REtroSPECT: 21 years of women's health in the west of Melbourne

REtroSPECT 21 years of women’ s health in the west of M elbourne

REtroSPECT 21 years of women’ s health in the west of M elbourne This book is dedicated to the wonderful women of the western suburbs of Melbourne.

Your strength, your energy, your determination, your collaboration, your diversity – all worthy of our admiration, our appreciation and, most of all, our respect.

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Women’s Health West recognise and pay respect to the Indigenous nations and traditional custodians of the land on which this publication was produced. We express solidarity with the ongoing struggle for land rights, self-determination, sovereignty and the recognition of past injustices.

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Author’s Note:

Like Women’s Health West, this book is the product of the work of many people. I was lucky to be able to talk with so many articulate and witty women. Thank you to all the interviewees for so generously sharing your thoughts with me. I would also like to pay tribute to all those who wrote the research papers, newsletters and service reviews that inform this book. This book would not be possible without the women who have worked for Women’s Health West and the many organisations who have been partners in the work of the past two decades.

While every attempt has been made to contact copyright holders of photographs and drawings to obtain their permission to reprint, we apologise for any inadvertent omissions.

Contents

moonee valley maribyrnong

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Author Esther Singer Editor Nicola Harte and Robyn Gregory Transcription Stephanie Micallef Design / illustration Isis & Pluto This project was made possible with funds from the Reym Foundation.

5 Women Making Change 6 Before 7 Going for the Tender 8 Profile: Heather Clarke 10 Opening the Service 12 Profile: Effie Meehan 14 Working in Victoria’s First Women’s

Health Service – Feminist Paradise?

15 Provision of Direct Care Ends 16 Targeting 17 Women Taking Control 18 Profile: Lindy Corbett 20 Paps I Should 21 Money Woes 22 Profile: Rumia Abbas 24 Sexual and Reproductive Health 26 Having Babies 27 Being Responsive 28 Women’s Health West Tackles

Family Violence 30 Profile: Mary 32 Research 34 Timeline 36 37 38 40 42

But Doctor, It’s My Body Changing Structures Supporting Children in Violence Profile: Victoria Bosnian Women Coming Together

43 Changing The System 44 Working Across the Spectrum 46 Profile: Brooke Millington 48 Advocacy 50 Profile: Fatah Ade 52 International Women’s Day Events Published by Women’s Health West, 2009 317-319 Barkly St Footscray 3011 Melbourne, Victoria Ph: (03) 9689 9588 www.whwest.org.au

ISBN 978-0-9585404-5-2

53 Working Together 54 Partnership 56 A Safer Place 57 Women’s Health:

A National Conversation 58 Family Violence: An Era of Reform 59 Recent Changes in Family Violence Policy

in Victoria 59 Faxback 60 Girls Talk - Guys Talk 61 Christine: the Anatomical Dummy 62 Press Clippings 64 Robyn Gregory: A Letter From Our CEO 65 Into the Future

HAPPY 21ST ANNIVERSARY WOMEN’S HEALTH WEST The eighties were an exciting time for progressive feminist women’s organisations in health, politics, education, women’s refuges and the promotion and recognition of women’s rights.

In 1982, as the newly elected Member of Parliament for Melbourne West, I was fortunate to work with and support the emerging women’s groups in the west. These included the Women’s Health Coalition and the Women’s Health Network, which secured State Labor Government funding in 1988 to establish the first women’s health service in the west. It was located in Droop Street Footscray, and led by the indefatigable Anita Carroll and a passionate committee of management.

The twenty-one year history of Women’s Health West that we are celebrating in this important book is one of both struggle and success. I believe much of this success is based on your determined adherence to your values of equity, diversity, individual and collective advocacy, and your underpinning feminist principle of empowering women to take control of their own bodies and their own lives.

Part of the development of Women’s Health West was to move from providing direct women’s health services to focussing on advocacy and the empowerment of women. Later the service fought an ef fective community campaign against mainstreaming and amalgamations. In 1998 Melissa Afentoulis joined the service as CEO. She oversaw a decade of change, as the service grew to be a leader in women’s health.

Currently, under the leadership of Robyn Gregory and the Board of Directors, Women’s Health West is recognised, valued and respected, particularly in the field of advocacy, for appropriate cultural understanding and services, individual and collective action against domestic violence, and as a campaigner for abortion law reform in Victoria. I firmly believe that without the ef fective networking and advocacy of Women’s Health West and your sister networks for abortion law reform we would not have won that battle.

Thank you for your leadership and for all the other contributions that Women’s Health West have made to empowering women to improve their health and wellbeing. You have truly made a dif ference with and for women of the west and across Australia.

And now for a twenty-first birthday wish. Let’s mark this occasion by making new commitments to achieving even greater advances in gender equity, diversity, social inclusion and the elimination of poverty for women over the next twenty-one years. We know we can do it.

JOAN KIRNER, AM

Former Premier of Victoria

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women making change Vision: Equity and justice for women in the west WHW Strategic Plan, 2009-12

Women are the major users of health care ser vices in Victoria… They are also the majorit y of paid and unpaid health care workers. Women’s position in societ y does not allow an equal, let alone major say in the direction of health ser vices.

Why Women’s Health?

Victorian Women’s Health Policy Working Party, 1985

The powerlessness of women ser vice providers af fects their qualit y of care as consumers; women become passive par ticipants in a medical machine - more impor tantly, a medical machine that ignores the broader social, economic and environmental influences on women’s health.

What is the realit y of this social contex t? Statistically speaking, according to the repor t, women are more likely than men to be poor, unemployed, victims of domestic violence, to be single parents, to work in low status jobs, to have poor working conditions and to work the double shif ts of paid work outside the home and unpaid work within it.

The ‘Why Women’s Health?’ repor t made several recommendations and in par ticular it recommended the establishment of women-specific ser vices to act as models for change!

From Chairperson Maureen Dawson-Smith’s speech at our grand opening, 1988

Before

Photographer: WHW Archives Some of the many workers who at tended the project launch at the Footscray Community Arts Centre on 16th October, 1987

The story of Women’s Health West begins, with secondwave feminism, in the 1960s and 70s. As women gathered to share their experiences, and discovered how they were shaped by sexism, health was one of the first issues they discussed. Af ter all, in pre-feminist Australia: • It was illegal for Family Planning to advertise their services • Women living in violence were told it was ‘just a domestic’

• There were no health services for migrant or refugee women • Menopause was never discussed

• Lesbianism was treated as unnatural

• Sex education was considered obscene

As the women’s liberation movement grew, consciousness-raising groups and activist collectives formed across the country. Fertility control, sexual assault, abortion and the sexist medical system were all hot topics. They were crucial parts of the movement’s struggle for women to control their lives and bodies.

Through the 1970s women organised themselves to learn about their bodies, provide information to other women and of fer medical services. Feminists argued for women-only health centres as a way to deliver the services women needed and to model feminist practice.

By the mid-1970s women had some success in gaining the ear of governments. The first women’s health centre opened in Leichhardt, Sydney, in 1974, funded by the Whitlam Government’s Community Health Program.

Although funding for other centres was not easy to come by, it didn’t stop women from opening them. In the same year Melbourne’s Women’s Health Collective opened in Collingwood without securing any government grants. The centre of fered clinical services and health information, with seven staf f working without salaries.

By the late 1980s there were women’s health centres in over fif t y locations across the country, mostly operating on state funding where they could get it. In 1982 the Victorian Cain Government came to power on a strong plat form of women’s issues. They convened a ministerial working par t y on women’s health and released the ‘Why Women’s Health?’ discussion paper in 1985. Over 7,000 women responded, sharing their views of the health system. Af ter a year of intensive lobbying for funding for women’s health ser vices, the working par t y presented its repor t in 1987. It was what women had fought for – the government commit ted to funding a statewide women’s health information centre and a regional women’s health ser vice.

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21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Key issues in women’s health:

• women not get ting enough information to make informed decisions about their health

• normal parts of women’s experiences like pregnancy and childbirth being treated like medical problems

• women’s experiences trivialised by doctors who treated them as passive and ignorant • ‘the body’ being assumed to be a male body, ignoring the dif ferent ways in which women experience ill health In the late 80s there were significant social changes in the western suburbs. Jobs were being lost; the manufacturing industr y was basically shut ting down.

People lost their jobs or had to work fur ther out and things were par ticularly hard for immigrant women who of ten worked in the clothing and foot wear sector. Socially the area was changing and so was the ser vice system. It was one of the most critical periods of evolution for the communit y sector. The federal government invested a lot in the west through the Australian Assistance Plan, and Victoria Universit y came into being then too.

Melissa Afentoulis, CEO Women’s Health West, (1998-2008)

Going for the Tender In the western region it quickly became clear that t wo groups were interested in applying. The Women’s Health Net work and the Women’s Coalition decided that rather than compete for funds they would prepare a joint submission.

With only four weeks to produce a tender, there were many late night meetings involved. The women debated what type of service to propose and thrashed out agreements on policies and philosophies. They wanted a health service that took into account the social and economic conditions of women’s lives. They worked hard to bring theory and practice together to develop a new model for health care.

And win it they did, with the funding announced on 22 May 1987. Victoria’s first women’s health ser vice was coming to the west!

women making change

The resulting tender made a strong case for the first centre to be in the west, based on demonstrated need and the support of the groups’ well-established networks. Heather Clarke, a member of the Women’s Coalition says ‘We were probably naively optimistic, but we were pret ty confident of winning the tender’.

In February 1987, the Victorian Government announced that $400,000 was available to open Victoria’s first women’s health centre.

The Age reported that the deciding factors in awarding the tender to the west were ‘the capability, demonstrated commitment, understanding of the issues and (being) representative of women in the western suburbs.’

First annual report

1987 Cartoon: Kay Hopwood

Our brief was rush, rush, rush – ever y thing initially needed to be done yesterday.

Work... Work… Laugh...

Rush... Struggle…Laughter...

Grow th… Tears... Changes…

Challenges… Excitement…

Fun… Gratitude … Frustration…

Pressure…Anger… Laugh…

Achievement… Sigh!!!! (Laugh) Get the picture????

Ronnie Egan in the first annual report

About the tender groups The Women’s Coalition was a monthly meeting for women who lived and worked in Kensington, Flemington, North and West Melbourne. The coalition formed in 1985 to raise awareness of the difficulties facing women in the region and to develop new ways of working to meet women’s needs.

The Women’s Health Network provided a forum for women in the western region who wanted to focus on advocacy and education. One of their key aims was to submit for funding to establish a women’s health centre in the region.

Socialization is geared towards producing men who are assertive, dominant and independent while women are taught to be passive, docile, dependent and nurturing. If we replace ‘man’ with d ‘ octor’ and ‘woman’ with ‘patient’, we reveal a description of the traditional role differences between health service providers and service users.

‘The Western Region Six Tender for a Women’s Health Centre’, 1987

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Photographer: Isabel Walsh

QUOTES FROM FIRST ANNUAL REPORT ‘In many ways, for me, the bir th and development of the Women’s Health Centre has paralleled … the arrival and grow th of my daughter Katherine.’

‘In June 1987, I remember going of f to have an ultra-sound af ter a jubilant meeting at the health depar tment at which we received writ ten confirmation of the grant. I think the entire steering commit tee was present. Health depar tment of ficials looked as if they were wondering if they’d made a mistake.’

‘In November I remember at tending a meeting three weeks af ter Katherine was born because it was ver y impor tant to prove to myself that I could carr y on being an active, commit ted feminist woman just as if nothing had happened. (This delusion only lasted a shor t time.)’

‘I’d like a dollar to go into the women’s health budget for ever y time I’ve strapped her into the car and told her we were of f to this or that meeting for the first fully-funded women’s health centre in the state.

I remember thinking how wonder ful it was that she would grow up in a time when women’s health centres had always existed.’

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21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Profile

Heather Clarke I star ted working in the west in 1986 at Kensington Communit y Health Centre and quickly joined the Women’s Coalition. It was a huge relief for me to find this feminist thinking alive and well in this sub region. That was my first experience of seeing a feminist structure recognised within agencies. It was a legitimate thing for women workers to meet and talk about the way that ser vices needed to be responsive to women. It was quite radical, I suppose.

When we heard the tender was out for a women’s health service there was a real sense of anticipation that finally resources were going to be invested. It was as if government had recognised that what people had been talking about was actually needed. There was a sense of opportunity and also that it was going to be a lot of work to make this happen.

We recognised pret ty early on that two groups were interested in the tender and that if we wanted to secure a service for the west we probably needed to work together.

It required a lot of talking, trying to create a partnership that would be functional. We were representing dif ferent parts of the region, dif ferent experiences, but still we could see the bigger goal ahead and quickly put dif ferences aside. I think when we joined forces with the other network it felt like we had the region pret ty well covered. So it was thrilling really, very exciting.

The driving ideas behind the tender are still fairly true today: that women don’t always experience health services as responsive to their needs and aren’t treated as partners. We’re treated as passive recipients under the control of the health service provider. There was almost an outrage over hearing stories of women’s experiences of that, time and time again. That sparked us to create a service that operated in a dif ferent paradigm.

Once we got the funding we set about get ting the ser vice star ted. There were many challenges and problems to be solved, because we were creating something absolutely new. But even when we disagreed it had the feel of a band of women coming along, having to wrap their head around things and come up with some way for ward. I remember a pret t y heated

conversation we had at a planning day about the abor tion issue. But one of the really good things was that women were so commit ted to the overall goal, we had the capacit y to accept dif ferent ideas against the backdrop of recognising experience and diversit y.

That recognition was like a microcosm of what we were saying - that health services needed to represent women’s varied experiences. In the end we needed to come to some kind of agreement and we voted at times; there wasn’t always nice consensus, but we were robust!

It was great at the of ficial opening, for it to all come to fruition. A bit of an unreal feeling in a way having Maureen [Dawson-Smith] making her speech on one side, and the Health Minister on the other. I had a sense of the beginning of something dif ferent. The chance to see if every thing we theorised about could actually be pulled of f.

Was it pulled of f? Absolutely! There was a lot of hope and energy and heart felt ethics around what people were trying to create and people were striving, really striving to make a dif ference. I think that still continues but the shape is pret ty dif ferent. Things are much bet ter thought out and the kinds of things that Women’s Health West has got ten into are very sophisticated. The work is really creative and the service’s ability to incorporate diversity remains one of its strengths. I think the heart of the organisation has been about that recognition of dif ferent women’s experience. The torch has been carried on, that’s how it feels to me.

Heather Clarke is now convenor of the Victorian Women Mental Health Network.

‘Overnight a postcard was whipped up and circulated so whoever was assessing the tenders would see that there was a lot of communit y suppor t for this par tnership.’

Cartoon by Kay Hopwood

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Opening the Service Our first committee of management, our first staff

1988

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Af ter the funding was secured and hundreds of women had been consulted, the steering group had the task of assembling the first commit tee of management for the Women’s Health Service for the West. There were two representatives from the original tender group, two from local women’s services and seven spots for community representatives.

Elizabeth Mazeyko was running a Spanish women’s group when a visiting nurse told her about the steering group.

She turned up to an early meeting to find out more:

I just walked in and said, “I’m really interested to see how I can help and how I can work as a bridge between my Spanish community and the future of women’s health”. I participated in another two meetings, I couldn’t really understand one word because they were talking about policy and my English wasn’t really so very good. Yet I still had this something inside of me, this passion. I started to participate in those meetings and then they were looking for women to be on the first management committee so I applied. It was a really big thing for me because I knew that this was something I could do to make a big change for women in my community.

Maureen Dawson-Smith chaired the first commit tee, who were responsible for the policy development, securing and renovating the building and employing staf f. At the end of the commit tee’s first term, Maureen reported ‘We are all proud, not only of our achievements but of our collective decision-making processes, which never ceased to respect our individual needs and vulnerabilities. There were a few tears along the way but there was heaps of laughter and warmth.’

