THE Loddon Campapse Community Legal Centre fears it will have to wind back its family violence services due to a lack of funding.
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Arc Justice chief executive Peter Noble said a philanthropic grant that contributed to the service was due to expire on June 30.
He said he was hoping the Victorian government would compensate the centre with the loss of funds, considering the Labor Party has pledged $1.2 million to community legal centres to pay for family violence duty lawyers.
Federation of Community Legal Centres chief executive Laila Buchanan said centres were eagerly waiting to learn which centres would receive funding from the pledge, and how much.
The philanthropic grant in question involved the Legal Services Board giving the centre more than $400,000 over three years to expand its family violence legal service.
It paid for a full-time lawyer and part-time project worker, allowing the centre to extend its services to Kyenton and Swan Hill and strengthen its reach in Maryborough, Bendigo and Echuca, Mr Noble said.
The centre also organised a range of educational activities with healthcare providers, to inform them of how their clients could receive legal assistance.
He said the centre received much positive feedback about the activities.
"Many practitioners have indicated they now feel confident in referring women to legal assistance.
"Their knowledge of the area has improved dramatically."
Recent data from Victoria Police showed the Campapse shire, which takes in Echuca, has the state's worst rate of family violence.
The Central Goldfields, which takes in Maryborough, had the second worst rate.
A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Martin Pakula said that Victoria received the lowest per-capita share of funding in Australia under the National Partnership Agreement for legal assistance services, which it was seeking to rectify.
"While we wait, the Labor government is doing what it can," she said.
"We recently announced an additional $2 million in funding to Community Legal Centres to help meet increased demand, with work already underway to identify service priority gaps."