Our paper will address the intersection between response and improving policy. Impact for Women is an entirely volunteer-run organization supporting women and children escaping extreme violence at home. We give gifts and services with dignity and we give dignity with gifts and services.
This presentation will discuss some of our services. Each year we pack close to 5000 Bags of Love for distribution through agencies and refuges. In addition, pre-Covid, we ran a program called Impactful in which we partnered with a women’s gym to provide a wellness program for domestic violence survivors.
A further aspect of our work is advocacy and we give talks to school groups and community groups such as Rotary, church groups and Probus.
In this paper, we particularly want to focus on our Court Childcare program. This service provides childcare for women attending Moorabbin Court for domestic violence related matters significantly relieving the stress on the women and preventing retraumatising children who might otherwise encounter their alleged perpetrator. The program thus has significant health benefits for these women and their children. Impact currently funds this program but, as we see it as a commonsense solution to a problem, we have been lobbying politicians to try to have this program instituted as a government-funded, essential service in courts. We will discuss our efforts to do this and the traction we are gaining.