In July 1988 the first permanent staf f member was appointed.

At twenty-eight, Anita Carroll was the Administrator of Victoria’s first women’s health centre. In her first report she recalled:

In no time I came to experience a very heav y sense of responsibility in at tempting to meet the enormous expectations that were held of the Women’s Health Service, in making a reality of the vision and ideals that had been so clearly and comprehensively set out in the tender and further developed in the consultation phase of the project.

This sense of anticipation from the community, and political pressure to demonstrate progress, culminated in a grand opening only three weeks af ter the move to our new home in Droop Street.

The Women’s Health Ser vice for the West opened in a big old Victorian house at 60 Droop St, Footscray on 29 September 1988.

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21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Photographer: WHW Archives

Jo Harper and Marisa D’Amicis, 1993

Photographer: WHW Archives

(Lef t to Right) Anita Carroll, Hon. David White (Minister for Health), Maureen Dawson-Smith 1988

Photographer: WHW Archives

Staf f of Women’s Health Service for the West, 1989.

(Top L-R) Bernice Murphy, Slavica Lasic, Anita Carroll, Debbie Smith, Brenda Burstal, Elizabeth Mazeyko, Jo Harper (Bot tom L-R) Joan Eddy, Veronica Garcia, Kerrie Taylor

Jo Harper, Coordinator Operations and Personnel Systems (1988 – present)

women making change

Ever yone was ver y gung-ho about it, and excited because we got the funding through. There were a lot of women who worked toward get ting it together. It was a ‘work hard, play hard’ atmosphere and there was a real camaraderie.

My journey at WHW star ted in 1989 when I was appointed as the first receptionist. I can still recall the inter view process vividly. I was a ver y young woman. Af ter being asked all the usual questions, I was asked a question that I never expected, ‘What are your views on abor tion?’ I felt ver y confronted at the time. It was a question that I’d asked myself as a sexually active woman but having to answer this question in an inter view was dif ferent. I said something along the lines that women should have the right to choose. Fast for ward to 2008 when women have been given the right to choose.

Veronica Garcia, Information Worker (1989 – 1995/2002-2009)

I think I was only eighteen when I star ted working there and what was really exciting for me was being surrounded by all these dynamic women. Ever yone suppor ted me because I was the youngest; I remember being given a lot of oppor tunities. We were all just star ting out so it was exciting. It was the first women’s health ser vice in Victoria so we were trail-blazing and people would come and visit all the time, ask how it was done, what our philosophy was?

Jamie Terzi, Information Worker (1988 – 1995)

Photographer: Isabel Walsh 60 Droop Street, Footscray

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Photographer: Isabel Walsh Ef fie Meehan, 2009

Photographer: WHW Archives

Women with a disability support group (L-R) Karleen Plunket t, Ef fie Meehan, Janice Slat tery, Daisy Serong, Annet te Sassano, 1994 12

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Photographer: WHW Archives

Women with a disability support group, 1994

Profile

Effie Meehan In 1988, I was involved in the Western Region Commit tee of Disabled Persons and someone from the Women’s Health Ser vice came to see them because they were interested to get women with disabilities on the first commit tee of management. They inter viewed me and because I had a disabilit y and I was ethnic they chose me.

My background was only in disability services: I went to specialist school and then to work in a sheltered workshop and I had never been integrated. So joining the commit tee, I was very nervous and it was challenging for me. I didn’t know how to make decisions. On the commit tee we were disadvantaged women, like women with a disability, old women, young women, young mothers. We started working together and we spent a long time in meetings.

We didn’t have a place yet, just a warehouse space at the TAFE on Buckley Street. I remember at the meetings we had supper like lollies and twisties, chips, and it was a health service, so that was pret ty funny.

We had a lot of meetings on how to structure the service, then we employed an administrator, Anita Carroll. At the start we had doctors and we had specialists. My thing was I wanted to set up a women with disabilities support group.

I was pushing very hard for something to happen because when women with a disability go to the doctor, the doctors look at the disability not the person. Recreation is also very important for women with disabilities because they can get very isolated and depressed.

So we employed another couple of workers and one was to work with women with disabilities. One day I found out there was funding from the Department of Human Services for disability and we had three days to apply for that funding. We applied and DHS helped us because we had a good relationship with them in the western region. We got $9,000 and I remember it was a big thing for us, we were very excited!

We had a public meeting to see what was needed and what women would like. The first one we had, only three women with disabilities turned up; the nex t one we had

six ty-five women and the room couldn’t fit everyone - we had to knock some women back. The women spoke about needing more information about health, about recreation, and about how to empower themselves to speak up for themselves about their bodies. On the steering group we had a lot of debate about who the group should be for.

Some wanted it just for people with physical disabilities but those with intellectual disabilities made a noise, they said it wasn’t fair and so we made it a mixed group.

In 1991, we started trying to find a worker to run the group and there was no-one suitable. Lindy had not put on her application that she had a disability, so we didn’t interview her. But then my husband said she did have a disability and we called her, and interviewed her, and she got the job.

So we set up a support group in the west. I was in the group and also stayed on the commit tee for Women’s Health. I also got work as a peer educator with the Paps I Should project - I was there for almost ten years. In the early days there was a lot of work and I had a lot of input.

I still think, is it really twenty-one years ago? God, how the years go quickly. One thing I was always happy about is that from the start the Women’s Health Service commit ted themselves to do work with women with disability. There are not many places that commit themselves like that.

The reason Women’s Health West is important for me is because it’s the service that integrated me into the community, because I come from an institution. It made me empower myself in making decisions, and without that I would not be speaking up now.

Ef fie Meehan was a founding member of Action on Disability within Ethnic Communities (ADEC), and is now on the board of the Victorian Women with Disabilities Network.

Deinstitutionalisation in the 1980s and 90s Since the 1960s, disability and anti-psychiatry movements across the western world fought to have institutional care replaced by a variety of community care networks. In Australia, Victoria had the fastest and most widespread programs of deinstitutionalisation. Political commitment to more enlightened community living programs started the process in the 1980s and it was accelerated by neo-liberal agendas in the 1990s. By 2000 all but one of the large institutions had been closed. Since then many people with disabilities have had the opportunity to live more independent, richer lives, but the promise of deinstitutionalisation has not been fully realised, and widespread homelessness of people with severe mental illness is one of the failures of the community care system.

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Working in Victoria’s First Women’s Health Service – Feminist Paradise?

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Jamie

The service was commit ted to modelling equality in its staf f practices, as well as its work. But this was not always easy. Jamie Terzi remembers:

Jamie

Conflicts were of ten poorly dealt with and the promise of a supportive women’s space did not always match reality:

Back then we laboured ever y process. The first per formance appraisal we did took three days for one person, and ever ybody was involved.

It was just excruciatingly long. Any discussions just took forever. When you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re tr ying to do it dif ferently from what you’re familiar with, that happens.

It got pret t y aw ful at many times; there was a lot of tension. It’s a my th that just because you’re a pack of feminists you’re going to be holding hands and riding into some women’s-only-space heaven.

Veronica

Staf f of ten found themselves taking on work outside their role, as Veronica Garcia found on reception:

Veronica

But despite, or maybe because of, the pressure they were under, it was a very bonded staf f group:

I speak Spanish, so I used to do medical interpreting. I wasn’t equipped for that! It’s fine saying ‘When would you like your nex t appointment?’

But to be telling them ‘You’ve got something wrong with you’, that’s another thing.

I made a lot of friends during that time that I still keep in touch with today. We were such a small team. The organisation was a lot more social back then. We used to down tools a lot, and go for a meal. Just for the sake of it.

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Provision of Direct Care Ends

1991

A few things emerged from this review. As the annual report noted, ‘working at three distinct levels of service was too ambitious a task for a service with our limited resources’. It was a very small organisation, of only a dozen staf f and ‘the demand for direct care was overwhelming’.

women making change

Direct care services were of fered at Droop Street from the time the service opened, and staf f included doctors, massage therapists and counsellors. Workers were also doing a lot of community development, education and training work. It became apparent fairly quickly that the absence of a clear service direction was creating a lot of pressure for staf f. So eighteen months later, in March 1990, the first of many service reviews began.

The review was also a chance to listen to staf f and commit tee members about what was working and what wasn’t. The concerns that emerged then have been a continuing dilemma for WHW – how to use our limited resources most ef fectively to benefit the women of the west, without exhausting our staf f. In 1991, the commit tee decided to stop of fering direct services. It was the first of many restructures in WHW’s history.

Heather Clarke thinks the decision was in line with what the original tender group had hoped to achieve:

Af ter a period, we realised that we could go on providing a small amount of feminist therapy and holistic medical care for a small number of women and the rest of the region could carry on alone. But if there was going to be really systemic change, then the level at which the activities were targeted needed to change.

Although we did start out with direct service, I think there was always the idea of being able to influence other services more broadly. But I think it’s very hard to start a service and do that without demonstrating that you’ve actually got some credibility. It isn’t easy; you can’t just waltz up to mainstream services and tell them what to do. As a starting point, we needed some services on the ground.

But the change was not easy for everyone to accept, as Jamie Terzi recalls:

Everybody was trying to get their head around the changes in how we worked. There was resistance, people not wanting to let go of some sort of practice base, because that’s more immediate. Yes, people have needs, but I think that change to community work helped forge the way to find a particular, special place for what is now Women’s Health West.

Photographer: Vivienne Mehers Jamie Terzi, 1993

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Targeting When we decided to stop delivering direct medical services and focus on community development and health service development, the commit tee also decided to establish a process of targeting the work they did. As a result, 80 percent of project resources were allocated to target groups. Staf f hoped that adopting this strategy would result in a more complex and long-term response to the health needs of women and would be more likely to ef fect lasting change.

Jamie Terzi remembers that ‘There was tension around it. You have to target, it makes sense, but no mat ter how good the processes are, by vir tue of choosing one group you’re excluding another’.

Target groups were chosen based on data about the region and the health needs of dif ferent groups. The commit tee also considered the capacities of the service, especially in terms of multi-lingual staf f. They didn’t want to take the easy road though, and were not afraid to try new approaches in project work.

The first target groups that were chosen were:

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• Non-English speaking women – specifically: - Hispanic-American - Italian - Muslim women (Arabic and Turkish speaking) • Women with disabilities

• Women in the outer west

Photographer: WHW Archives

the Go Girls Lesbian Forum, 2003 16 Participants 21atyears of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Women’s Health West has continued to target the work we do, reviewing the groups we work with as part of our strategic planning. Needs analyses and research help us in this process and our targeting strategy helps us focus our resources where we can make the most dif ference.

Current Target Groups:

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• Indigenous women

• Same-sex at tracted women

• Women in and exiting prison • Young women

• Isolated women

• Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) women • Women with disabilities • Older women

• Refugee women

• Women who experience violence

women Taking Control We act to support women to take control over their decisions and their lives WHW Strategic Plan, 2009-12

Taking control means doctors who listen. Taking control means knowing what to ask for. Taking control means having access to the support you need. Taking control means making no apologies for who you are. Taking control means having the right to say no.

Taking control means being safe. Taking control means accepting responsibility.

Photographer: Isabel Walsh Lindy Corbet t, 2009

Photographer: WHW Archives

Finding Our Voice - skills in community decision making project for women with a disability, 1997 18

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Photographer: WHW Archives

Lindy Corbet t, 1992

Profile

Lindy Corbett In 1988, Women’s Health West ran an asser tiveness course for women with a disabilit y.

The recommendation to form a suppor t group for women with a disabilit y came out of this course. In 1991, Lindy Corbet t was hired as the project worker to establish the Sunrise suppor t group for women with disabilities.

My first memory was when I arrived at Women’s Health West for the job interview. I was nervous, and when I walked in I really felt like I’d reached a safe harbour. The receptionist gave me such a warm welcome and I really felt like it was a warm, safe place to come to. Then I got the job; it was for a nine month position. It’s quite amazing – now I just look up and it’s eighteen years on.

It was a small service when I started and the atmosphere was very supportive. Everyone was keen to get things underway and to get programs of f the ground. We started with very lit tle money but we were able to achieve a lot of things because of the support of the admin team.

The group was the first of its kind, and I still don’t know of any other disability group in Australia that is women-only with a focus on health issues. It was also innovative that it was run by a steering group of women with disabilities who had all the say in what happened.

Having women involved in decision making has definitely always been a focus. We work on the principle that women are the experts in planning their own health programs. It’s the philosophy of Women’s Health West for the women who are involved in the project to lead it. It’s always been that way.

It was really interesting, when I first star ted out the women from the steering group said to me ‘You make all the decisions, you know all about it’. But I said ‘No, no.

We’ve got to share our skills’. So we had a skills audit and that gave them confidence to go out and speak.

They said ‘Oh yeah, I do know something’. You have to provide suppor t for women to take control on boards and commit tees. As women became more confident, they began to ask more questions.

I think the greatest achievement is that the voice of women with disabilities is being heard; it’s so of ten forgot ten.

In the 1990s, we ran forums to address the issues that women raised in the support group. We had women

from the group speak about their experiences of health services. It provided health services with the impetus to change. It was great to see the women with disabilities’ voices directly impacting on service providers. Taking it to the mainstream and saying ‘Include us, you need to have services that cater for the needs of women with disabilities’. Things like get ting a hoist to make the service more accessible.

When there’s a woman with a disability speaking, it really makes a dif ference. And a lot of the women went on to participate in other things, and become key spokespeople for women with disabilities. I think the project has made some dif ference to what is on of fer for women with disabilities. But I think we have to keep working at it; it can ebb and flow. My biggest frustration is that the model hasn’t been taken up by other services. I think some services do try to address empowering people with disabilities but it can be seen in dif ferent ways, I just think that Women’s Health West does it very well.

Af ter eighteen years, the major change is that we’ve moved and now we have two groups - they’re called the Sunrise Groups. We ran for twelve years in the inner west and then we moved to the outer west. Of course, there are dif ferent needs and women are more isolated in the outer west - that’s one of the reasons why it was moved. It’s been harder to access women with disabilities in the outer west because of the lack of services and lack of transport.

The groups are a really important place just for women to have fun. They love the excursions and the chance to get out and about. Many women with disabilities in our community are isolated and the groups help women connect to their community and make friendships with other women. We also give women information that can help them take more control over their lives - about family violence, self-defence or breast and cervical screening.

• Women with disabilities are among the most economically and socially disadvantaged of all groups in society.

Over 50 per cent live on less than $200 per week. Triple Disadvantage: Out of Sight, Out of Mind, DVIRC, 2003.

• International research indicates that regardless of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or class, women with disabilities are assaulted, raped and abused at a rate of at least two times greater than non-disabled women, yet are much less likely to receive assistance or services if they experience violence. Women With Disabilities Australia, 1998

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Paps I Should As the Anti-Cancer Council began its Pap Test Victoria campaign, women in our disability support group raised the problem of their limited knowledge of pap smears and the dif ficulties they had accessing the tests.

WHW joined a range of services to develop Paps I Should, a program focused on the rights of women with disabilities to make active and informed choices about their health.

The women in our disability group developed a video for use as an education resource with a script based on their experiences. Paps I Should was a ground-breaking project for disability and health. Common pap test practice at the time assumed that women could comfortably lie on their backs with their legs apart, which is impossible for many women with disabilities. Members of the group developed techniques for taking pap tests from women with dif ferent kinds of disabilities and documented these on the video.

The video was the first of its kind in the world.

Peer education can be defined as sharing experience and knowledge with others who are like us. Over the years Women’s Health West has brought together women with a disabilit y and other marginalised groups and suppor ted them to facilitate groups of their peers to explore wellbeing. Through this process peer educators become role models and women are encouraged to recognise their own strengths and abilit y to take action to optimise their own physical health and their wellbeing. We have continued to work with peer educators on projects including Breast for Me, Power On, Power On for Carers, Lead On and Lead On Again.

