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Victim Survivor Voice Pilot Project funding extended

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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

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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

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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

Women’s Sector calls on next ACT Government to deliver on what women need

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The CEOs of eight organisations supporting Canberra women today launched a joint election platform outlining urgent priorities to be addressed by the next ACT Government.

In launching the election platform, Lauren Anthes CEO of Women’s Health Matters said:

“the women’s sector is united in calling on the future ACT Government to commit to a number of critical and overdue actions that will lift women’s overall wellbeing as well as viably resource a skilled, feminised sector that delivers essential community services and represents the needs of women.

This is the first time the women’s sector in Canberra has come together to advocate for a suite of shared priorities. While there has been important progress towards gender equality in Canberra, women continue to experience inadequate access to health services, workplace inequality and high rates of domestic and family violence”.

Robyn Martin, CEO of Beryl Women, Australia’s longest running specialist domestic violence service, said:

“The women’s sector provides a range of vital services, including support to women experiencing poverty and homelessness due to domestic and family violence. But without adequate funding, our services simply cannot meet the demand in the community. This election is an opportunity for candidates to understand the pressures facing women and the women’s sector in Canberra and to address them in government.”

 

Kiki Korpinen, acting CEO of Canberra Rape Crisis Centre, said:

“This election is an opportunity for government to better support and respond to the needs of ACT residents seeking support in relation to
complex trauma as a result of sexual violence. CRCC acknowledges this important partnership and welcomes the opportunity to continue to work together with the government for the best possible outcomes for victim/survivors.”

The election platform includes the following calls:

 

1. Prioritise ending domestic, family and sexual violence

●Increase funding for women’s specialist services to keep pace with growing demand and additional case management needs. An undersupply in social and affordable housing and underinvestment in crisis support continues to impact on safety outcomes and must be rectified.
●Develop a comprehensive, intersectional, evidence-based strategy to end domestic, family and sexual violence in the ACT.
●Increase funding to crisis services to recognise children as individual users and to meet their additional case management needs.

2. Recognise and resource specialist approaches to end sexual violence

●Resource subject matter experts to develop a complex trauma model for responding to victim/survivors of sexual violence.
●Resource the expansion of sexual violence prevention and early intervention practices including training, awareness raising and driving social reform around recent and historical sexual violence.
●Commit to resourcing frontline crisis services providing crucial support to victim/survivors of sexual violence who are women, LGBTQIA+ or victim/survivors with disability.

3.Promote women’s health and wellbeing

●Increase funding for no cost early medication abortion to meet shortfall, including for management.
●Commit to an inquiry into forced sterilisation in the ACT.
●Commit to fund the ACT’s first residential perinatal mental health facility.

4.Value women’s work

●Adequately resource emergency placements for children aged 0-5 in early education so as to recognise the true-value of providing these services.
●Fund increases that reflect the projected increase in demand through a population-based model.
●Provide an incentive program for businesses to employ women who have experienced complex trauma or have recently exited prison.

5.Resource women’s policy

●Increase internal resourcing to the Office for Women to coordinate and drive gender equitable policy for women across government.
●Fund the development and implementation of the next ACT Women’s Plan.
To read the sector’s election platform, visit https://www.womenshealthmatters.org.au/news/what-womens-services-need-2024/

Media 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.

Beryl Women provides professional accountable, trauma-informed specialist domestic violence service, which is based in principles of feminism, social justice and reconciliation, and recognises and fosters cultural diversity. Beryl has an ongoing commitment to supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children, and women and children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Beryl works with women to ensure that they are empowered to make decisions about their lives and to support them in acting on those decisions.

Canberra Rape Crisis Centre (CRCC) is a feminist organisation aiming to eliminate sexual violence within our community. CRCC provides comprehensive support including crisis phone lines, counselling and advocacy services to people impacted by sexual violence. CRCC also provides specialised services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities as well as education and training programs.

Supported by ACT Health Directorate

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