Archive for year: 2025

You are here: / / 2025

Women’s Health Matters launch Report on the 2025 Survey of Women’s Health in the ACT

/in , /by

Women’s Health Matters has released a comprehensive report on our second Survey of Women’s Health in the ACT. The 2025 report highlights key health and wellbeing issues experienced by women in the ACT, areas where service provision or policy could be changed to improve outcomes, and the social factors that impact women’s health and wellbeing. 

Over 1300 people completed the online survey, providing information about their experiences of general health and mental health, health information and health services, sexual and reproductive health, pregnancy and parenting, discrimination, and safety and violence.    

The survey was open to women, femme-identifying people and people who align themselves with those groups, who were aged 18 years or over and living in the ACT and region. In 2025, the sample of participants is more representative of the population than the first survey in 2023. The high-quality local data collected will improve our understandings of the health and wellbeing experiences of women in the ACT, including the specific challenges faced by marginalised groups.   

As in 2023, the results show a positive assessment of the care received from GPs overall, with a slight improvement in the proportion of respondents who rated their access to GPs as ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ compared with 2023. However, the survey found cost and appointment availability remained barriers to accessing medical care. Nearly a fifth of all respondents said they had gone without medical care or medication at some time during the last 12 months because of not having enough money. As in 2023, a significant proportion of people reported not being taken seriously by doctors when they tried to address their health concerns.  

Lauren Anthes, CEO of Women’s Health Matters, says the survey is an important and unique tool for identifying the needs of ACT women.   

“Datasets on women’s health in the ACT have previously been quite small, so we are pleased to gain such a comprehensive insight into the community’s experiences,” said Ms Anthes.   

ACT Minister for Health and Mental Health, Rachel Stephen-Smith said that the survey provides value to Government through its uniquely local lens and focus on women’s experiences both of healthcare services and their own health and wellbeing. 

“We know some women face additional barriers to care and are at higher risk for certain health issues. The ACT Government is focused on breaking down those barriers and ensuring all women have access to quality, affordable health care.” 

On Tuesday, 9 September, Women’s Health Matters hosted a launch event for the survey, which was attended by over 60 stakeholders, including ACT Government representatives,  community and advocacy organisations, researchers, health services, and policy makers. The event highlighted the value of the survey data for the broader ACT community and the need to recognise the unique, gendered policy and service needs of women in these areas. 

The survey data will inform Women’s Health Matters’ work and identify key priorities for advocacy and policy development in the ACT.  

The survey was made possible with specific funding from Snow Foundation and supported through the ongoing funding that Women’s Health Matters receives through the ACT Health and Community Services Directorate.  

“This survey is critical in uncovering the gaps in women’s health that are too often overlooked. By listening directly to women, it helps drive systemic change—building more responsive services, fairer policies, and healthier futures for our community. We are excited to continue supporting this important research,” Georgina Byron, CEO Snow Foundation said. 

 

Women’s Health Matters thanks Snow Foundation for investing in women’s health research and advocacy, and for enabling us to do this important work in a rigorous and effective way.  

Women’s Health Matters also thanks the ACT Health and Community Services Directorate for its continued support and funding.  

The survey report can be found here.

For media inquiries please contact media@womenshealthmatters.org.au 

Survey of Women’s Health in the ACT June 2025 update

/in /by

The Survey of Women’s Health in the ACT is the major way we learn about the health needs and experiences of women and femme-identifying people in the ACT.

Now in its second iteration, we ran the survey again between December 2024 and March 2025, collecting 1,318 responses on topics including:

  • access to health services
  • experiences of healthcare
  • mental health
  • violence and safety
  • sexual and reproductive health
  • pregnancy and birth

Analysis so far shows that our second survey is more representative of the ACT population than our first, with a larger proportion of responses coming from young women, women over 65, and women from migrant and refugee backgrounds – groups that were underrepresented in the first wave of the survey.

We plan to release our report on the survey in September this year. You can read the first survey report (2023) here.

Health in My Language update June 2025

/in /by

Whether you’re new to the ACT or have lived here your whole life, it’s important to know where to go for your health and have access to accurate health information when making decisions about your health. However, for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, finding this information can be difficult, especially when English is their second language. That’s where Health in My Language (HIML) comes in. 

The program delivers information and resources about women’s sexual and reproductive health across various community locations and in a wide range of languages, including English, Cantonese, Hindi, Khmer, Mandarin, and Punjabi. Many of the women attending these sessions are migrants and refugees and benefit hugely from receiving in-language health information from our trained Bilingual Health Educators.  

So far in 2025, the Women’s Health Matters team have delivered 22 formal health education sessions across Pregnancy Options, Contraceptive Choices, Understanding Menopause and Safer Sex topics, with 277 participants attending the sessions. The HIML team worked with organisations including Navitas, Red Cross ACT, and YWCA to deliver sessions to their clients and community members. We have also worked with health organisations to include them in our sessions including BreastScreen ACT and Hepatitis ACT. 