Prize Winning Paps I Should was a winner in the inaugural Awards for Innovation and Excellence in Community Health in 1994

Not what you’d expect: An impor tant outcome for some women was learning that because they had never engaged in sexual activit y it was not necessary to have regular pap tests 20

Eight women from the support group were trained as peer educators and conducted sessions in a wide range of set tings. The sessions had a huge impact, especially for women with physical disabilities, many of whom commented that nobody had tried to deal with mobility problems before. The educators found that concepts were of ten dif ficult for women with an intellectual disability to understand and remember, depending on the degree of their disability. Discussing sex and its link to the need for pap tests made it particularly dif ficult.

Paps I Should ran for eleven years and we heard from hundreds of women with disabilities about the lack of resources about sexuality, contraception and breast health. The peer educators became great advocates for the needs of women with disabilities and the video was in high demand locally and internationally.

Peer educators’ experiences:

Sometimes it was like a lit tle light came on and you’d see a woman thinking ‘... I can go to a dif ferent doctor if I want to.’

One woman had t wo children by the time she was 18 but didn’t know what I meant by sexual intercourse.

I had to explain it to her, then she understood. She was 34 years old!

I think the women felt comfor table with us because we have disabilities too.

1991 Paps I Should was a partnership of the Centre for Social Health, Melbourne University Department of Community Medicine, Family Planning Victoria, Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria, MS Association and the Victorian Department of Health and Community Services.

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Money Woes

Photographer: Herald and Weekly Times, Melbourne Australia

In 1992 the new women’s health service had barely been open for five years when the Kennet t government swept to power, budget-slashing knife at the ready. Health and community services came under pressure across Victoria and the service lost 27.5 percent of its state funding.

Meanwhile, federal funding for the Women’s Health Program was under threat.

Jo Harper was in charge of finances at the time:

women tAking control

Kennet t really shook us up. It was a time when no-one was sure whether they were going to have a job nex t week. So many threats around, so many rumours from your net works and you didn’t know, you had to take them as the truth until they got knocked on the head. The government set up the culture of competitiveness, and that was really ugly because we were all v ying for the same money.

By 1993 serious changes were taking place in the sector, with the state departments of Health and Community Services merging. The government pursued a strong amalgamation agenda, particularly in the community health sector.

Jo:

When we were told to amalgamate, we had to do all this work on top of our own work about what are we going to do, how are we going to do it. And then look at partners around the area. We decided to go with West CASA but at first we didn’t know if that would be acceptable to ‘the powers that be’.

Staf f and the commit tee worked for months with West CASA to prepare for the amalgamation. Then, before the merger could take place, the government had changed tack and it was no longer required.

However funding threats re-emerged in 1995 when the State Health Minister, Marie Tehan, announced that women’s health centres would be absorbed by community health centres. Hundreds of women protested, and the conflict escalated as the Federal Health Minister, Carmen Lawrence, threatened to withdraw funding to the state. WHW survived as an independent agency, but the funding environment remained very precarious throughout the 1990s.

What happened in the 90s?

• Less funding for community programs and advocacy as health funding became output-based • Amalgamations were pushed on community health centres, local governments and hospitals • A user-pays system was encouraged for services, for example in community health centres

• State government funding for health and welfare was cut by 12.5 percent from 1992 to 1995

There was widespread suppor t for the disabilit y project within the disabilit y rights movement.

When the Women’s Health West funding was under threat, we sought suppor t from lots of disabilit y groups to keep the funding of the organisation and the project. Let ters of suppor t were sent to the minister and government depar tments.

The worst thing about it was that it created such a sense of anxiet y about the future that it really detracted from the work. It was really disrupting.

Jamie Terzi, Information Worker

Lindy Corbet t 21

Photographer: Isabel Walsh Rumia Abbas, 2009

WOMEN AND EMPLOYMENT

Photographer: Mat t Murphy, Leader Newspapers

Employment status is one of the key factors that determine women’s health outcomes. When Somali women began to request help with finding employment, Rumia tapped into their skills and interest in working with children. She arranged guest speakers who linked the women with English courses and supported them to obtain registration as home day care workers. She also arranged CPR training for them, in partnership with H2O Pro. Many of them are now working in the field, while others have gone on to obtain higher level qualifications.

Rumia Abbas, African women’s cross cultural exchange day, 2008 22

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Profile

Rumia Abbas Rumia came to WHW in 2000, having worked as a Somali interpreter for some of our focus groups. She has worked for nine years in our Family and Reproductive Rights Education Project (FARREP).

The focus of FARREP is to work in communities that are af fected by Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), to work with women and improve their access to health care. We support them, share health information and advocate on their behalf; that focus hasn’t changed since DHS first funded the project in 1998, but the work has changed over time.

Now we are seeing a lot of women having mental health problems, depression became common. Also child-raising and inter-generational conflict is a problem, so we are trying to work with communities around the burning issues of the moment.

I think for me, the thing that I have enjoyed working on the most is the schools project. I initiated the program because we were not working with young women. When I was an interpreter I used to work in schools. The welfare teachers were saying they had problems with the African kids, some young kids were having unprotected sex and a few girls got pregnant and didn’t know what to do. We were also concerned about HIV and other STIs. I thought ‘Why can’t we do something to make a dif ference?’ We speak the language, we have the ability and also most of the young girls were af fected by FGM.

So I went to dif ferent schools and ran sessions with the African girls on sexual and reproductive health, and drugs and alcohol. The schools liked it very much and the girls had fun with it. Then we started to run the program at the Western English Language School, where all the newly-arrived kids go. It was well received, they even ex tended it to the whole school because they had kids from Asia, Europe and the Middle East who they thought also needed it. And we joined with the nurses from Western Region Health Centre to run groups with both boys and girls.

Rumia ran a group in Flemington for Somali women, as another part of the FARREP program .......................................................................

I was working with the Somali women’s group for almost six years. It was a big group, up to thirty women sometimes. When we started all they wanted was to get out of the house. It was fun and it was somewhere to get out and meet with other women. It was not purely health information and it was always based on asking them ‘What do you need? What can we do?’

Initially the women raised issues like ‘I don’t know how to go to the doctor, I don’t know how to access this or that.’ Gradually it changed and the women said ‘We don’t know how to save money’. So we did financial literacy training with them. Then they started to raise the issue of employment so I worked to address that.

The good thing is that we understand the ability women have, because although they are not educated they are very smart women. The newly-arrived women became very familiar with things and when I see many of them today, they are working and driving a car and they are so independent. Also, they know that they have to look af ter themselves; they know that they have to do checkups, pap smears, breast health checks and that was our aim.

But we did it in a fun way and we always work around the community’s needs.

I think the only reason we have been able to achieve all we’ve done is because the organisation is very flexible. If I come to my manager and say ‘Look there is this issue, and the community says we need to do this’, they listen.

As long as we can show that there is a real need and something that can be done they let us do it. I think that’s what makes this organisation special. They don’t say, ‘We only want to work with African women around FGM, we don’t care about schools or mental health’. WHW are willing to put ex tra resources into working with African women, on top of our FARREP program, so FARREP workers can use their knowledge of problems facing their communities to respond to those problems as well as the problems women face because of FGM. I stayed in this organisation for so long because I got to do so much interesting work with dif ferent people, from communities to professionals. It’s always amazing.

23

Sexual and Reproductive Health Throughout their histor y, the health related professions and arising systems have denied women, as a consumer group, knowledge and therefore control, of their own bodies.

From the original tender document, 1987

Knowledge is power; this principle underpins Women’s Health West’s work. Information about our health, rights and options gives us power to make informed choices about our lives. Right from the start, sexual and reproductive health was a huge part of our work. We recognise that knowledge is not enough in itself, that many factors impact on women’s sexual and reproductive health. Our approach to working with women has changed over time. We no longer run one-of f education sessions and instead try to work with people who have lit tle other opportunity to access information, and run longer-term projects that create lasting change in the community. The projects outlined give a sample of our work in this area, but are not an exhaustive list.

Sexual health information

In the early days, it was much harder to find resources about women’s health, so much of our work involved information provision to women in the community

1989 Hairdresser Project

Distributed women’s health information kits to local hairdressers to get information out to women

1988 - 2007 Library

Our collection of health information was initially a very popular resource for local women

2001 - 2007 Health Information Line

Our phone service was staf fed by a nurse/ midwife who answered health questions and provided referral

1988 ongoing Workshops

Regular information sessions for all women as well as specialist training for other workers

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Women’s Groups Working long-term to provide health information, social connection and new skills

1991 - 1996 Arabic Speaking Muslim Women’s Group

A partnership with services in Altona to support isolated women

2000 - 2006 Somali Women’s Group Working with newly arrived women

1991 - ongoing Sunrise Groups

Health and recreation support group for women with a disability

Events Partnering with local organisations to reach target communities

2004 Indigenous Women’s Health Day at the Western Suburbs Indigenous Gathering Place Association

Working with local groups to confront the barriers that of ten prevent Indigenous women from accessing health care

Photographer: WHW Archives

Jan Adams, 1998

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

2003 Go Girls!

First lesbian health forum held in the west

2003-2006 Bosnian Women’s Health Festivals

Working with a group of Bosnian women to build their capacity to develop health promotion activities

Peer Educators Women learning from their peers

1991 - 2002 Paps I Should

2000 Greek Women’s Menopause Info

Women with disabilities sharing information about breast health

One of many small programs for local communities

1999 Talking Health

Audio tapes for newly-arrived refugees recorded in Bosnian, Somali and Arabic

2004 Ating pag-usapan ang seks [Let’s Talk About Sex]

Booklet in Filipino on sexual health and contraception, in the culturally-appropriate form of cartoons

Developing the capacity of other organisations 1997 - ongoing Family and Reproductive Rights Education Program FARREP Health promotion work to prevent FGM and increase the quality of care and access to sexual and reproductive health services for women from communities af fected by FGM

2001- 2008 African Women’s Support Program

Worked with Western Health to provide an antenatal clinic for African women

2000 and 2009 Mama and Nunu (Mother and Baby) Editions 1 and 2

An ex tensive resource manual for health workers who provide pregnancy care and information to African women

Young People 2001 Rosamond School

Workshops for young people with an intellectual disability

2007 - ongoing Girls Talk Guys Talk

A whole of school approach to work with young people

women tAking control

Women with disabilities learning about cervical cancer

1996 - 2002 Breast for Me

Working with our target groups to produce resources that suit them

Condom demonstrations using bananas

2001 - 2006 Girls Act Up

Provide young women in secure welfare with sexual and reproductive health information through arts programs

2002 - ongoing Western English Language School

Healthy relationship information for newly arrived refugee and migrant young people

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Having Babies The process of medicalizing reproduction, and the ready resor ting to medical inter vention with its at tendant technology, has warped societ y’s view of normal life processes. For example childbir th, menstruation, menopause. Until this centur y, such processes were almost exclusively under women’s control.

From the original tender document, 1987

Women in Australia have contested the medicalisation of birthing services since the 1960s. It is a key example of a health issue where women have long argued that the personal is political and that doctors do not always know best.

From the 1988 Ministerial Review of Birthing Services, to our latest edition of Mama and Nunu (Mother and Baby), WHW has advocated for maternity services that give women the support they choose. Our particular focus has been on services that are culturally sensitive and accessible to newly-arrived communities. As dif ferent waves of migration have changed the west, we have worked with hospitals and community services to ensure they respond to changing needs.

Birth in a New Country

.......................................................................

In 1990, the Ministerial Review of Birthing Services recommended a greater focus on disadvantaged women.

We received funding to run a project ‘Birthing Needs of Non-English Speaking Background Women in the West’. A community midwife was employed as a project worker, based at the Western Hospital. The project’s goal was to improve the experience of birthing services for Vietnamese, Lebanese and Hispanic American women.

The project interviewed women pre- and post-birth and uncovered many problems with services being inaccessible and insensitive:

‘I need an interpreter there who can help me speak the language. There is a lot of questions which I couldn’t ask and I was ver y scared about the operation (Caesarean).’

‘I had a shower af ter labour but for the Vietnamese it is not allowed. For me, if I don’t do it the way they asked me to do it I was afraid they might think the Vietnamese do not know about hygiene.’

26

However, while women were very pleased with the caring at titude of staf f members in the delivery suite, many problems were identified in the ante-natal and post-natal stages. The report made recommendations for birthing services to improve their accessibility, community liaison and af tercare. We found that most hospital staf f were keen to increase their knowledge and cross-cultural training was very popular. We also collaborated to produce multi-lingual resources for the community.

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Mama and Nunu

.......................................................................

In 1999 the major maternity hospitals were reporting that they generally saw women from African communities late in their pregnancies. This sometimes resulted in very poor outcomes for the mother and her baby, so WHW and maternal services at the Sunshine campus of Western Health decided to work together on an African women’s support program from 2001. The pilot program involved professional development with hospital staf f to increase awareness about the cultures and special health needs of women experiencing female genital mutilation (FGM).

A Family and Reproductive Rights Education Program worker (FARREP) also at tended Friday antenatal clinics to meet directly with African women. Recommendations arising from the pilot resulted in a community-based African women’s antenatal clinic being set up in Vipont Street Footscray, with childcare, midwifery, interpreting and FARREP staf f in at tendance to support women. The clinic was relocated to the Western Region Health Centre from February 2006 and broadened to a generalist clinic in 2008. WHW continue to provide professional development to staf f of Western Health.

In 2001 we also developed a manual for health ser vices and the women involved, named Mama and Nunu (Mother and Baby). The manual aimed to improve the way health professionals work with African women af fected by FGM during pregnancy and bir th. It’s been an ex tremely popular resource and in 2009 we launched Mama and Nunu 2, adding topics that respond to the shif ting migration and set tlement trends of African women living in the west of Melbourne. Unfor tunately, new focus groups showed that the old issues of confidentialit y, access to interpreters and ser vice flexibilit y are still problems for women dealing with maternit y ser vices.

‘It’s dif ferent having a baby in Ethiopia. You don’t have to do any thing. You have more family suppor t, relatives helping you. It’s bet ter to have some friends here. You have to do ever y thing by yourself. There are no relatives. It is lonely and hard.

Ever y thing here is good but the loneliness.’

‘They (hospital staf f) don’t know enough about the many dif ferent cultures and dif ferences amongst African women.’

African Women and Maternity Research, 2008

Being Responsive We recognise the importance of being responsive to the changing needs of our community WHW Strategic Plan, 2009-12 You’ve always got to keep reflecting, keep growing, listening to women.

Lindy Corbett, Project Worker for Women with Disabilities, 1991 - present

The minibus represents our commitment to listening to women from right across the western region. In 1987, when funding had just been awarded, the steering group were undertaking consultations to find out what women wanted from the new service. When they realised that transport in the outer west was a real problem and women might not be able to participate in the consultations, they decided to do something about it – and the minibus was part of the solution. In later years it was also one of our most popular community resources.

Women’s Health West Tackles Family Violence In the early days of the ser vice we tackled family violence – or domestic violence as it was then referred to – through our communit y projects. We ran lots of training for other ser vices, par ticularly on feminist approaches to working with women who were sur vivors of violence. In 1991, we ex tended this work with a project in Bacchus Marsh suppor ting the communit y to respond to family violence. Working with local government and health ser vices, the project provided crisis counselling, information cards on family violence and sexual assault, and training for ser vice providers.

While workers were certainly keen to do more to deal with violence against women across the region, funding was a limitation and it wasn’t until 1994 that the opportunity presented itself for WHW to move into a more active role.

Counselling

Access to counselling has been on our agenda since WHW started, when the priority was to provide therapy in a feminist framework. We have continued to advocate for low-cost or free counselling, which is in very high demand across the region.

We now employ specialist children’s counsellors and partner with the Western Region Health Centre to provide high quality counselling to women who have experienced family violence, including through the Victims Assistance Counselling Program.

