Earlier this week we received our first response, to our numerous emails and phones calls since February 2022, from the Office of the Victorian Minister for Health. In response to our latest request for a meeting to discuss integrated, accessible and trauma informed services and supports for survivors of child sexual abuse. Services that are underpinned by the principle of 'no wrong door', which the Victorian government has itself recommended, but not implemented, as per the following example of many.
Victorian Government submission to the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System July, 2019, "Pathways should be designed to make it easier for people to access and move between services. Lessons from the Royal Commission into Family Violence and other service reform initiatives indicate it is important that:
- intake into services is person-centred, with multiple entry points and a ‘no wrong door approach’.
- services are coordinated, with linkages between a range of different service elements of different intensities and types over a person’s recovery journey.
- consumers can access services in a timely and efficient way, with minimal double-up."
The email we recently received from the Office of the Victorian Minister for Health included the following.
"I refer to your correspondence attached received by The Hon. Mary-Anne Thomas MP, Minister for Health, Minister for Health Infrastructure & Minister for Medical Research.
As this matter falls within the portfolio responsibility of the Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers & Minister for Child Protection and Family Services, The Hon. Lizzie Blandthorn MP. I have referred your correspondence to her office for consideration.
Should you require further information regarding your correspondence, please contact the Office of the Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers & Minister for Child Protection and Family Services."
Here's our response.
"Dear Office for the Minister of Health,
We have just participated in the National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse “In Conversation”, what we can learn from the Australian Child Maltreatment Study regarding child sexual abuse. We have participated in a number of National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse stakeholder engagements, since the Centre’s inception.
Your suggestion that any issue about child sexual abuse is only the responsibility of one Victorian government portfolio, which isn't the Department of Health, is inconsistent with the Australian Maltreatment Study recommendations (report attached and relevant recommendations below).
- Australia requires a national, coordinated approach to this public health imperative. To date, our failure has been attributable in large part because we have lacked political will, ethical motivation, sufficient investment, and fragmentation between levels of government. It is imperative that Australian Government agencies collaborate with States and Territories, through financial resourcing and policy frameworks, supported by a new model of sustainable national governance architecture to ensure child maltreatment is treated as an ongoing national concern. This
infrastructure is required to support the mechanisms necessary to ensure this commitment is secure, stable, and sustained, and endures across political cycles. - We must accelerate a public health approach, with a focus on primary prevention and secondary prevention. We can and must invest more, and invest more wisely, in universal prevention at the population level, and to targeted interventions to subpopulations at high risk.
Your suggestion that the portfolio of Health, Health Infrastructure and Medical Research has no responsibility for child sexual abuse, is also contrary to the details and reasons why provided by all “In Conversation” speakers - Professor Ben Mathews, Lead Investigator on the Australian Child Maltreatment Study, Dr Joe Tucci, Chair and CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, Dr Cathy Kezelman, Deputy Chair and President of the Blue Knot Foundation, and Fiona Cornforth, Board Member and CEO of The Healing Foundation – who described the findings of the study as (paraphrasing):
“a national public health crisis, that requires a coordinated approach across all levels of government, federal and state, and across all portfolios.”
Given 5.8 million Australia adults “are living with and breathing child sexual abuse throughout their lives” and
“justice, police, care, health service systems etc. need to be rewritten that are based on the trauma experienced during childhood.” (Dr Cathy Kezelman).
“Obligation of all government is to protect children, this is non-negotiable … as is being trauma informed .. where every interaction is healing, and does no further harm.”
Your suggestion also appears to be an outright rejection by the Minister of Health, of Recommendation 9.1 of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Which is the Royal Commission recommendation, that aligns with key two recommendation of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study provided to all levels of Australian government.
It is also the Royal Commission recommendation that the Beaumaris And Surrounding Communities - Child Sexual Abuse Survivors And Families community and petitioners, have been seeking a response from the Victorian government about, since February 2022.
The Victorian government’s silence to-date, in response to ~20 communications on the government’s intent and/or actions on recommendation 9.1, is alarming, and difficult to understand. Namely:
- Why isn’t Recommendation 9.1 of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse a responsibility of the Minister of Health’s portfolio?
- Why does the Minister reject the associated recommendations of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study?
We look forward to your response, thank you."
We need your help
You can help us obtain a meeting with the Victorian Minister for Health, by sending the following email to
minister.health@health.vic.gov.au
"Dear Office of the Minister of Health,
I am one of 13,067 people who have signed the petition by the Beaumaris And Surrounding Communities - CSA Survivors And Families group, seeking appropriate services and supports for survivors and communities impacted by systemic child sexual abuse.
This petition is seeking crucial acknowledgement by local, state, and federal governments of this systemic child sexual abuse, through their provision of appropriately funded and accessible mental health, recovery, and healing services, and other assistance and support, for impacted individuals, families, friends, and members of the local communities.
We are inviting The Hon. Mary-Anne Thomas MP, the Victorian Minister for Health, to meet with the petition organisers, to discuss what a meaningful, restorative investment in the lives of survivors, families, partners and the communities impacted, can look like. Including funding the facilitation of the co-design of responses, with those impacted.
Our vision includes piloting frameworks of accessible and integrated service systems that are already working well elsewhere in Australia, and in the world, in a couple of Victorian communities devastated by historic, systemic institutional child sexual abuse. The Ballarat community, and the Bayside communities of Melbourne.
As the Minister of Health is aware, our petition was tabled in Victorian Parliament last year.
I am alarmed that to-date, the Minister of Health has not agreed to meet with the petition organisers and supporters. And in your email of 17th April 2023 you advised accessible, integrated systems of health and care for survivors of child sexual abuse, were not deemed to be the Minister's responsibility.
The Minister's response is inconsistent with the recently published Australian Child Maltreatment Study recommendations, and numerous recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The Australian Child Maltreatment Study advises that ~5.8 million Australian adults are survivors of child sexual abuse, which equates to ~2 million Victorian adults are living with the trauma of child sexual abuse.
I urge The Hon. Mary-Anne Thomas MP to meet with the petition organisers, to discuss what a meaningful, restorative investment in the lives of survivors, families, partners and the communities impacted, can look like. Which would acknowledge that child sexual abuse in Australia is a public health crisis.
Thank you.
Regards"
Thank you to our 13,067 Petitioners! We are LOUD!