Relationships are key: Launching our Annual Report 2024–25

29 October 2025

Through impact stories and evaluation data, our latest annual report highlights a truth central to our work: Positive, respectful, safe and fulfilling relationships are the key to health and wellbeing.

Hear from our CEO Dr Andrew Bickerdike below or on pages 4-5 of the full report.

We continued to respond to the pressing challenges facing our clients and communities this year, including the cost-of-living crisis, increasingly complex needs and the ongoing family violence epidemic.

Organisationally we navigated budget constraints, and uncertainty around indexation, supplementation funding, and contract end dates. Since the end of the financial year, we were notified of an extension to our contracts with the Attorney-General’s Department for a further 2 years, to 2028. This extension, which covers much of our funding, provides tfime for consideration of the recommendations of a comprehensive review undertaken in 2024 of the department’s funded programs, including FRCs, FDR services and family law counselling services.

RAV participated in this review, and has welcomed the recommendations, including child-inclusive practice, FRC hubs and legally-assisted FDR. If implemented, this increase would help meet growing demand and increasingly complex client needs, and would be the first funding increase since the program’s inception in the mid-2000s. RAV fully supports these recommendations, and joined Relationships Australia federation colleagues in Canberra in November to meet with ministers and advocate for their timely implementation.

Mental health is another priority area for RAV, with a significant proportion of clients of our core services affected by mental health issues, and the delivery of 6 dedicated mental health services. Our work in delivering these services — including our new Youth Enhanced Service (YES) in Gippsland — demonstrates how RAV can respond to unmet need and support integrated, community-based service delivery in place-based and age-appropriate ways.

We believe that key to meeting the current unmet demand across the sector for mental health support is the delivery of integrated mental health services through community-based providers. By doing so, we can meet clients where they are at, prevent them from ‘falling through the gaps’, and help alleviate some of the evident workforce challenges.

Other key achievements this year include:

• A new cost–benefit analysis of our FDR services, which demonstrated a remarkable $20 in benefits for every $1 invested, for families, the legal system and communities (see page 21).
• Commencement of a new pilot program in Ballarat using a community-focused, preventive approach to strengthening relationships (see page 17).
• Our second annual Social Impact Report, highlighting the measurable difference we make in the lives of those we serve (see page 54).
• A new First Nations artwork commissioned by Emrhan Tjapanangka Sultan, RAV’s First Nations Engagement Specialist and distinguished Aboriginal artist. This piece symbolises our commitment to working collaboratively with First Nations communities and reflects the relationships we build with our clients (see page 38). 

This year we needed to navigate the impact for our services of family law reforms, including the consideration of family violence in relation to parties’ contributions and future needs, when delivering FDR. We see the impacts of gender-based violence with clients every day, and we welcomed this change, but we know that more needs to be done.

We also published our inaugural Family Violence Position Paper, designed to support workforces and services – including those working outside family violence-specific programs – in their understanding of family violence, its causes and consequences, and approaches to prevention. We intend for this to be the first annual paper on this pervasive issue.

While it might seem obvious from our name, it is worth noting that relationships are our core agent of change across services. Across our diverse range of services, and in working with clients with increasingly complex needs, this is our focus. It takes skill and expertise to work with such complexity and RAV would not have the positive impact it does in the lives of so many clients without its committed, compassionate workforce. It is no surprise, therefore, that a recent psychosocial health and wellbeing survey highlighted that our staff overwhelming reported they find their work meaningful and experience very high levels of collegial support. I commend and thank all RAV staff, and credit our managers for their ongoing leadership and adaptability in responding to sector challenges.

In late 2024, we bade farewell to Professor Lyn Littlefield OAM, who retired as Board Chair after over 30 years of service on the RAV Board. We welcomed the election of our new Chair, Ronda Jacobs, whose strategic and governance skills, sector knowledge and experience will support RAV’s future growth and success.

Thank you to our funding bodies for enabling us to provide much-needed support to our clients. I also acknowledge the courage and resilience of those who use our services, as well as the trust they place in us every day. It does not go unnoticed, and is not something we take for granted.

We know that 2024 has not been an easy year for many, and we remain dedicated to delivering accessible services to those who need them. I’m proud that our organisation does not refuse support because a client cannot pay. This commitment, however, comes at a financial cost to the organisation, and with high demand for services, we are stretched to capacity to meet this demand in a timely way.

Despite the challenges we have faced, our organisation is financially strong. We use our resources prudently to ensure we remain able to do so, always focusing on the safety and needs of our clients.

We have achieved much to be proud of this year, and I look forward to the new year with confidence.