Photographer: Marc Bevis, The Times

Melissa Afentoulis, CEO, 1998 - 2008 (below centre) with members of the Brimbank Family Violence Response Unit, 2006

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21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

1994

In May of 1994, WHW received funding to run the Western Region Domestic Violence Outreach Service.

It was a time of major grow th in family violence funding. The western region had previously had only one outreach worker, so the new outreach service was a great win for women, providing funding for four workers and a coordinator.

The decision to expand into family violence was a major turning point. WHW had of ten made the links between women’s health, safety and wellbeing and this allowed us to work on all three. The first outreach worker to be employed was Irene, who remembers:

We had nothing. No structure, no policies, no resources, nothing. I pinched the resources from the agency where I was doing voluntar y work.

At the star t I’d just go by the skin of my teeth. [Assistant Coordinator] Sue Farnan did inform me later that no other workers in the domestic violence field would come work here because there were no policies or structure in place.

But I didn’t care, all I wanted to do was help them set up the ser vice, work with the women and get the ball rolling. It was so needed and I had this unrelenting passion.

Irene has stayed with the service, with only a two year break in the fif teen years since she started.

I look back on some of the things that I did, and I have a bit of a laugh now. But it was a scar y time. Like the time we marched a whole lot of guns into the police station. We felt like Bonnie and Clyde. The guns were in a woman’s house and she wanted them out. So I just said to her “Okay, let’s do it,” and we put them all in the back of the car, took them in to Keilor Downs station and dumped them all there. Done! There were times in the past where you just took mat ters into your own hands. You just don’t do that now.

I understand my communit y ver y well so I wanted to learn another skill, working with dif ferent cultures. I’ve got the experience and I explained to the coordinator that I wanted to work with all the clients from CALD backgrounds, not just Vietnamese women.

being responsive

Soon af ter Irene was hired, several other staf f came on board, including Phuong, who is also still with the team.

From its earliest days the service focused on improving access for women from non-English speaking backgrounds and women with a disability. Phuong was hired as part of a strategy to improve access for Vietnamese women, but she had other plans:

Phuong has stayed with the service, working in a range of roles including outreach, refuge and housing support.

The satisfaction of helping newly-arrived women keeps her going:

Communities change all the time. At the time I star ted we had a lot of Vietnamese coming, and now there are a lot of women from the Horn of Africa. Ever y wave of migration I learn another skill.

I love to help people star t from the beginning, when they don’t know any thing. When I came I had to learn ever y thing, my countr y was totally dif ferent from here and I could not understand English ver y well. So I love to work with the women who don’t know how to use an ATM or how to use the system. It makes me really happy to see them learn and become independent.

For Irene, the early days were challenging:

It was hard; it wasn’t always an easy place to work. But when I look at what we’re doing now, I guess this is what we were working towards all those years. You’re feeling your way, get ting the right people. It’s about the agency learning, and tr ying dif ferent things to get to where we are now. Workers did a lot without suppor t and direction in the past. There wasn’t the trust that you could go to someone higher up and get a helpful response.

But it’s rewarding to know that this agency has the capacit y to help women to become safe and to also give them the knowledge and exper tise to take on their own lives and to take their identit y back. Some of them can’t, but there are an aw ful lot of them out there who are so courageous, and so determined.

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21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Profile

Mary Mary is a past client of the family violence service.

She responded to a call for stories as part of our history.

He used to say to me ‘You’re not a good wife, you’re a bad woman.’ I just kept praying to myself, asking myself, ‘I’m a good wife, I’m pleasing my husband, what am I doing wrong?’ A few times, I wanted to go, but I was too scared. I wish I did leave earlier. Because I was thinking the marriage will work. And telling myself, ‘Because you’re Yugoslav, don’t upset your family, they’ve done so much for you.’

I was trying to make him bet ter but it’s a power thing and he didn’t change. My self-esteem went so far down, I couldn’t cope anymore. I wanted to run away, I wanted to disappear, like some people disappear – take the kids, change their names, never come back.

My friends used to say to me ‘You can’t even say a word.’ They never used to come over anymore, because he was dominating them. So I didn’t have any friends.

He cut me of f from the world, I didn’t have anyone; I was a lonely mum.

After several years of abuse and violence, Mary started to see a worker at the Family Relationships Centre in Sunshine .......................................................................

He used to carr y keys on his neck and not let me use the garage. He’d lock my car in the garage. He’d say ‘I’ll open the garage. I’ll close it’. The worker said ‘if you can tr y to get a copy made, you can get yourself out and get the kids out’. I got playdough and put it around the key to get a copy. It took me t wo tries but I got it.

So I had a plan, money and keys, and ever y thing ready in my lit tle backpack.

did, and he gave me the courage to do it. He said ‘Mary, stand up for your rights, no woman should be hit’.

Then I told my mum. My mum couldn’t believe it. She thought for sixteen years of marriage this man was a wonderful person. But no, I saw a lot of change in him over those years. I was thinking it was my fault. And my mum said ‘Don’t you ever think it was your fault. Why didn’t you tell us before?’ I said, ‘Mum, I was too scared, I was too shameful. I was ashamed for the name of the family’.

After further violent incidents the police became involved .......................................................................

And later the intervention order was served and got him out of the house. I went to court, I went with Hatice from Women’s Health West; she was a great help. I was so scared to go in court and stand. She said ‘You’ll be alright, just say the truth and what happened. What happened that night the police came, and what happened other times as well’.

I just found the service helped me a lot to see that there’s no need to be scared, get up there and say the truth.

And I did, I just got up and said what happened. Since all this, I think that it’s great to have these places for women, it should be advertised more. There should be more of these services.

I called the Women’s Crisis Line, and I was scared to call.

What’s going to happen to me? I was really scared of him.

I worried, are they going to come out to me? I thought I was going to get killed, or get bashed by him if they came.

Later I told my brother, ‘This man is hurting me. He’s actually hurting me, what do I do, do I call Women’s Health West?’ He says, ‘Whoever you ring, tell them that this is happening. You’ve got to let someone know’. So I

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Research 1997

“There needs to be more communit y ownership of health. Not just telling me what to do, but rather listening to my problem, how I feel or what I need.”

.......................................................................

Gambling Research Over Time

.......................................................................

• 1992 – Poker machines legalised in Victoria

Beyond Symptoms consultation, 2002

Women’s Health West has always believed that women are the experts on our own health and the factors that af fect it. Our research is built on this foundation and grounded in women’s lived experiences. To find out what women experience in the western region we do a lot of listening.

We trawl through stacks of data and we try to ask new questions.

Since the early days of the service, our research has revealed new trends in women’s health and helped us run responsive and innovative programs. We also share what we discover with other agencies and use it to advocate for change on key issues of women’s health, safety and wellbeing.

We research in many ways, for many reasons: • To find out what might work in a new community or set ting • To let ‘the experts’ discover new approaches

• To help other organisations to be more responsive to the needs of women

1993

Birth In a New Country (See p. 26)

1995

Health Choices, Our Voices Non-English speaking Background Women Speak Out! Recommended procedure guidelines for qualit y ser vices and best practice in a culturally diverse communities.

32

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

• 1997 – The equivalent of one pokie machine for every

110 people in the western suburbs.

Our work at WHW is based on the social model of health – understanding that health is influenced by a range of factors, including age, ability, sexuality, safety, gender, employment status and so on – and so our research aims to identif y new issues that impact on the social and economic status of women in the west. We began to look at women and gambling in 1997, when local agencies started raising it as an emerging concern. It was clear that women were in the majority at the new ‘pokies’ venues but there was no information available on the gendered nature of gambling.

Our pilot study, Who Wins? started to look at the impact gambling was having on women and the community in the west. It found that women had embraced the new pokies and sought to discover the reasons. We set up focus groups to ask women and workers to consider what meaning gambling might have in their communities.

‘The venues are a great place to go and fill in time when the loneliness really gets to you.’

‘I ask women what other social outlets they have and they have none.’

These are just two examples of research we have conducted.

SELECTED RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

• 1994 – Casino opens

1997

Who Counts?

A repor t on the health needs of women in the western region of Melbourne

1998

Who Cares?

Supporting women in the post-natal year

1999

Project Hippocrates Towards womensensitive medical practices in the Western Region (See p. 36)

2001

Talking health: Depression in the contex t of reset tlement

The study showed gambling venues were accessible and convenient for women with school-aged children. They were also an easy place for women to go alone. Looking at gambling revealed the depth of isolation many women lived with, particularly in developing municipalities with few community venues.

This study raised many questions about why women gamble and laid the foundation for a much larger project. In 1999 we joined with the University of Melbourne’s School of Social Work to continue our research. The partnership produced Who Picks Up the Tab? a study of the dif ficulties faced by services providing support to women.

2005

.......................................................................

Family Harmony

.......................................................................

Much of our research is in response to topics that arise in the programs and groups we facilitate. When we noticed that women from Somali and Eritrean backgrounds were of ten reluctant to speak openly about family violence, we were concerned about how to make our family violence services more accessible to these communities. In 2005

2002

Beyond Symptoms: A women’s health needs analysis for the Western Region

2003

Measuring the Tides of Violence: current family violence data for the Western Region of Melbourne

2005

Young Mums Rock!

2006

Women’s Health West conducted interviews and focus groups with community women, ethno-specific and non-African health and community workers. Some of the reasons for under-reporting of violence that emerged from these discussions included language barriers, the at titude that family violence is a family mat ter and fear of authorities (especially for women on spousal visas).

Working closely with the communities revealed some of the bigger challenges faced by African women seeking help. For example, when a woman chooses to report her experiences of violence and seek support, she risks becoming isolated and shunned by members of her ex tended family and community. As one woman said, ‘Some women will put up with the violence rather than lose face in the community or make their family lose face in the community’. In addition, many women had limited opportunities to learn English and those from small communities faced problems with confidentiality when using an interpreter.

The Family Harmony project revealed a number of culturally-specific deterrents to Somali and Muslim Eritrean women seeking assistance and produced a wealth of information about how services can bet ter meet the needs of these women. We continue to work to implement the project’s recommendations.

Becoming But terflies

2007

Building the capacity of organisations An action research Heathdale women’s in the western project promoting social suppor t region to the mental health, group developed a safet y and wellbeing promotional strategy prevent violence of young mothers to entice other against women: living in Melton women in the area a guide to health to join promotion (See p.46) action

Webster, K., Taylor, K. and Johnson, K., 1997, Who Wins? Women and Gambling in the Western Metropolitan Region of Melbourne, Women’s Health West, Melbourne.

Brown, S., Johnson, K., Jackson, A. and Wynn, J., 1999, Who Picks Up The Tab? Issues and dilemmas for ser vices providing mainstream suppor t to women af fected by Gambling in Melbourne’s Western Metropolitan Region, Women’s Health West, Melbourne.

2008

Do Your Bit Action Kit

being responsive

To follow up we interviewed 211 women from diverse backgrounds to find out why women gamble. The findings were published in 2000 as Healthy, Wealthy and Wise Women and looked at how women are af fected by their own gambling activities, as well as those of family and community members. This report is still a popular resource for planners and community services and is one of the few local resources to bring a gendered perspective to gambling.

we undertook action research with women from Somali and Muslim Eritrean backgrounds. Originally called ‘Family Violence in African Communities’, the participating women suggested that it would be more culturally appropriate to focus on positive outcomes, so it became the ‘Family Harmony’ project.

2009

Women in Melbourne’s West: A Data Brochure and online Book for kit outlining various Program and advocacy ef for ts Service Planning that women could act on to assist MPs in Health to remove abor tion from the Crimes Act

Brown, S., Johnson, K., Jackson, A.C., Fook, J., Wynn, J. and Rooke, C., 2000, Healthy, Wealthy and Wise Women: the health impacts of gambling on women in Melbourne’s Western Metropolitan Region.

Women’s Health West, Melbourne.

Gordon, R. and Adam, M., 2005, Family Harmony: Understanding family violence in Somali and Eritrean communities in the Western Region of Melbourne, Women’s Health West, Melbourne.

33

Background events

WHW timeline

1969 - The Menhennit Ruling in May gives Victorian women access to ‘legal’ abortion

- State Government advertises for tenders (February)

1970 - First Women’s Liberation Conference, Melbourne

- Women’s Coalition and Women’s Health Network submit joint tender for a women’s health centre in the west

1972 - Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value principle established 1973 - Women’s Commission

- Whitlam Government elected

1974 - First Women’s Community Health Centre opens in Sydney

- Melbourne Women’s Health Collective opens in Collingwood (19741978)

1975 - International Women’s Year

- National Women’s Refuge Program funded

- Working Women’s Centre opened

- Medibank introduced, Australia’s first universal health care system

- Whitlam dismissed

1976 - Western Region Centre for Working Women opens 1977 - Women in Industry, Contraception & Health opens, later Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health 1980 - Gay law reform in Victoria means sex between men is no longer criminal 1982 - Cain government elected in Victoria 1983 - Australia ratifies UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women

- Hawke government elected

- Women’s Health Information Resource Collective opens in Carlton, later merges with Healthsharing Women to become Women’s Health Victoria

34

- Women’s Coalition of Kensington, Flemington, North and West Melbourne established - Why Women’s Health? discussion paper released, makes case for women’s health services in Victoria - First National Women’s Health Conference, Canberra

- Bid is successful announcement of funding (May)

- Women’s Health in the West ‘Visions’ newsletter produced. Minibus purchased to visit groups.

- Victoria’s first Women’s Health Adviser appointed

- Victorian Women’s Health Policy developed

- Crimes (Family Violence) Act VIC passed introducing intervention orders

1985

1987

1986

- Committee of management decides to stop providing direct care

- Launch at Footscray Community Arts Centre (October)

- Women’s Health Network established in the western suburbs - Women’s Health Policy Working Party established.

Intensive lobbying for funding for women’s health services.

- Federal Affirmative Action (Equal Opportunity for Women) Act - Domestic Violence & Incest Resource Centre established

1988

- Doctor’s appointments are booked months in advance - Australia’s first National Women’s Health Plan commences - Hawke launches first National Domestic Violence Week

1989

Service opens as Women’s Health Service for the West - Direct service period - First meeting of management committee (March) - Anita Carroll starts as Administrator (July) - Women’s Health Service for the Western Suburbs opens (Sept) - 2 doctors and 5 community health workers employed - Healthsharing Women opens

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

1990

- Paps I Should peer-education project for women with disabilities wins awards

- Name change to Women’s Health West

- State Government no longer in favour of amalgamation, wants services to integrate with community health centres

- Report into health options for Arabic Muslim women launched Overcoming Barriers Building Trust

- Coode Island Fire

- UN Convention on Violence Against Women adopted

- Domestic violence outreach begins full operations (July)

1991

1993

1995

- Arabic Muslim women’s project commences - Women with Disabilities Group starts meeting (June) - First domestic violence project worker employed - Women’s Circus established

- Women’s Health Service for the West: Service review released (December) - Footscray Institute of Technology becomes VUT the West’s first university - 20th Anniversary of the Westgate bridge collapse - Joan Kirner becomes Victoria’s first woman Premier

1992

1994

- WHW auspices the new Molly’s House refuge

- WHW receives funding for domestic violence outreach - Kennett government service insists that - Domestic violence the service service commences amalgamate. WHW - Stand up for your enters into plans rights begins with West CASA investigating to merge the two over-prescription services of tranquilisers in - Kennett elected as Victorian Premier - Health and community service budgets slashed by 12% - Gambling legalised in Victoria

- Unsuccessful legal challenge to Canberra women’s health service based on the grounds that it discriminated against men - Prime Minister Paul Keating delivers the Redfern Address

Melton area

WHW History Background events

- Karen Sait, Acting CEO replaced Melissa Afentoulis - Crisis Accommodation Services (CAS) becomes part of WHW - Lead On young women’s leadership program commences - Move from Droop Street to Barkly Street

- Who Counts? report released - Who Wins? gambling report released - FARREP project commences - sexual and reproductive health for African women with focus on FGM.

