2.3 Evaluation of services available

The Ipswich Women’s Centre against Domestic Violence is a service open to women that provides a number of different services for women and children dealing with domestic violence.

The centre was opened in April 1994, and aims to eliminate Domestic violence in households. They work exclusively with women and children, whom are often victims of domestic violence, and require counselling and support (IWCADV, 2010). The centre offers a number of programs that are developed for women and children, these are; Family Counselling Program, Crisis Response program, Court Support Program and Community Development program. These programs require dedicated staff to run each program. There are eight people working at IWCADV full time, inclusive of three people in charge of administration and management (IWCADV, 2010).

They are funded primarily by the state government, but also accept donations from the public. They receive approximately $896,293 from the state government, and are able to run the previously stated programs on this funding (IWCADV, 2013). They do however face limitations as a result of lack of funding. They have stated that they have to turn women, children and families away from counselling services due to lack of staff, time and resources. They are also unable to meet community requests to provide workshops, training and speeches to schools, workplaces and communities due to lack of time and resources (IWCADV, 2013). This in turn means that they are unable to effectively prevent the issue of domestic violence by developing children’s personal skills at a young age (IWCADV, 2013).

Extra funding for IWCADV could provide them with extra staff, counsellors and resources. They would be able to accept more clients into their programs, reducing their turn away statistics and dealing with more cases of domestic violence. They would be able to be able to have Torres Straight Islander and Aboriginal workers, to provide support services to increase accessible appropriate services (IWCADV, 2013). They would also be able to provide men whom partake in domestic violence to develop their personal skills in order to become advocates against domestic violence.

A program called ‘Love Bites’ is an initiative by NAPCAN that aims at preventing domestic violence by targeting children in schools. This program is designed to educate middle and high schoolers about how to maintain healthy relationships, without the need for violence or abuse within the relationship (NAPCAN, 2008). The program has since been adopted by IWCADV, and is there new service available to schools. The service provides training for teachers to be able to teach the program. There is also a day workshop, where representatives from the Love Bites program go to the school and further educate students about healthy relationships (NAPCAN, 2008). The program is effective in preventing domestic violence as it targets children, both male and female, about the negative effects of domestic violence, and ways to deal with abusive situations. This develops their personal skills and enables them to help break the cycle of domestic violence.

There are barriers apart from lack of funding that IWCADV face. For example, the lack of understanding about domestic and family violence in the wider community can limit the effectiveness of the available programs (IWCADV, 2013). Lack of understanding of domestic violence is a barrier as there are many women in the broader community who do not understand that they are in an unhealthy relationship or that there are support services available to people in their situations.

Media and objectification of women also plays a part in the continuation of domestic violence (IWCADV, 2013). Objectification of women can lead some men to believe that they are simply objects for sex (Heldman, 2013). This means that there are men out there who believe they are entitled to sex when in a committed relationship with a woman. When they don’t receive sex from their partner however, they feel as though there wife doesn’t know their place, and they lash out, either physically or verbally. This demonstrates how the media and objectification of women can promote sexual, verbal and physical violence. This is simply another barrier that IWCADV has to attempt to overcome.

The second Service that will be evaluated that is available to women is ‘North Queensland Domestic Violence Resource Service’. The service was established in 1994, and aims to prevent women with information about programs they can attend and places they can go to be safe. The provide direct support services, education to the wider community and co-ordination of domestic and family violence situations (NQDVRS, 2013). They have two offices where they provide services from, one located in Mt Isa and one located in Townsville. These offices aim to provide support services and act as a liaison for a large amount of North Queensland.

They offer crisis Intervention, face to face counselling, male therapy sessions where perpetrators of domestic violence are challenged to change and counselling for women, men and children (NQDVRS, 2013).

They have a program in place in Townsville called ‘AARDVARC’. This program aims to create families that are able to look after children and partners without the need for violent discipline (NQDVRS, 2013). The program enables men and women to develop their personal skills in a safe and supportive environment so that they learn the skills to be effective and mature parents. This means the children will be able to grow up in a safe and supportive family, with the personal skills to take them through life. The children will never have been exposed to domestic violence as their parents understood how to maintain communication, and discipline of their children without the need for violent intervention. This effectively breaks the cycle of domestic violence as the children will be able to have loving relationships and possess the personal skills they acquired from their parents to be able to understand each other without the need for violence.

NQDVRS also provides a medium between victims of domestic violence and programs and services that are available to them. They are able to be case managers for women, men or children and examine their situation, and refer them to a specific program that relates to their own situation. That means that instead of getting a generic program tailored to the masses, they can be looked at and referred to others by NQDVRS (NAPCAN, 2008).

They offer massive amounts of information for women on their website about domestic violence. This information can be used to enable women to educate themselves about domestic violence and how they can best deal with their situation. The service also has anonymous hotlines for women to call when they are in danger so they can get help and advice from a professional without the abuser finding out (NQDVRS, 2013).

The fact that NQDVRS offers not only programs for men, women and children means they are reaching every aspect of the issue of domestic violence. Also offering victims specific programs through referrals enables them to effectively deal with a large number of cases, and are not constrained to only dealing with clients that use their services and programs.

NQDVRS enables women to easily be referred to other services that enable them to effectively deal with their specific circumstances. Being located in North Queensland means that they will be dealing with a lot of Indigenous cases of domestic violence. Due to this, they should implement more strategies and services that will enable Indigenous people to seek help for their problems. They should seek to introduce Indigenous workers that deal exclusively with other Indigenous people, so as that they feel more comfortable receiving assistance from the service.