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Women with lived experience of family violence, and the services assisting them, believe the support offered to victims can be improved.
The Centre for Non-Violence is home to a Future group, an eight week program involving weekly group sessions for women who have experienced violence to share their stories.
“They’ve generally been through the crisis, they’ve survived, and now they just want to make sense of it,” group facilitator Helen said.
“What we find is that it becomes less and less about the men and what the men did to them and more about the women reconnecting with who they are, who they want to be and where they see their life journey going.”
Helen said the group was always full.
“We always have a wait list of people who want to come,” she said.
CNV family violence prevention and development manager Robyn Trainor said support groups was an area that was not often resourced.
“We have pressure in the service system to respond, more and more, just to the crisis,” Ms Trainor said.
“We have a huge need to intervene earlier and provide these sorts of options for women as well, for their recovery and to build capacity.”
“We are seeing women years down the track with significant health impacts as a result of family violence because they didn’t get the support they needed at the time, because we often focus on court support or crisis response.”
What women had to say
Women with lived experience of family violence convened at the Centre for Non-Violence last week for a Victoria Against Violence function.
The event coincided with the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.
Facilitators asked the attendees to provide a message they felt it was important for others to know.
“In discussions about their messages, many said that they found it difficult and upsetting when people who had not experienced family violence asked them why they didn’t just leave,” facilitators said.
“They said people had no idea how hard it was to experience family violence and how hard it also is to leave the abusive relationship.
The women told facilitators the fear of what the perpetrator would do if they left was huge.
“The lack of safe places to go, the financial difficulties in leaving and managing on their own or with their children, were major factors preventing them leaving,” facilitators said.
“Quite a few of the women said that the inability to leave beloved pets behind was another barrier preventing them leaving.”
Victims asked facilitators why they had to be the ones to leave their homes, rather than the perpetrator.
“The women wanted other women to know that there is much hope, and that life can be good again,” facilitators said.
“The women emphasised that finding a community of women who supported and strengthened each other, such as the CNV and Annie North women’s groups, is a very important part of healing from family violence.”
Services reflect on cultural safety
John Bonnice, of Communities for Children Bendigo, said there was work to be done to improve cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families accessing mainstream frontline services.
“We need to reflect on the way we run our services because the way we do things and the way we run our organisations is through a mainstream cultural lens,” Mr Bonnice said.
“Unless you think about that and reflect on what that lens is, you’ll keep making the same mistakes.”
Members of the Loddon Campaspe Family Violence Advisory Committee met last week to reflect on cultural safety.
The Centre for Non-Violence provides dedicated services to Aboriginal women in partnership with Bendigo District Aboriginal Cooperative, and working closely with the Echuca-based Njernda Aboriginal Corporation.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women experience both far higher rates and more severe forms of violence compared to other women.
Family violence related assaults are 35 times more likely to result in hospitalisation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women than other Australian women.
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, domestic or family violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.