1996

1997

- Breast for Me video resource kit launched - John Howard elected as Prime Minister

1998

- Project Hippocrates report - Talking Health - program for refugee women - Kennett government defeated by Bracks in Victoria

1999

2000

- Measuring the Tides of Violence, conference and research report

- Family Harmony report released on family violence - Somali and Eritrean Women

- Opening of the - Victorian Women’s Western Suburbs Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Strategy Gathering Place launched Association

- Reforming the family violence system in Victoria: a report developed by the statewide steering committee to reduce family violence released

2001

2005

2002

2003

2004

- Anita Carroll - Beyond Symptoms - Indigenous - Mama and Nunu leaves, Melissa Women’s Health report released – Pregnancy Care Afentoulis Day at the for African Women - Girls Act Up appointed as CEO Gathering Place launched commences - Committee of - Howard project in secure management Government welfare with restructured dumps the ‘No Somebody’s to board of Respect, No Daughter Theatre governance Relationship’ Company family violence - Who Cares? campaign Post-natal support (June) research launched - Family violence service expanding, children’s service worker employed

21st Birthday!

- New Police Code of Practice on family violence introduced

2006

- Melissa Afentoulis leaves, Robyn Gregory appointed CEO (December)

- New National Women’s Health Policy: Consultation Discussion Paper 2009 - new National Women’s Health Policy in 2010

- Advocacy work on abortion law reform

- Shut out: The experience of people with disabilities and their families released

2007

2009

- Integrated Family Violence Service Reform (July)

2008

- Legislative changes on: Abortion, Family Violence and Assisted Reproductive Technology

- Private members’ bill in the federal parliament successfully - Centenary of overturns ban on RU 486 (February) suffrage - Welfare to Work introduced

- Rudd apology to stolen generations, (13 Feb)

- WHW News, the quarterly WHW newsletter starts

35

But Doctor, It’s My Body In 1991, Women’s Health West started a patients’ rights project with the Melton Community Health Centre called Take a More Active Part in Your Health. We were keen to bet ter support women in the outer west and to follow up reports of women being over-prescribed minor tranquilisers such as Serepa x.

The project worker convened group meetings for women in the area and forums for health workers. In keeping with our feminist philosophy, the women’s experiences were central. Women reported a wide variety of problems with their medical care and these findings were collected in But Doctor, It’s My Body.

‘I took my son in to see the doctor. I wanted to talk about obsessive behaviour problems of my child, instead the doctor put me on minor tranquilisers.’

While there were many similar stories, an unanticipated issue was raised by women in all the workshops. In each group women told stories of doctors being sexually intrusive. The report recommended a commit tee to investigate this, and Women’s Health West commit ted to follow up on the issue. That work became Project Hippocrates.

Jamie Terzi remembers the project as:

‘A really good example of how an advocacy issue can grow from women’s experiences. Rather than something being lef t at just a group-work level, it was great for that to have bubbled up and then to be taken seriously’.

WHW formed a partnership with the then Victoria University of Technology to undertake a series of research studies over several years looking at women-sensitive medical practice. As each piece of research raised new questions, new studies tried to answer them. In the beginning, the project was concerned only with sexually intrusive practices but by 1997 it broadened to include issues about communication and the lack of sensitivity

GPs showed to women’s concerns. The project had a cross-cultural focus, and included specific research on Vietnamese and Spanish-speaking women.

‘He said, ‘Well, you have to strip down to at least your bra and undies’, and I thought okay, but I was feeling uncomfor table about that – I thought ‘Gee it’s only my stomach – why do I have to strip?’’

(Woman from focus group)

‘He asked my friend to undress. He warned her that she might have cancer and he had to check her carefully. But then he only caressed her breasts and vagina.’

(Woman from focus group)

‘I don’t think these issues are of concern to many doctors.’

(General Practitioner)

The results of Project Hippocrates were published in 1999 and informed training for the Western Division of General Practitioners as well as the development of health resources for women. For Jamie, the research got to the heart of feminist concerns about health, examining core issues of informed consent and sexual harassment.

The resources produced and the collaborative working relationships were a real highlight. ‘That was a real success and it was exciting, it was trying to contribute to a change of at titude and practice.’

Sadly, current research suggests that a lot of work remains to ensure women have access to sensitive and safe medical practice.

Today there are continuing complaints from women that medical practitioners relate to them in condescending and patronising ways and a recent study has also found that a significant minorit y of women believed they had experienced inappropriate treatment from doctors during intimate physical examinations.

Women’s Health Victoria (Johnstone, Brown & Beaumont, 2001: 51)

36

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Cartoons: Jo Waite

Changing Structures When women gathered in 1988 to plan the structure of Women’s Health West, the community management model was in favour with both government and the planning group. This model allowed for the involvement of many interested local women and, with no formal executive, the service was theoretically under community control. But by the end of its first decade the organisation had grown considerably, and structures and procedures were lagging behind. Staf f were concerned that the commit tee of management did not have the skills required to pilot the organisation into its nex t phase. It was time for (yet another) service review.

The review recommended a new structure and the commit tee of management was replaced by a board with greater emphasis on governance. The administrator role was replaced by a chief executive of ficer, with greater management responsibilities. In 1998, Melissa Afentoulis was appointed to the CEO role:

Over the past decade many dedicated women have contributed their energies through the board. As volunteers these women bring their diverse talents and connections to WHW, guiding and supporting the organisation. Georgie Hill is the board’s current deputy chair. She describes how the board sees governance:

Governance is about making sure that some of the fundamental things are in place so the organisation can get on with its work. Things like financial viabilit y and set ting a clear strategic direction for the organisation.

The role of the board is to add value and suppor t the organisation. We do this by keeping at arms length and providing that bigger picture view.

Being involved as a board member can also inspire women in their own work:

being responsive

While this restructure was happening to WHW a reassessment of structures was happening in other women’s organisations, but we were one of the first to introduce it. So we were learning at the same time as doing. It was pret t y innovative, par ticularly in a feminist women’s organisation. For a long time there was this belief that women’s health ser vices were different and they needed to create their own structures and their own philosophical approach to implementing governance. So we had quite a lot of challenges and ideological things that we tussled over and worked through.

I’m passionate about issues af fecting women and social justice and as a local resident and worker at the Cit y of Maribyrnong I was ver y keen to join the board. For me, being able to contribute with a group of equally passionate women has been really fantastic. Being par t of such a progressive organisation, with such dedicated staf f, has taught me a great deal. I’ve got ten more value out of being par t of the organisation than I think I’ve given. I think the whole board feels that way – we’re constantly inspired by the work that happens throughout the organisation.

It held the organisation in good stead to grow and go through other cycles of change. It was the right time, it was needed, but as happens in most cases, it came out of tension and conflict. I believe it also allowed us to tr y to operate a holistic organisation and that became a bit of a model, as we think Women’s Health West still is.

Photographer: WHW Archives

(L-R) Patsy Frawley, Irene Iannou, Sue Farnan, Cuc Lam, Jane Canaway, Teresa Carminati and Anita Carroll, 1994

Photographer: Ponch Hawkes

Melissa Afentoulis, CEO, 1998-2008 37

Supporting Children in Violence We recognise that children’s health, safet y and wellbeing is intrinsically connected to that of women.

WHW Strategic Plan, 2009-12

When WHW started the family violence service in 1994, we also started assisting children who accompanied the women we worked with. Funding was not available for this part of our work as the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program did not consider children as formal clients. But we still recognised the need to actively support children who have witnessed/experienced family violence and sought to develop a model that would address this gap in service provision. In 1996 we commissioned the report Can My Bear Come Too? and made recommendations about meeting the needs of children in family violence outreach. We used this report to advocate for greater resources and employ a children’s worker.

Along with the rest of the sector, we were becoming more aware of the suppor t needs of children experiencing family violence. Suppor ting children experiencing or witnessing violence as early as possible is crucial to their long-term health and wellbeing. We made it a priorit y, especially in training and secondary consultation.

We suppor ted teachers, producing a kit You Don’t Have to Do it Alone in 2001, and in 2002 star ted working with the refuges, Molly’s Place and Joan’s Place, to suppor t children there. This work has continued at our Crisis Accommodation Ser vice (CAS) where our children’s worker ensures children have a space to be heard, separate from their mother.

We have continually advocated for the specific needs of children within the family violence system. In 1998, we introduced our children’s ser vices development worker, a position that has since developed into the children’s counselling program, enabling children’s voices and experience to be heard. Mothers are also involved in the counselling; strengthening the bonds that have been damaged through violence is a crucial par t of the recovery process.

We also run therapeutic ar t groups for children, providing a safe space for children to gain confidence and rebuild their self-esteem. Groups are par ticularly power ful as they allow children to spend time with other children who share their experiences – it leaves them feeling less isolated, or dif ferent. choosing positive paths We produced the Choosing Positive Paths resources in 2003 with Berry Street Victoria. The kit is for parents concerned about their children who have experienced family violence. It provides information and suggestions for supporting children to recover. It has been one of our most popular resources, widely requested and reproduced.

Photographer: WHW Archives

Children’s support workers encourage children and young people to have fun

38

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Children were present in two thirds of all family violence incidents reported to police in 1999-2006.

Measuring Family Violence in Victoria, Victorian Family Violence Database, 2006

me you really helped let you know that to ter let is th th derstand at I am writing You helped me un e. lif in gs in th in my understand certa happened to me in t I hate what has bu elf its e lif u te person yo have I don’t ha strongest young e th s wa I at th e strong as I life. You told m yself for being as m of d ou pr am I d known in here an am. l about ling you how I fee comfortable in tel l fee e y m e ad m u … yo in words; I can’t sa press my feelings ex to rd ha h it uc d m ven’t had things. I fin r. Even though I ha pe pa to it t pu I s k about what I feel unles my eyes and thin u helped me open yo u, yo to lk ta time to nt way. things in a differe kon you workers and I rec one of the best child e ar u yo to at th k m I thin that there’s ore kids understand er oth y an m so y they have helped ening – it’s the wa or bad things happ od go st ju up in a an en th op e e lif It helped m ll miss this place. wi I go I dI n he W . happen helping Mum an I have even started re. fo be ve ha . r ed ve an er do – I cle way that I ne u don’t think I ev yo at th t gh ni st es. did something la ’s biggest surpris as one of the world wn do go to t go That’s * not her real name

being responsive

Jade* is a fourteen year-old girl who with her mother and sisters stayed at the refuge in 2006.

This is from an open let ter she wrote to the children’s worker at CAS:

39

40

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Profile

Victoria Victoria has been an active feminist for many years, and started contributing to a Spanish women’s radio program in 1997. She came to Women’s Health West in 2004 and is currently a family violence outreach worker.

The radio program started in 1992 af ter a death in the Spanish-speaking community; a woman was killed by her husband and there was a lot of concern from the social workers in the community about how to educate people about family violence.

When I joined the show, I felt really commit ted to the program because of personal experiences. I was a survivor myself and I had a lot of interest in social justice and feminism. Joining the program opened things up for me and I started educating myself about family violence.

I came from a family where my father was an alcoholic; he used to bash my mother in front of me and my siblings.

When I was seventeen, I said to my mum, ‘Look I’m leaving, and if you want to leave with me, this is the time for you to decide because I won’t be there to defend you anymore’. My mum was very keen to leave so we divorced my father and went from being very well-of f to being really poor - not having enough to eat, nothing to wear, nowhere to live and I mean, when you are poor in Chile, you are really poor! For two years we were surfing between houses, staying with friends until we got the family home back through the legal system.

I came to Australia in 1986 with a partner and three lit tle children and started working at the Footscray Outreach Mission in 1987. I worked in many community organisations, and ran a Spanish-speaking elderly group and a women’s group for five years. And I always came across family violence issues; that was the central theme for discussion and education. I was always very moved by women not taking a stand against family violence and a lot of women accepting or minimising violence because it is ‘part of our culture’. I can’t handle that thinking. So, I’ve been a rebellious woman all of my life.

I was working as a social welfare worker and had another position working with public housing tenants. Two jobs and at the same time I was bringing up my three kids and having troubles with family violence at home and doing the radio and having a band too. During those years I came across Women’s Health West’s newslet ter. I really got into it and started translating a lot of that material for the radio program. I always said to myself very quietly, ‘That’s the place that I would like to be working at.’

Then in 2004, I got this call from a woman I had worked with. She said ‘I’m leaving this job and I think you will be the perfect person for the position’. When I found out that it was Women’s Health West I was amazed; it was like the universe provided for me. So I applied for the position and got the job as a family violence housing worker managing the private rental brokerage.

I wanted to work here because I thought ‘They do what I would like to be doing with my community’. Educating, making people aware, breaking the cycle. Because it is so entrenched in my community that it is seen as a normal thing. It’s, ‘Oh you know men’, ‘yeah, he lost the plot,’ and ‘it’s part of the culture’, that kind of at titude.

A lot of Spanish-speaking women have become really complacent, like, ‘There’s nothing we can do to stop it’.

But no, I always say the opposite, ‘We can do something about this, we can change men’s at titude’.

I believe that by pairing my experience with theoretical knowledge, I can provide women with hope that a lot of them don’t have. Sometimes I say that I’ve been there, if they think that I’ve been untouched by family violence.

When I say, ‘No, I am also a survivor’, then women really believe that there is hope for them. I think it’s a good tool to demonstrate to women that we can achieve things; that we can break the cycle of violence.

The more violence I see, the more I want to keep working and helping women - assisting them to feel empowered.

I’ve got clients that when I saw them the first time they were devastated, they had so many issues and at the end of working with them, you see them smiling. You see them planning for the future, to go back to study or to train themselves and to move on in life and that’s very rewarding; very, very motivating.

41

‘There’s never enough dancing’ Bosnian Women Coming Together Throughout our history listening to women in the community has been one of the most important parts of our work. In health promotion we talk with women in the community to find out about their needs and to help us understand the specific cultural contexts of the groups we work with. When designing our programs we listen to women to find out how to help them take control of their health, because we believe that women are the experts on their own lives.

Our work with the Bosnian community shows the advantages of working in this way. In 2004 we began working with Bosnian women’s group, Ostanimo Zajedno (Let’s Stay Together). As refugees from the recent Yugoslav conflict, the women shared their horrific experiences of war and told us that they continued to experience the ef fects of their trauma and grief in many ways. Sally Camilleri was the project worker and remembers: When I asked the women ‘How do you sur vive?’ they talked about being together, laughing and celebrating.

‘There’s never enough dancing,’ one woman said.

Sally wanted to provide information about mental health, set tlement and ageing. The group identified celebration and continuing their traditions as key to their culture, so she worked with the group to organise a health festival that incorporated all of these elements. Sally remembers:

Photographer: WHW Archives

at the health festival, 2004 42Bosnian women 21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

In the first year, the women seemed unsure about this festival idea. I asked the group about ever y aspect of the event. They answered my questions but didn’t seem to understand what I was on about. Once the day got under way, women loved the festival! They were surprised and delighted at the influence they had over how things happened and commented that ‘It was so Bosnian’.

Over the following years Sally worked with the group to assist them to organise annual festivals, building their confidence and skills to run their own events. In the second year WHW’s role was a consultative one, assisting with resources, information and support. In the third year, the Australian Bosnian Association organised the event, inviting guest speakers to present health information at a day packed with food, music and, of course, dancing.

The Bosnian women’s health days were hugely popular and we noticed that women actively participated in discussions and exchanged experiences about mid-life, menopause, isolation, health and illness. For this group of refugee women, it was important that the events acknowledged and celebrated their traditions, their knowledge and their expertise. We were able to work with the community to do this because the process started with listening to the experts – community women.