The responses to the program have been overwhelmingly positive, with one participant stating: 

“I’m here in this session because I’m new to Australia and I want to learn for myself and not have to ask my husband or others for information about my health because it becomes his opinion not mine”. 

  • Contraceptive Choices session Participant  

Another participant shared that before the Understanding Menopause session, she didn’t understand what was happening to her body and felt too embarrassed to talk to her doctor. She said: 

“In my culture, we don’t really talk about these things, so I thought I had to deal with it alone.”

After learning about menopause in her own language, she felt more confident and said she now has the words to describe her symptoms. She also mentioned she would talk to her sister, who is going through similar changes, and plans to book a GP appointment to ask about treatments to manage menopause. 

Victim Survivor Voice pilot update June 2025

/in , /by

The Victim Survivor Voice is a peer-led pilot program open to people over the age of 18 who have lived or living experience of domestic, family, and/or sexual violence (DFSV) and live in the ACT and surrounding regions. The project’s purpose is to understand participants’ lived experiences of DFSV support services and systems in the ACT, and incorporate this knowledge into efforts to address DFSV across the Territory. 

In the ACT Government 2025-26 Budget, the pilot received an additional investment of $646,000, allowing the project to continue building a complex understanding of services and systems in place to support victim survivors and how they could be improved to achieve better outcomes. This represents a major commitment by the ACT Government to address systemic issues in how victim survivors are supported and empowered after experiences of violence. 

Since March, the Victim Survivor Voice team has facilitated in-depth discussion sessions with over 20 victim survivors to consult on developing an ACT Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Strategy (the Strategy). We have used qualitative analysis to identify priority areas of focus and are currently seeking additional validation of these findings with Victim Survivor Voice participants before presenting our results to the ACT Government later this year. 

We are also working closely with a Victorian organisation the ACT Government have engaged to help develop the Strategy, Impact Co., to ensure that local insights we are hearing through the Victim Survivor Voice are informing their work. 

We are now working towards our next consultation phases, which will focus on improving ACT responses to coercive control, and working with Queensland based organisation WWILD to co-design DFSV training for disability support workers.  

You can find more information on the project and register your interest in joining the Victim Survivor Voice online.  

Victim Survivor Voice Pilot Project funding extended

/in , /by

Women’s Health Matters CEO, Lauren Anthes, is pleased to announce the Victim Survivor Voice pilot program has been extended thanks to further investment from the ACT Government.

Today, Dr Marisa Paterson MLA, ACT Minister for Women and for the Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence, has announced an additional $646,000 funding package to support Women’s Health Matters in extending this Territory first pilot program designed to centre lived and living experience in ACT services and systems. The first phase of the pilot program is focussed on the development of the ACT Domestic Family and Sexual Violence Strategy and government responses to domestic and sexual violence, with the goal of improving whole of system responses in the ACT.

The additional funding will support the ongoing, sustainable and meaningful engagement with victim survivors, ensuring that diverse voices of lived experience are central in all aspects of policy design and implementation.

About the Victim Survivor Voice

The Victim Survivor Voice is a peer-led pilot program open to people over the age of 18 who have lived or living experience of domestic, family, and/or sexual violence and live in the ACT and surrounding regions. This multi-modal engagement program seeks to improve ACT services and systems to better support victim survivors of domestic, family, and/or sexual violence.

Since March 2025, the pilot program has received approximately 80 expressions of interest from people with lived and living experience in the ACT. In-depth individual and small group discussions were conducted with over 20 victim survivors to inform development of the ACT Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Strategy. Using participatory research and qualitative analysis methods, key themes and findings have been identified and will be validated through further victim survivor engagement before presentation to the ACT Government.

The second phase of the pilot will focus informing the ACT Government’s approach to improving criminal justice responses to coercive control.

Women’s Health Matters CEO, Lauren Anthes, has said the pilot program applies a unique approach in centering lived experience in policy and service reform, while allowing victim survivors a voice to advocate for themselves and others:

“This community-led approach ensures victim survivor voices are central to strengthening support services and prevention initiatives in the ACT. Combined with evidence reviews and analysis of best practices from other jurisdictions, these insights will be translated into concrete recommendations for government implementation that deliver measurable outcomes.”

Register your interest in joining the Victim Survivor Voice online.

About Women’s Heath Matters

Women’s Health Matters is the Peak Body for Women’s Health in the ACT, working to improve the health and wellbeing of all women in the ACT and surrounding region. We advocate on behalf of all ACT women, to improve outcomes and experiences across the health and social services systems.  Our work is centered on providing evidence-based, lived experience centered, social research, policy development, and advocacy services to governments, the corporate sector, policy makers, service providers and other peak bodies.

