Rachel Payne MP, representative for South-Eastern Metropolitan Melbourne, will be asking the Victorian government, the Minister of Health in particular, why they are yet to respond to our petition that was tabled in Parliament.  Specifically, if the Minister will commit to piloting accessible and integrated service systems in Ballarat, and the Bayside communities of Melbourne, consistent with the petition and recommendation 9.1 of the Royal Commission.

Whilst noting that the Beaumaris Board of Inquiry recommendation 8 is unnecessary, given the RC recommendation 9.1 is based on extensive stakeholder feedback, which aligns with the recent recommendations of the National Action on Child Sexual Abuse extensive stakeholder engagement on the development of minimum service standards too. 

Which also recommend services should be based on "no wrong door."

Ms Payne will be calling for the Minister to commit to meeting with our community group of survivors, family members and supporters - from Bayside Melbourne and also including those from the Ballarat Region - to co-design how already identified solutions for the better provision of appropriately funded and accessible wellbeing, recovery, and healing services, are piloted.

On Tuesday, 2 August 2022 Stuart Grimley MP made the following statement in Victorian Parliament. "Recently I tabled a change.org petition as a paper,
with over 12 500 signatures. The e-petition is titled No Wrong Door and addresses the suboptimal approach we still have in Victoria in dealing with survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I thank members for providing me leave to table such an important document and, more specifically, for continuing to allow survivors and their loved ones a voice.

A ‘no wrong door’ approach is one where victim-survivors of childhood sexual assault are not turned away when they disclose their ordeals and are given more effective pathways for recovery. It is recommendation 9.1 of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse for an accessible, integrated model. The Victorian government’s submission to the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System recommended:
… service reform initiatives indicate it is important that:
• intake into services is person-centred, with multiple entry points and a ‘no wrong door approach’.

Unfortunately this has been neither accepted nor implemented by Victoria—we do not know why— despite its success in New South Wales. Integrated health and care systems such as New South Wales’s integrated prevention and response to violence, abuse and neglect framework increase accessibility to specialist services for survivors and their families. This is done by creating safe, trauma-informed places for disclosure of abuse and means staff are trained to go beyond, ‘What’s wrong with you?’, to ask, ‘What happened to you?’. Staff can then provide or link people to specialist services as a ‘no wrong door’ for disclosure of sexual abuse. Increasing accessibility to trauma-informed services and supports for survivors will save lives and reduce pain and suffering for many Victorians, their families and the community. Integrated service systems also create significant economic benefits, should we
even need to touch on the financial side of things.

In short, this petition asks the Victorian government to pilot the implementation of integrated service systems in two communities devastated by institutional child sexual abuse, those being the Ballarat and Bayside communities. The New South Wales model has been implemented with great results. In fact an interim review of the scheme showed that two-thirds of respondents participating in the new
approach agreed or strongly agreed that their system integration had led to improvements in health and wellbeing outcomes. A full evaluation by NSW Health will be published in just a few weeks. Basically the New South Wales framework sits alongside others in the USA that are specifically integrated systems for forms of sexual abuse, domestic violence and other trauma.

The UK is leading the world in implementation of integrated systems of health and care at scale for all citizens, and now is the time for Victoria to do the right thing by victim-survivors of childhood abuse and implement this pilot. Karen, the principal petitioner, makes a great point that the very sensible push for national healthcare system reform could be partly addressed by primary prevention strategies earlier on. Learning from the UK is a no-brainer as they have proven it reduces the burden
on the National Health Service, reduces cost and increases health and care outcomes. 

We need to learn from the New South Wales framework, which can be integrated into a citizen model of integrated care. We need to learn from Victoria’s own Better at Home initiative from the recent budget, which integrates allied health care and subacute services into a single service model."

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We remain forever grateful to Stuart Grimley for tabling our petition in parliament, and are thrilled that Rachel Payne MP is now supporting the outcomes our petition seeks. 

We will keep you updated on our progress!