Changing The System Putting women’s health, safety and wellbeing on the political agenda to improve the status of women

Good workers build up confidence and selfesteem. I was ver y depressed and shy. I thought that nobody could help me. I didn’t know how to talk in front of other people. Step by step with someone encouraging you. You come and talk to other people. I star ted talking to the mirror, ‘I am becoming more confident, I am becoming stronger’. I star ted at tending neighbourhood meetings and now I am on the safet y commit tee.

changing the system

WHW Strategic Plan, 2009-12

Member of our Becoming Butterflies women’s group in Heathdale, 2007

Changing the system means challenging discrimination. Changing the system means working on many levels. Changing the system means taking a stand. Changing the system means helping other services to be accessible. Changing the system means we don’t talk about ‘what women need’, but about the different needs of diverse women in our community. Changing the system means considering age, ethnicity, sexuality, ability and location in everything we do. Changing the system means supporting women to speak up - loudly!

43

Working Across the Spectrum Women’s health and safety are inseparable; we try to recognise that in all our work. Family violence has always been on the service’s agenda and over time we have developed a unique model combining direct service, advocacy, violence prevention and health promotion.

As CEO between 1998 and 2008, Melissa Afentoulis saw the WHW continuum of services develop:

Some women’s health ser vices that had family violence ser vices let them go, because they found the tensions bet ween a health promotion role and direct ser vice deliver y ver y complex. Whereas I’ve always been a staunch believer that you could do both. In fact it meant we could have a much more ef fective organisation, plus it made WHW viable.

Each par t of the ser vice informs the other par t. To be able to advocate for violence prevention we needed to draw on the ser vice deliver y experience and the individual experiences of women and children that we suppor ted. One fed into the other. That was really the strength that enabled us to be ef fective.

This direct service and violence prevention work is complimented by our advocacy and research as we work toward a safer community for women.

Violence Prevention Programs

.......................................................................

We work to stop violence against women before it happens. We do this by trying to change communit y at titudes, building the skills of individuals, and addressing the underlying causes of violence. It’s always challenging to get funding for prevention but it’s par t of what we do best.

Some prevention highlights include:

Family Violence Prevention Network The Family Violence Prevention Network started in 1990 and supported over 650 workers in the west to work on violence prevention. In 2006, funding for the family violence networker positions ceased. Lucy Forwood held the western region position from 1998 to 2002 and said:

The family violence area was ver y much about direct ser vice, which is necessar y but there wasn’t enough being done in prevention. The greatest achievement of the net works was to provide each region with a resource person to do work around prevention. The net worker position suppor ted events, campaigns and activities at a broader level. It was an information hub and clearing house. In its early days, the net work was ver y involved in the campaign to have police procedures changed. That was a huge achievement but there’s not enough funding for prevention work.

44

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Training workers and organisations to prevent violence against women Through workshops, consultations and training manuals we encourage and support other organisations to run violence prevention programs.

Working with young people so they can learn how to have safe and healthy relationships These programs operate in schools, groups, secure welfare and other set tings. Our Girls Talk - Guys Talk project is one example. (See p. 60) Working with Primary Care Partnerships (PCPs) to strengthen regional responses

In 2006 each of the PCPs in our region adopted prevention of violence against women as a priority linked to mental health and wellbeing. Over the nex t three years we worked together to hold a conference on health promotion and prevention of violence against women, followed by a VicHealth-funded project to build the capacity of organisations to plan and implement projects to prevent violence against women. In 2009, Women’s Health West has volunteered to lead sub-regional planning for prevention of violence against women for HealthWest PCP. This will mean the development of a coordinated approach to prevention work across five local government areas.

How we view violence

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WHW uses a feminist analysis of family violence, which means looking at the gendered nature of power relations between men, women and children. We believe that as a society we need to tackle ideas about masculinity in which men’s violence is normalised and women are seen as passive. We need to stop asking ‘Why doesn’t she leave?’ and start asking why he abuses her. And we have to keep working to understand the ways that women experience family violence dif ferently depending on their class, culture, age, sexuality, ability and location.

At the heart of our family violence work is:

.......................................................................

• A client-centred approach

• The active pursuit of programs that respond to the needs of children • A recognition that it is the perpetrator who is responsible for violence in all its forms • An emphasis on contributing to the service system and wider community through education and partnerships

• The importance of prevention as well as service delivery

Direct Service

Since 1994 Women’s Health West has provided family violence services for women and children across the western region, in many dif ferent ways. Working in partnership with other agencies we have developed a mix of services with a variety of supports available in dif ferent areas to meet local needs.

We run a regional intake service for women in or escaping family violence, which matches women with the services they need. Over the years we have run a number of successful pilot initiatives with police and other agencies and added new elements to the service, such as af ter hours support for women in crisis. Women and children needing support can now access a wide range of supports including housing workers, court support, a children’s worker, refuge and counselling.

changing the system

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45

Photographer: Isabel Walsh Brooke Millington, 2009

The action research approach of Young Mums Rock! provided a power ful oppor tunit y for women to voice their experiences and opinions about what actions they would like to take to promote their health. I am so proud of their courage, and motivation to share their experiences and passionately voice their rights.

Joy Free, WHW researcher

Photographer: Georgia Meta xas

The Young Mums Rock! project was described as ‘inspirational local practice’ at the Victorian Government Women’s Health and Wellbeing Forum. Thank you to all the Melton services who supported this research project, especially Melton Shire Council and Djerriwarrh Health services.

Brooke Millington (front centre) at Young Mums Rock! event pregnant with son Benjamin, 2004 46

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Profile

Brooke Millington Brooke became involved with Women’s Health West through our Young Mums Rock! project in 2005.

In the beginning, before I met my husband, I had been a heroin addict. Basically the day I got clean was the day I lef t my ex and I moved to Bacchus Marsh. I met my husband, at the time he wasn’t my husband obviously, but within 14 months we found ourselves pregnant. We had an extremely tumultuous pregnancy, and my daughter was delivered seven weeks early. I thought motherhood was a wonderful thing, but I had not realised I actually had post natal depression. I was referred to the Melton Young Pregnant and Parenting Group where I met Maryvonne, the group facilitator.

One day, Mary vonne said to us ‘Women’s Health West are coming to see what it’s like for you and if there’s any chance of making things bet ter for young mums’. We started by brainstorming ways to help other young mothers. If they’re isolated, how do we make them feel like they don’t have to be? And what can we put in place so they know what services are available to them?

Being a young mum, people just look at you in the filthiest way. On public transport, instead of saying ‘Hey, would you like a hand?’ they look at you and think you’re too young to be having a child. That’s why we came up with the title Young Mums Rock! to say ‘We’re just as good as older mums’.

We also wanted to say that to be a good mum you need to look af ter yourself as well or you can’t be the best for your child. All mothers, even fathers, go through the same thing, finding it too hard sometimes. It’s important to say ‘Hey, it’s okay to feel this way, you’re not a failure. Just some days you feel like you can’t handle being a mum’. That was a good message to push, but mainly what emerged was the financial hardship, the isolation and just the lack of knowledge about what help is available.

WHW supported the young mothers to develop solutions to the problems they identified. .......................................................................

We only met on Wednesday mornings, so it was a really long, slow process. It was draining at times, because we knew what we wanted to do, but not how to do it. It was us that made all the decisions – Mary vonne and Joy always gave us the power. They said ‘You’re young mums, what do you feel is going to be beneficial to you and other women like you?’

The group produced a poster, brochure and fridge magnet for young mums. They also ran an event at a local play centre to reach isolated mothers. .......................................................................

The day was a huge success, a lot of mums said ‘Wow, I had no idea. I thought I was on my own’. To sit and hear stories of other women was powerful. And lots of people feel like they don’t deserve help, so to make them aware that it’s not wrong to ask for it was huge.

I am proud of what we did, it was a group ef fort. I ended up being the speaker, probably because I was the loudest.

It was a bit daunting but I learnt that I’m actually good at public speaking. Later Joy brought me to speak at the WHW annual general meeting and also to some Victoria Uni students. At first I thought ‘You people are talking to me like I know what I’m doing and I haven’t got a clue’. But it was fantastic; to know people actually had faith that I could do it, that’s something that you can’t buy. It made me more confident, as a person and as a mother.

I was doing it for the community because had I not found my young mums group, I don’t know where I would have been. If I could get one person who was in my position to feel as good about themselves as I do now, then I’ve made a dif ference and that’s enough. To come out of it having reached 200 other mums was just mind blowing! We couldn’t ever have expected a bet ter result.

It was really eye-opening for service providers. When you look at young mums you can have every idea in your head about what they’re going through. But af ter they talked to some of us they said ‘Wow, that’s something that we never would have thought that somebody of your age and your position would have to consider’.

I think society has still got a long way to go. When people on television talk about not giving the baby bonus to mums under the age of eighteen, they’re still saying that these women don’t have the intelligence to raise their children and to make the right decisions financially for their children. There need to be a lot more positive stories of young mothers in the media. I know there are a lot out there who are doing a really great job as mothers and as women. The recognition needs to be bumped up a notch because if we could get rid of the stigma I think the world would be a lot better.

47

Advocacy The women who established WHW came from a movement where fighting for women’s rights was done as of ten on the street as in the meeting room. In the 1970s women occupied squats to start the first women’s refuges, rather than wait for funding. These days we might use dif ferent methods to advocate for women’s rights, but the focus has never changed – working to create a society where women can exercise freedom over their lives and live in safety.

These are some of our recent advocacy campaigns.

DEFINITION

Advocacy = Speaking out to create change ..................................................

ABORTION REFORM

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2007-08

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For women to gain equality they need to have true reproductive choice. Women’s Health West has consistently advocated for quality sexual and reproductive health services, including abortion, to be core parts of the Victorian health care system.

presented, staf f and board members lobbied politicians in the western region to support women’s right to control over reproductive decision-making. Our ‘Do your bit advocacy kit’ encouraged local women to speak out by suggesting a range of advocacy options that recognised women’s varied capacity for involvement as a result of their diverse lives.

The Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 passed unamended through the Upper House on 10 October, providing women with the option to terminate a pregnancy up to 24 weeks, and af ter that time if at least two medical practitioners reasonably believe that an abortion is appropriate.

Our CEO, Robyn Gregory, was in parliament when the bill was passed. ‘It was a privilege to sit alongside women such as former Premier Joan Kirner to witness this huge step forward for women. It has taken over forty years of direct struggle by Victorian women to achieve this result we have finally been granted the full rights of citizenship.’

In August 2007 the Brumby Government announced that the Victorian Law Reform Commission would review abortion law. WHW, in tandem with other women’s health services in Victoria, engaged in an active campaign for the decriminalisation of abortion. Our contributions to the debate emphasised that legislating to remove barriers to women’s control is a first step in af fecting real change and a significant step towards improving the status of all women. We encouraged women in the community to participate in the review and, when the government chose decriminalisation of abortion from the recommendations LOCAL MLCs said:

‘It is truly time we set women free by saying that women are not criminals for wanting to have an abor tion.

Colleen Hartland

Any law that is framed to ensure the health and safet y of women in our societ y must be regarded as a good law … I suppor t women’s freedom, their choice and their decisions.

Khalil Eideh

‘Do I as a legislator, as a member of Parliament, believe I have the right to tell ever y woman in Victoria whether she has the right to make this decision for herself? I do not believe I do, and I do not believe we as a Parliament do.

Martin Pakula 48

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

We used to march in rallies and put our banner up, or sometimes we wouldn’t take the banner because if we got seen it might give them an excuse to cut funding. There was always the politics there, absolutely.

Jo Harper

WORK CHOICES

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2005-06

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As advocates for women’s health, we speak up whenever we see something that will negatively impact on women’s economic or social conditions, because we know that these have a big impact on health outcomes. When the Howard government proposed its WorkChoices legislation, the evidence suggested many women would be significantly worse of f.

WHW felt that the threat to the future wellbeing of women in the western region was critical – so much so that our board gave its blessing to staf f marching in the recordbreaking rallies in November 2005 and June 2006. Staf f marched not just for their own conditions but as advocacy for women in our region, particularly recognising the impact on women from our target groups. Health issues and language barriers, as well as limited access to childcare and training, make it very dif ficult for refugee women to find secure employment, let alone to negotiate fair wages and conditions. Women with a disability of ten face similar challenges finding secure, decently-paid work.

Robyn Gregory, 2005

RAISING THE PROBLEM OF FAMILY VIOLENCE IN MANY FORUMS Given that family violence is the single largest reason that people seek governmental housing assistance, WHW responded to Which Way Home? the Commonwealth green paper on homelessness in 2008.

CONTRIBUTING TO NATIONAL HEALTH REFORM

The Federal Government National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission was established by the Council Of Australian Governments (COAG) in December 2007 to develop a long term reform plan. WHW submit ted to this in March 2009.

UPHOLDING HUMAN RIGHTS

The Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities came into ef fect from 1 January 2007. The substantive rights contained in the Charter are freedom, respect, equality and dignity. WHW submitted to this in August 2005.

SUPPORTING WOMEN TO ADVOCATE FOR THEMSELVES Our ongoing work with women’s groups in the community is another way we support women to have a stronger voice. We have established a huge number of women’s groups over the years, and helped women to take up issues for themselves.

The main reason for the group was to help the women, and to hear their voice. It was something I’ll never forget. When we star ted the group women were scared and insecure. They’d never heard of a women’s group. We said ‘We’re here and we need to be heard. We need to help each other, suppor t each other’.

Kadiji El Houli, Project Worker, Arabic Speaking Muslim Women’s Group, 1991

changing the system

The WorkChoices legislation, combined with the recent Welfare to Work changes will force women into low-paid, insecure employment and greater pover t y.

Other advocacy includes:

Sadly, we were right about the changes.

Women in low-paid industries, such as retail and aged care, have lost up to $100 a week in earnings since the introduction of WorkChoices. Women also repor ted an increased climate of fear in many areas that traditionally have a majorit y of female employees, especially hospitalit y, aged and child care and call centres.

Photographer: Nicola Harte

Industrial Relations Rally (L-R) Victoria, Lucy Forwood, Lindy Corbet t, Jean Harte, 2005

‘Women and WorkChoices: Impacts on the Low Pay Sector’, NFAW with WEL and Y WCA, 2007

49

Photographer: Isabel Walsh Fatah Ade, 2009

Photographer: Sally Camilleri

Fatah Ade and the Lead On Again group, 2006 50

Photographer: Sally Camilleri

Fatah Ade and Lead On Again group participant, 2006

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Profile

Fatah Ade Fatah Ade participated in our young women’s leadership program, Lead On in 2006. She returned the following year as a peer educator and mentor to the nex t group of young women.

When Lead On came along it was January 2006. I remember because I got married a month later and I was nineteen. Back then things were hard. It was my first year of uni, I didn’t have that many friends and I had a lot going on.

My self-esteem was at a low; really, really low. I had a lot of problems, and body image issues as well. It was hard.

A youth worker from my old high school suggested I do Lead On. She said ‘I think this will be really good for you’.

And it was. It changed my life in many ways. I just thought it was a leadership program but when I came there was so much more to it.

How am I now? Independent. I can’t say I don’t really care about my body image but I’m more respect ful towards myself than I was then. I remember we did this activity where we were cut ting up images from magazines and we had to compare them to ourselves. So I no longer look at the magazines and say ‘How come she’s pret ty?’, because I know it’s made up, it’s airbrushed.

The trip to the Royal Women’s Hospital and the health information that we got was also really useful because a lot of young women, especially from Africa and Asia, they’re circumcised. So learning about that was important.

I didn’t know that other countries were like that, I just thought ‘Okay, I’m from Somalia and that’s the way things are done’, but I didn’t know that some of the girls were too and that can help. I got pamphlets and I went back af terwards to talk to the nurses there. I don’t think I would have done that if that excursion didn’t happen.

Although it’s been a long bat tle, finally I just stood up and said, ‘It’s my life, it’s what I want to do’. I was making those decisions for a while, I just wasn’t sure if they were the right ones for me. The program did help with that confidence in my own choices.

