serving members.

Recommendation 118: Use the Census to collect information on ex-serving members as a population

To ensure there is ongoing collection of reliable statistics and information on ex-serving Australian Defence Force (ADF) members in the Australian community, the Australian Government should:

1. direct the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to continue the existing Census question on ADF service in 2026 and in future censuses
2. direct the ABS to include an additional question on year of separation for ex-serving members in the 2026 Census and in future censuses, with the ABS undertaking any testing required to include this question on the 2026 Census.

Recommendation 119: Improve understanding of veteran health by adding questions to Australian Bureau of Statistics surveys

The Australian Government should fund the Australian Bureau of Statistics to:

1. include additional questions on Australian Defence Force (ADF) service in any future iterations of the National Health Study, the National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, the General Social Survey and the Personal Safety Survey, prompting respondents to state whether they are a current or ex-serving ADF member and if so, whether they served in the permanent forces or solely in the reserve forces
2. increase the sample of serving and ex-serving members in any future iterations of these surveys to allow for robust reporting on serving and ex-serving members.

Recommendation 120: Increase funding for research into veteran health and wellbeing

The Australian Government should provide increased funding for research into the health and wellbeing of serving and ex-serving Australian Defence Force members by:

1. providing $10 million through the National Health and Medical Research Council to support a Special Initiative research grant program focused on veteran health and wellbeing
2. considering opportunities to fund veteran health and wellbeing research through the Medical Research Future Fund and Million Minds Mental Health Research Mission.

Recommendation 121: Enable research into the health and wellbeing of Defence families

The Australian Government should enable research on the health and wellbeing of families of current and ex-serving members through:

1. expanded National Health and Medical Research Council funding for veteran health and wellbeing research
2. Defence and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs leading research in conjunction with lived experience individuals (see Recommendation 117)
3. the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Family Studies being funded to collaborate and leverage existing datasets and the National Veterans’ Data Asset (see Recommendation 107), to develop a better understanding of veteran families through research on wellbeing and risk and protective factors.

Recommendation 122: Establish a new statutory entity to oversee system reform across the whole Defence ecosystem

The Australian Government should establish a new statutory entity with the purpose of providing independent oversight and evidence-based advice in order to drive system reform to improve suicide prevention and wellbeing outcomes for serving and ex-serving Australian Defence Force members.