Page 1225 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 2021
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As outlined in Minister Berry’s statement, there are things that we know in relation to sexual assault. We know that sexual assault is shockingly common, and it is generally gendered. We know that there are particular groups in our community that are at higher risk—First Nations women, women in custodial settings, women with gender diverse identities, and women with disabilities. We also know that there are strong links with domestic and family violence. We know that children are often impacted by this violence.
In engaging with this issue, we know that there is particular relevance to the issue of homelessness. For example, we know that sexual assault is a driver of homelessness, including links with domestic and family violence, which are the leading driver of homelessness for women and children. We also know that homelessness increases the risk of further sexual assault.
While these challenges can leave us feeling as though the issue is too big to solve, we are also engaging with the specialist homelessness sector that is skilled and able to support victim survivors to heal, recover and rebuild their lives.
A key thing that we can do, given the particular and complex nature of sexual assault in homes, institutions and the community more broadly, is work with the homelessness sector to ensure that it is trauma informed and able to meet the needs of victim survivors.
We know that we need to invest in gender sensitive crisis and housing services and housing stock to ensure that victim survivors of sexual assault—women, in particular—have safe, secure housing options and support and safety packages as they navigate their way to safety.
We also need to provide targeted responses for people we know are at high risk, including ensuring that there are wraparound services and support for victim survivors to enable recovery from the trauma of sexual assault.
We can build stronger links between sexual assault specialist services and the housing and homelessness services sector, and we can continue to build the capacity and skills of people working in the homelessness sector to support people to feel safe to disclose sexual assault and put in place the supports for people to respond to this.
We have much to learn from the work that is going to happen in the next few months. We really are committed to developing strong partnership approaches to respond to the challenges and co-design of the service system.
In the specialist homelessness sector, as we move into a new service agreement cycle, there are real opportunities to work with the sector to design a system that is responsive to the needs of those that are experiencing homelessness, including victim survivors. As we work together, we will need a range of services that provide responses that are tailored, gender sensitive and able to respond to groups who are at heightened risk. We have a real opportunity to develop an integrated approach to sector development. We also have opportunities to look at how we provide our social housing support and how we connect people with the supports they need.
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