Also, before the program, uni was hard, I wasn’t able to get up to talk, I would be shaking. And being at uni and doing teaching, we have to do a lot of oral work, we have to stand in front of a room full of lecturers and just talk. I was very shy before I did that program.

So that was me then and now I’ve turned into this. I can talk in front of people, I’m happy with myself regardless of how I look, I know I’m dif ferent and it doesn’t mat ter.

I think that’s what I got from the program. And I’ve gone on to use the skills I’ve learnt. I worked with the Women’s Hospital to organise International Women’s Day. I also volunteered with the homework club in North Melbourne.

I’ve made speeches at events, and I won an award from the Victorian Multicultural Commission for my work with the community.

Now I’m doing my final year at uni so I’ll probably be a teacher – that’s what I always wanted to do. I see myself as strong, independent. I want to have a career, I want to have a family, I want to do every thing!

I think that the leadership program is something that young women need; the topics about politics and voting, and rights and responsibilities are needed. And with self-esteem, confidence, body issues, there’s a lot that they can see in the media and they need to know ‘That’s not real, this is real’.

Back then, I didn’t have the guts to talk to my family about the things that I wanted to do and the future that I wanted to have. I was having issues with making decisions. And right af ter the program I knew who I was, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. It was a wake-up call and it taught me a lot I guess. Five days, who knew?

51

International women’s day Events International Women’s Day falls on March 8 and is a wonderful way for us to connect with a long history of active outspoken women. The day started as a commemoration of the 1909 strike of the shirtwaist women workers who were fighting for bet ter conditions in the sweatshops of New York. Since then it has become a time when women around the world campaign for their rights.

2005 I Am Woman Hear Me Roar!

In 2000 WHW started to organise International Women’s Day events in the west. Each year we choose a theme to highlight and invite local women to speak, dance, eat and have a good time. Our focus is on creating a joy ful space for women to share their stories and to recognise the remarkable achievements of women in our communities.

While many women might not seek or expect recognition for their ef forts, it is essential that as a community we celebrate inspiring women by publicly acknowledging their lives and their work.

2006 I Dream Of a Day Off

The first Australian IWD rally took place in Sydney in 1928 and the day continues to bring into focus the need to strive for women’s equality and economic, political and physical control of our lives.

Here are some highlights from IWDs over the years.

2003 Celebrating Women’s Human Rights in the West

A lunch in Altona with a focus on refugee women. The day featured the premiere of Clean, an original theatrical work by local playwright and actor Wahibe Moussa.

2004 Beyond the Picket Fence

A celebration of the diversity of women in 21st century families jointly presented with the Council for Single Mothers and their Children.

52

Photographer: Georgia Meta xas (L-R) Karen Passey, Lauren Eagle, Irene Iannou, Pat Chalmers, and Reem Omarit, 2009

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Our celebrations this year took place at Werribee open plains zoo. The day featured many stories from women with disabilities, and set a high standard in accessible events.

With rates of violence against women with a disability estimated at double the general population, the aim was to provide a nurturing environment where participants could meet WHW staf f who could help if needed. We organised it in tandem with the Western Region Disability Network, North West Migrant Resource Centre and Isis Primary Care.

The theme of the event was that mums don’t have to do it alone, there is support available from other mums and services. Organised by mothers with support from WHW, local services and the Victorian Multicultural Commission.

2008 Tapestries

In 2008, we chose IWD to launch ‘Tapestries’, an exhibition featuring the everyday activism of t welve fantastic women from the west of Melbourne. Each of the women was nominated by another organisation in recognition of their work, and collaborated with Scout Kozakiewicz, an internationally-exhibited local photographer, to produce the work.

2009 Key to the Future: Unlocking 21 years of women’s stories For our 21st year we held an IWD event where women gathered to share their reflections on the organisation.

Through art, writing and talking, women reflected on the change they had seen and their part in the story of Women’s Health West.

Working Together We partner with others to change the conditions that cause and maintain women’s oppression, to deliver family violence services and to undertake health promotion actions Mission Statement, WHW Strategic Plan, 2009-12

Rumia Abbas, FARREP Worker, 2000-present

working together

You know one organisation will not solve all the problems but you have to star t somewhere. The good thing with WHW is it’s not an organisation that says ‘We will do this so we can get a name for it’. We think about what’s around in the west and who is doing what? And what can we do if we work with those agencies? How can we respond to gaps? Is there some door that we can knock on to get money to do this project?

53

Partnership Our history is one of collaboration; we have always teamed up with other services, groups and organisations to make sure our work is ef fective.

GIRLS ACT UP

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Give me something real like help when I ask and be there over time like family I know what I want, I’m as keen as you are to stay alive and tr y to live a normal life Girls Act Up CD, 2003

One of the best things about working in partnership is that it helps us to support women who might otherwise be hard to reach or engage. Young women who are incarcerated are a vulnerable group who face multiple disadvantages, especially when accessing information about healthy relationships and sexual and reproductive health. From 2001 to 2006, we ran programs with Bloomfield Secure Welfare and Somebody’s Daughter Theatre Company to enable young women in custody to explore their talents in a safe, supportive and non-judgmental environment. At the same time we were able to support them with one-to-one health information.

Working as a peer educator has been a journey for me; from babbling when insecurit y hits to a feeling of confidence in what I, and we, are doing. Essentially a peer educator shares her personal abilities and experiences with those who have had similar experiences and helps develop a shared knowledge.

Katherine Doyle, Peer Educator, 2006-07

WOMEN WITH A MENTAL ILLNESS POWER ON

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A major factor af fecting women’s health is our feeling of connection: to friends, to family and to our communities.

Social isolation undermines emotional wellbeing, and gives us fewer resources to draw on in times of crisis or ill health.

Power On is one program that demonstrates how we bring women together to tackle isolation. It started in 2004 as a health promotion program for women who experience mental illness. We asked more than fif ty women who experience mental illness about what mat ters most to them in terms of wellbeing and produced a twelveweek program of interactive workshops based on their responses. Workshops were designed to encourage women to learn from one another and through their experiences.

We partnered with mental health services and service users to deliver Power On. All workshops were co-facilitated by a health promotion worker and a peer educator – a woman who also experiences mental illness. Af ter two years of running the program we were able to step back and train mental health staf f to deliver Power On with peer educators so that women can continue to experience the program well beyond what our resources allow.

Power On introduced us to many people who care for someone with a mental illness. They told us that they struggle to at tend to their own wellbeing, and as we know that women who are carers have poorer health outcomes than the wider community, we decided to target them for the nex t phase of the project. We worked with Carer’s Links West to re-focus the program and have now successfully adapted it into Power On For Carers. As news of Power On spreads we have been very happy to work with agencies to ex tend its reach, and have recently been working with Spire and Women’s Health Tasmania to take the program to women in Tasmania.

We’ve loved working with WHW to adapt Power On for those who care for someone with a mental illness. Six Power On For Carers later we will run the course ourselves for the first time later in the year.

Ever yone wants a piece of Power On!

Photographer: WHW Archives

Wendy Ayzit, Carers Victoria Respite Connections, 2009

54 Sally Camilleri 21 years of Women’s Health in the West (front centre) and Power On participants, 2006 of Melbourne

One of the things I really liked about Power On is that they taught me that I am one hundred percent wor thwhile and that I have ever y right to be here.

Anor, Power On participant, 2006

Our partners over the last 21 years include: African Holistic Social Services in Victoria Altona North Secondary College AMES

Anglicare Western Youth and Family Services Werribee Anti Cancer Council of Victoria Arthritis Victoria

Australian Institute for Primary Care Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society Australian Services Union

Australian Women’s Health Network Ballarat Community Health Centre Barwon South Western Regional Women’s Health Bendigo Bank

Berry Street - Victoria

Besen Family Foundation

Bloomfield Young Women’s Secure Welfare Bosnian Welfare Association

Braybrook Secondary College Breastscreen Victoria

Brimbank Council (formerly Sunshine) Cancer Council - Victoria Care with Quality

Carers Victoria Respite Connections (formerly Carer Links West) Caroline Chisholm Catholic College Centre Against Sexual Assault Forum Centre for Adolescent Health

Centre for Culture Ethnicity and Health

Centre for Multicultural Youth (formerly Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues) Centre for Working Women Child Protection Society City of Melbourne City of Yarra

Country Women’s Association of Victoria Inc

Criminal Justice Diversion Program Darebin City Council Deakin University

Department of Education and Early Childhood Development

Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Af fairs Department of Human Services Department of Justice

Department of Planning and Community Development

Djerriwarrh Health Services Domestic Violence Victoria

Dout ta Galla Community Health Service Eastern Domestic Violence Outreach Service Inc

Elizabeth Hof fman House Aboriginal Women’s Service Emma House

Essendon Rowing Club

Family Planning Victoria

Footscray Community Legal Service Footscray Secondary College

Gippsland Women’s Health Service Grampians Child and Family Services Hanover Welfare Services Health Issues Centre

HealthWest – formerly Brimbank Melton PCP and the Westbay Alliance Heathdale Neighbourhood Association

Hobsons Bay City Council (formerly Williamstown and Altona) Hoppers Crossing Secondary College

Immigrant Women’s Domestic Violence Service Iramoo Community Centre Isis Primary Care

Jean Hailes Foundation

Key Centre for Women’s Health in Society La Trobe University

Laverton Community Centre

Laverton Prep-12 (formerly Laverton Secondary College) Life Works

Lifeline Australia

Lions Club of Footscray

Lord Mayor’s Charitable Fund MacKillop Family Services Mambourin Enterprises

Marian and E.H. Flack Trust

Maribyrnong City Council (formerly Footscray) Maribyrnong Secondary College McCaughey Centre

Melbourne Citymission Adult and Family Services

Melbourne Community Foundation Melbourne University

Melton Community Legal Service Melton Shire Council

Mental Illness Fellowship

Metro West Transitional Housing Services Molly’s House

Moonee Valley City Council (formerly Essendon)

Moonee Valley Melbourne PCP

VicHealth

Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health

Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency

Moreland City Council

Moreland Community Health Centre Multiple Sclerosis Society of Australia

Municipal Association of Victoria National Commission on Crime Prevention New Hope Foundation

North West Metropolitan Region Community and Women’s Health Managers Network North West Migrant Resource Centre

North West Victim Assistance and Counselling Program NorthWestern Breastscreen

Norwood (formerly Norwood Association) OAMPS Insurance Brokers Of fice for Women’s Policy PapScreen Victoria ParentLink

Point Cook Community Centre Public Health Association of Australia (Victorian Branch)

Queen Victoria Women’s Centre Relationships Australia RMIT University

Rotary Club of Footscray Rosamond School

Royal Women’s Hospital

Salvation Army Crossroads Network Salvation Army Social Housing Service

Somebody’s Daughter Theatre Company

South Kingsville Community Centre Spire

St George Foundation

Sunshine Magistrates Court Supported Housing Ltd

Sydenham Catholic Girls College Western Suburbs Indigenous Gathering Place

The Jack Brockhof f Foundation The Of fice of Youth The Queen’s Fund

The R E Ross Trust The Reym Fund

The Stan Willis Trust

The Walter and Eliza Hall Trust

The William Buckland Foundation Tweddle Child and Family Health Service Union of Australian Women (Victoria) United Somali Women’s Organisation in Victoria University of Melbourne

Victoria Police

Victoria University

Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association

Victorian Community Health Association

Victorian Council of Social Services Victorian Local Governance Association Victorian Magistrates Court

Victorian Multicultural Commission

Victorian Women and Mental Health Network Victorian Women’s Benevolent Trust Werribee Magistrates Court

Werribee Support and Housing Group West Arc

West CASA

Western Chances

Western Division of General Practice Western Division School Health Promotion Nurses

Western English Language School Western Health

Western Independent Young Persons Network (W YPIN)

Western Region Football League Women in Football Foundation Western Region Health Centre

Western Regional Disability Network Wingate Avenue Community Centre Women with Disabilities Network

Women’s Domestic Violence Crisis Service Women’s Health Association of Victoria Women’s Health East

Women’s Health Goulburn North East Women’s Health Grampians

Women’s Health in the North

Women’s Health in the South East

Women’s Health Information Centre Women’s Health Loddon Mallee Women’s Health Tasmania Women’s Health Victoria

Women’s Information and Referral Exchange Women’s Housing Ltd

Wyndam Legal Service

Wyndham City Council (formerly Werribee)

working together

Council for Single Mothers and their Children

Department of Victorian Communities

Wyndham Financial Counselling Service Zonta Club of Melton

55

A Safer Place In 2004, WHW was given the opportunity to take over the management of the Crisis Accommodation Service (CAS): a high security refuge and other properties for women in crisis. Alfina Sinatra was Coordinator of the Family Violence team at the time:

We thought this would be a really good oppor tunit y to have a full suite of ser vices. We wanted to create a hub where women could come in and be directed to a variet y of ser vices depending on their needs.

One of the things I tried, when we took on the refuge, was to address some of the barriers for women who had mental health issues or drug and alcohol issues.

We commit ted to looking at each case on its own merits and not just shut ting the door because of those issues.

We developed solid par tnerships with the mental health ser vices, with the drug and alcohol ser vices. If a woman came in with a heroin problem and there were obvious safet y issues where she couldn’t remain in the communit y, we linked her in with ser vices, sometimes to go into detox and then return to the refuge. It was really exciting to see a woman, who was unsafe and had a real problem, be able to come to refuge. And by the time she lef t, she was a dif ferent person.

It cer tainly isn’t easy, managing a communal environment with four traumatised families together and diverse parenting methods and dif ferent needs.

I’m ver y proud of the way that was developed and the work we all did. The funding standards require us not to discriminate, to be accessible and embrace diversit y. I took that literally.

Leah, Refuge Worker:

For women in refuge the road to independence is ver y long. It’s not just the physical violence; it’s the emotional and mental violence they’ve suf fered too.

It lowers their self-wor th. And they’re star ting with nothing, of ten with a few kids. It takes a lot of strength to star t from scratch.

My biggest joy is to see women back in permanent housing of their own. It can take several moves, up to t wo years waiting, but just to see the relief on their face once they’ve got their own home.

Photographer: Erin Slat tery WHW outreach workers give women support to talk to the toyears courts, or apply for an intervention order.

56police, to go21 oftoWomen’s Health in the West of Melbourne

It’s ver y hard. A lot of clients come and they haven’t got any housing and we can’t provide a house. At the moment we have women coming from the Horn of Africa with big families, sometimes up to eight children. But most transitional housing providers can’t take any family with more than four children. So where are we going to put the family? At the moment at CAS we have a family with six children, and the grandma. Eight all together. But CAS is only crisis accommodation for six to eight weeks.

We haven’t got any housing exits for them, so they’re stuck.

Phuong, Housing Worker

4 0 0 2

Women’s Health: A National Conversation Although we never achieved full equalit y of oppor tunit y bet ween women and men in Australia, we did for a couple of decades at least have it as a national goal.

It was up there on the political agenda and no prime minister, however conser vative he – and the leaders were all, and still are, men – would have dared challenge its right to be there.

Anne Summers, author of The End of Equalit y

With the election of the Howard government in 1996, it became more dif ficult for women’s organisations to influence federal policy and to receive funding. Howard preferred not to talk about equality, as ‘mainstreaming’ became the dominant approach to women’s issues, indigenous af fairs and multiculturalism. While in the 80s and 90s women’s health had been on the agenda of state and federal governments, under the Howard government women’s policy was disbanded and women’s organisations de-funded. The National Women’s Health Policy and funding program was launched in 1989 and abandoned by Howard in the late 1990s. As a consequence the health needs of women became less of a priority for governments across the country.

Throughout the Howard years community organisations worked hard to defend women’s rights, as well as those of asylum seekers, same-sex at tracted people and others who did not fit into the government’s conservative vision of a uniform Australia. Partnering with other organisations helped us to keep our vision of justice and equality alive.