Media Contact

Women’s Health Matters

E: media@womenshealthmatters.org.au

P: 02 6290 2166

Marching forward: from promises to progress, women’s safety cannot exclude any temporary migrant

/in , /by

To mark International Women’s Day, the National Advocacy Group on Women on Temporary Visas Experiencing Violence (the ‘National Advocacy Group’) calls for reform to the migration system to advance Australia’s commitment to ending gendered violence in a generation.

The migration system currently provides a safety net for some temporary migrants who experience domestic and family violence, via the family violence provisions. This is not enough.

The family violence provisions remain inaccessible to thousands of women who are experiencing abuse, despite recent amendments to the provisions.

Many of the 60+ members of the National Advocacy Group work directly with women experiencing domestic and family violence who are not eligible to access permanent residency via the family violence provisions. Across Australia on a daily basis these organisations are working with women who cannot access emergency or long term accommodation, welfare, health and other critical services due to their status as temporary migrants. Many of these women are at risk of poverty and homelessness, and are faced with no other option than to stay with, or return to, a violent perpetrator.

We call on the Federal Government to urgently introduce a visa category that would be accessible to all temporary migrants experiencing domestic and family violence in Australia. Such a step is necessary to provide victim-survivors with the material and legal support to keep them safe.

The Federal Government has demonstrated that it is capable of migration reform that puts temporary migrants first with the 2024 introduction of the workplace justice visa.

This is the critical next step in the commitment to achieving women’s safety nationally. Other reforms are also critical: we provide a detailed account of the full suite of measures for reform for state, territory and federal government in the Blueprint for Reform.

The National Advocacy Group includes the following organisations and peak bodies:
AustralAsian Centre for Human Rights and Health
Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights
Australian Women Against Violence Alliance (AWAVA)
Domestic Violence NSW
Domestic Violence Service Management
Economic Justice Australia
Immigration Advice and Rights Centre (IARC)
inTouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence
Jesuit Refugee Service Australia
Muslim Women Australia
Northern Community Legal Centre
NTCOSS
Refugee Legal
Safe and Equal
Safe Steps
Settlement Service International
Tasmanian Refugee Legal Service
University of Melbourne: Borders, Migration and Gender Violence Research Hub
WESNET (Women’s Services Network)
Women’s Health Matters (ACT)
Women’s Legal Services Australia
Women’s And Girl’s Emergency Centre
South-East Monash Legal Service Inc.

See more details about the full National Advocacy Group here.

Major New Survey of Women’s Health in the ACT

/in , /by

The second Survey of Women’s Health in the ACT is officially open, offering all women and femme-identifying people aged 18 or older in the ACT and surrounding region the opportunity to share their health experiences.

The survey comes as Women’s Health Matters welcomes the Australian Government’s announcements aiming to make reproductive and sexual health care more accessible. These welcome changes reducing the cost of key treatments are the result of ongoing evidence-informed advocacy from national and state and territory women’s organisations. The Survey of Women’s Health in the ACT builds on this evidence locally to help us further understand the gaps and unmet need so that we can advocate to government for solutions.

This confidential survey takes a snapshot of women’s health and wellbeing in our community, providing critical insights that will help shape future health services and policies. The Survey of Women’s Health in the ACT is a key initiative supported by Snow Foundation and serves as a vital tool for understanding the current state of women’s health locally.

The first survey, conducted in 2022-23, received an overwhelming response from over 1600 participants. These insights have already helped inform the development of new services, guided government and funding bodies in identifying healthcare priorities, and empowered Women’s Health Matters to advocate for improved systems to support women’s health.

The survey is open to all women and femme-identifying people, as well as anyone who aligns themselves with these groups, who live in the ACT or surrounding areas and are aged 18 years or over. It is an opportunity for participants to have their voices heard and to contribute to ongoing efforts to enhance women’s health and wellbeing in our region.

The results from this survey will be instrumental in guiding future initiatives, policy decisions, and funding priorities to better meet the healthcare needs of women and femme-identifying people in the ACT.

Take part today and help us create a healthier future for all women in the ACT!

To complete the survey, visit: https://ow.ly/uuiw50UiGyo 
For more information: https://www.womenshealthmatters.org.au/womens-healthwellbeing/surveyofwomenshealth/

Media Contact
For media inquiries, please contact:
media@womenshealthmatters.org.au

Women’s Health Matters is the voice for women’s health and wellbeing in the ACT. We work to improve the health and wellbeing of all women in the ACT and surrounding region. We do this by improving women’s access to health information. We also do research to improve knowledge and understanding about the causes of health and illness for women in the ACT.

Snow Foundation, established by Terry Snow AM in Canberra in 1991 and led by his daughter Georgina Byron AM as CEO since 2006, is focused on fostering positive social change. It supports a range of causes, from grassroots entrepreneurial projects to established organisations and exceptional leaders working for social change. The Foundation is committed to catalysing community infrastructure and has a deep focus on youth-at-risk, domestic and family violence, being a respectful and useful ally to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and giving to women and girls through a gender lens – http://www.snowfoundation.org.au

Supported by ACT Health Directorate

QUICK EXIT