In 2004, as part of our membership of the Women’s Health Association of Victoria (WHAV), the peak body for women’s health services in Victoria, we worked together to organise the event ‘Equity and Equality: Key Issues for Australian Women’ at Federation Square. Women from the community sector gathered to confront the reality that despite thirty years of feminism, women’s rights were actually going backwards in Australia.

And, we were making progress. We could repor t encouraging statistics on women in the work force, women’s earnings, women’s appointments to top jobs.

This is no longer the case. We have stopped even having the national conversation about women’s entitlements and women’s rights. Instead, all the talk is of families, or mothers, and women, especially women who are mothers, are lef t to feel that that’s the only par t of their lives that is held in any esteem.

Women’s Health Association of Victoria (WHAV) is the peak body for women’s health services funded under the Victorian Women’s Health Program. The members are:

• Barwon South Western Regional Women’s Health • Gippsland Women’s Health Service • Women’s Health East

• Women’s Health Grampians

• Women’s Health Goulburn North East • Women’s Health in the North

• Women’s Health in the South East • Women’s Health Loddon Mallee • Women’s Health Victoria

• Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health

• Victorian Women with Disabilities Network • Royal Women’s Hospital

• Women’s Information and Referral Exchange • Women’s Health West

working together

At the forum Anne Summers described the ways that women are increasingly worse-of f: less women in full-time employment than ever, average female weekly earnings remaining just 66% of male, the childcare crisis, the lack of women in positions of power and the continuing unabated issue of sexual and family violence. She said:

WHAV has continued to keep the issues of women’s rights and women’s health on the political agenda. In 2006 WHAV members developed Women’s Health Mat ters: From Policy to Practice, a ten point plan for Victorian women’s health 2006-2010. Over forty organisations endorsed the plan, which recognises and responds to the impact of gender in health and health inequalities.

The plan has been influential in the development of the Victorian Women’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy and has inspired a similar plan for women’s health services to advocate to local government. With the election of the Rudd government, women’s health has returned to the federal agenda and we have contributed to the discussion through a WHW and a joint WHAV submission and round table consultations on the draf ting of a new national women’s health policy.

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Family Violence - An Era of Reform There has been a remarkable amount achieved in family violence over the last five years. None of it would have been possible without the advocacy, suppor t and professionalism of the family violence and related ser vice sectors, and leadership of organisations such as Women’s Health West.

Rachael Green, Family Violence Reform Coordination Unit, Office of Women’s Policy, 2009

Recent years have seen big changes in the way family violence is dealt with in Victoria. Af ter years of research and lobbying, we have seen a rapid transformation in police and government at titudes and some much needed reform to services, funding and the legal system.

In 1999 when we star ted the af ter-hours project it was clear that many police had unhelpful at titudes towards the women. They were quite frustrated about being taken away from the real crime stuf f to deal with what they saw as ‘domestics’. The work we have done has made a dif ference; there has been a big culture shif t.

Alfina Sinatra, former Family Violence Team Leader

In 2001, workers in the field were very happy to hear Police Commissioner Christine Nixon announce a review into police responses to violence against women. We contributed to the review, giving feedback based on the experiences of our outreach workers. In particular, we raised the problems of police being reluctant to use their power to collect evidence for women, and their preference for removing women and children from the home rather than perpetrators.

In October 2002, the Victorian Women’s Safet y Strategy was released, commit ting the government to a new approach across all depar tments. A statewide steering commit tee star ted meeting to research and plan the new system.

Many years, policy submissions, meetings and training sessions, later we can see the huge improvements. Victoria now has an integrated family violence system that responds much more ef fectively to women and children experiencing violence. There has been a major recognition of the gendered nature of violence, and of the need for services to be accessible and work in partnership with each other.

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21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

We have collaborated with police to support the implementation of the new police Code of Practice through training, case conferencing and by trying new ways of working. We have worked with police to pilot new initiatives, such as the af ter-hours service and the Brimbank Police Family Violence Unit. Workers are seeing the results of this approach:

If I ring a police member today and I say that I’m from Women’s Health West, I get answers ver y quickly because we are par tners. It’s sometimes hard for women to understand that, with their consent, I can request information. For example, if their husband is in remand I can find out when he’s going to be released and now, through the cour ts, we can get the locks on the house changed. Women can be over whelmed by the crisis but once it is over they star t thinking ‘Oh, I can’t believe all these ser vices are here for me’.

Victoria, Family Violence Outreach Worker

Implementing some parts of the integrated system meant a lot of work and new referral processes threatened to overwhelm the service’s resources. For instance, 3,500 women accessed our family violence services in 2007-08 compared with fewer than 1,000 in 2003-4. Even as our outreach staf f numbers doubled over this time we struggled to meet demand. As the service system becomes more accessible to women and children we can only hope that funding keeps pace.

Within a climate of growing referrals to respond to family violence, WHW, along with other women’s health services, increasingly pushed for an equal focus on funding and actions to prevent violence against women.

In 2004 VicHealth released a groundbreaking study, The Health Costs of Violence: Measuring the Burden of Disease Caused by Intimate Partner Violence. This used internationally recognised methodology to show that this form of violence leads to more ill-health and premature death among Victorian women aged 15 to 44 than any other risk factor. The study was instrumental in WHW’s ability to successfully advocate for prevention of violence against women as a health promotion priority in our region. It also led to inaugural funding for violence prevention activities from 2007 and a greater recognition of the need to focus on prevention demonstrated by the national and state plans. See pages 44-45 for more information on our prevention work.

Recent Changes in Family Violence Policy in Victoria 2001

Police Commissioner Christine Nixon announces a review into police responses to violence against women

Statewide Steering Commit tee to Reduce Family Violence formed

2002

2004

2005

2006

2008 2009

Police launch The Way Forward: Violence Against Women Strategy Victorian government launches the Women’s Safety Strategy

Vic Health releases The Health Costs of Violence, showing that intimate partner violence is the leading contributor to death, disability and illness in Victorian women aged 15-44 Police Code of Practice for the Investigation of Family Violence implemented, shif ting the focus from womeninitiated responses to family violence toward a system where police are more accountable for women’s safety Statewide Steering Commit tee report Reforming the Family Violence System advises the development of an integrated response

Changing Lives: A new approach to Family Violence in Victoria spells out the new integrated system

Western Integrated Family Violence Partnership (WIFVP) forms, comprising WHW as lead agency, Western Region Health Centre representing all health centres in the region, MacKillop Family Services, and Elizabeth Hof fman House in collaboration with the Western Suburbs Indigenous Gathering Place Family violence court services begin operating at Sunshine, Melbourne and Werribee courts

Family Violence Protection Act replaces the Crimes Family Violence Act (1987) giving police more power to respond to family violence. Perpetrators can no longer cross-examine their victims and victims who are renting can more easily remove the perpetrator from the home.

Federal Government launches the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Their Children

Victorian government, in collaboration with agencies including WHW, develop the State Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women: 2010-2020

Faxback Over half of the women contacting our family violence intake service in 2003 were from the Wyndham area. We posted a worker at Werribee Supported Housing to bet ter support women in this rapidly growing area. Giselle Hoogenbosch took up the new position.

I said to one of the of ficers there, “What do you do when you keep going back to the same household? What do you do for the women then?” At the time police were not able to do much more than give the women some phone numbers. Unfor tunately most women were unlikely to reach out to an unfamiliar ser vice and police sometimes found themselves returning to the same house as many as ten times.

When police were called to a home they would ask if the woman wanted a family violence worker to call her.

In most cases the woman signed to give her consent.

Police then fa xed the form to Giselle, who undertook to call the woman within 24 hours. The new system assisted women to receive support in a timely manner, and greatly reduced the number of police callouts. We introduced fa xback (and then eback, using email) to other police areas in the western region and since the 2006 introduction of the Code of Practice a similar process has been rolled out across the state. WHW now responds to between 90 and 120 fa xback or eback referrals a month.

working together

Having a worker in the area helped us develop closer links with the Werribee police, which lead to discussion about the number of repeat call outs. Giselle recalls:

For safety and privacy reasons family violence workers could not contact a client unless they contacted the service first. Giselle discussed this with Police Family Violence Liaison Of ficer, Wayne Carson, who suggested that police could arrange for the woman to give her consent to be contacted by a WHW worker. A similar program had been trialled in St Kilda but never in the western region.

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Girls Talk – Guys Talk How working with one school for a whole year can help young people with sexual decision-making, racism, homophobia, bullying and body image – and empower students.

Issue Emerges

2007

at Laverton Secondary College

teenage motherhood

School par tners with parents / agencies / teachers / students

• •

•

WHW Family Planning Action centre youth services

Sex Ed the World Health Organisation approved way!

It’s about valuing students’ contribution. The students are driving this and they are motivated.

Alison Webb, School Nurse, LSC

Now I know all this stuff I will make different decisions about going to par ties, get ting drunk and having sex.

Student, LSC

I can explain to my sister the consequences of the risks she is taking.

Whole of school approach Survey of all year 9s sexual and reproductive health needs assessment

Fourteen year 9 students form a working group to oversee project

Later Hobsons Bay Council supports the group to be a youth voice for the school

Curriculum and Policy development Student wellbeing commit tee formed Supporting parents and community Parents night - kids perform - general practioner talks about how to talk with kids

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Sexual and reproductive health policy adopted

Ten week sexuality education course for year 9s developed Train-the-trainer Teachers and school nurse learn to deliver the course in the following years

Girls Talk - Guys Talk started in May 2007 at Laverton Secondary College, now Laverton P-12. Partners were the Action Centre (Family Planning Victoria) and Hobsons Bay City Council Youth Services. The project is now in its second year, at Hoppers Crossing Secondary College.

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

change sustained over time

Student, LSC

Photographer: Isabel Walsh

One day some people got to work before me and there was this elderly homeless man sleeping on the couch in reception.

They said, “How did you get in?”

“Aw, it’s alright you know, the door was open last night.”

And they said, “Well, this is Women’s Health, you can’t sleep here.”

“Oh, but the woman told me I could. I asked her and she said I could, and so I went to sleep.”

“What woman?” they said.

“The woman at reception over there.”

And who was the woman who gave him this permission?

It was Christine – Christine our mannequin.

She has half of her body open so you can see her internal organs and half of her head is missing, for ease of access to her brain.

What the hell this poor man thought about the condition of our ‘receptionist’ I don’t know, as he was obviously too polite to comment.

Af ter a warm cup of tea we sent him on his way.

Jo Harper

working together

Christine was used in early education sessions; part of the service’s commitment to helping

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21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

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Looking back at twenty one years of work, it seems clear that Women’s Health West has been part of a big change in community attitudes. There is greater community recognition of the importance of equality for women and the seriousness of violence against women. We are proud to have been part of lobbying for new abortion laws and shaping family violence laws that actually recognise the gendered nature of violence. We are also proud to have responded to shif ts in the political landscape while staying true to the original vision for the service.

Sadly, women’s specific health needs are still too of ten played down, under-researched, over-medicalised and under-funded. Women are also more likely to suf fer reproductive and mental health problems, including depression and stress associated with their role as carers for children and older people, and through their experiences of family violence. Af ter two decades women are still more likely than men to be poor, unemployed and victims of violence, largely because the structural conditions that cause and maintain women’s inequality remain unchanged. This is why we remain passionate about our vision for equity and social justice.

I am privileged to be the CEO of this organisation at this time. Partly for the extraordinary work that came before us, partly for the amazing people and work that is happening now, and partly for the promise of what that holds for the future. We have a prime minister who has made a clear and unequivocal apology to the stolen generation and is committed to tackling the problem of homelessness and violence against women and children, we have a federal health minister committed to the development of a national women’s health policy, and a state premier whose cross-party collaboration led to the decriminalisation of abortion. We are located in a region where so many of our local members of parliament stood up publicly to support a woman’s right to control over reproductive decision-making; we have partners in women’s health services across the state working closely together to achieve change; and our partners in the region – in community health, local government, Indigenous services, family services, primary care partnerships and the like – get how important it is to ensure women have an equal voice and are committed to making that happen.

Over the years the changes we have seen inspire us to continue. As the organisation has grown we have discovered new ways of working and responded to the changing needs of the community. Hundreds of people have contributed to the work of Women’s Health West in a variety of roles, including as board members, staf f, students, agency partners, clients and community collaborators. Their dedication and enthusiasm has led to great shif ts in women’s health, safety and wellbeing. They have shown that a small organisation with a feminist ethos can make a dif ference to the lives of many thousands of women across a vast region.

How fantastic!

Robyn Gregory

Chief Executive Of ficer Women’s Health West 2008 - present 64

21 years of Women’s Health in the West of Melbourne

Into the future

WHW makes a powerful difference to the lives of women in our region.

Lisa Field, Chair, WHW Board, 2006 - present

It’s not so much an issue of identifying needs. These have been identified and haven’t changed much over the past ten years.

There needs to be accessible and relevant services.

Beyond Symptoms, 2002

And please tell other women, even in their darkest moments, never give up hope and go back, just lean on the support around them more, because it will get you through. No matter how hopeless the situation may feel or how violent and persistent the perpetrator, there is a new life waiting.

Family violence service user

Congratulations on this significant milestone, I look forward to watching the organisation grow and develop into the future as we work together to create a community where women can be empowered to lead their lives in safety and with confidence.

Georgie Hill, Deputy Chair, WHW Board, 2007 - present

I have become more confident and positive about my life…now ready to look for work and carry on. I used to feel like a victim, now I feel victorious.

Family violence service user

One woman I met recently expressed her amazement at my luck to be working in a feminist organisation, “Wow… so you don’t have to hide it?” she asked.

Nicola Harte, Communications Coordinator, 2006 - present

A lot of women don’t have any expectation when they come here because they don’t know what we can offer.

But to see the relief in their faces, and that you can make a bit of a difference to them – I think it’s a special place, I love this place. It’s really, really good to be a part of it.

I have worked with such inspiring women here at WHW. Women often truly believe they don’t have the answers to address their wellbeing; they have been encouraged to see themselves as the problem.

It is inspiring to watch women move from this place to a place where they plan and inspire others to shine, to make things happen in their lives.

Sally Camilleri, Women’s Health Promotion Worker, 2003 - present

Irene, Family Violence Outreach Worker, 1988 - present

I believe that we have achieved a lot in twenty-one years and in the next twenty-one years we have to keep achieving more. We really need to have more input at the decision-making level. I remember last year Women’s Health West was heavily lobbying for the decriminalisation of abortion - we need to get that involved in decision-making about family violence too.

We provide a direct service but we can’t do much if the funding doesn’t allow it. We need a fully-funded intake service that is separate from the family violence team because intake uses a lot of our time and energy we try to be super-women really.

Victoria, Family Violence Worker, 2004 - present

The way government views women experiencing violence has changed dramatically and I like to think that we all contributed. We worked very hard to change the level of community awareness on the issue of violence and the prevention of violence. Violence was very much a hidden issue for many years, over the last decade there has been a shift, not to the degree that perhaps we all would like it to be but certainly a huge shift. It has meant that women are more confident to take action; they’re no longer alone as they may have thought in the past.

Melissa Afentoulis, CEO, 1998-2007

The stor y of Women’s Health West begins, with second-wave feminism, in the 1960s and 70s. As women gathered to share their experiences, and discovered how they were shaped by sexism, health was one of the first issues they discussed. Af ter all, in pre-feminist Australia: • • • • • •

It was illegal for Family Planning to advertise their services Women living in violence were told it was ‘just a domestic’ There were no health services for migrant or refugee women Menopause was never discussed Lesbianism was treated as unnatural Sex education was considered obscene

Find out what happened nex t, (how a group of passionate women won a tender to star t Victoria’s first regional women’s health ser vice) and char t our progress from then to now. In REtroSPECT, 21 years of women’s health in the west of Melbourne.