We are working with the wonderful Owls for Justice team, to provide an up-to-date comparison of Australian State and Territory government responses to recommendation 9.1 of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Volume 9, Advocacy, support and therapeutic treatment services recommendations. Dedicated community support services for victims and survivors
    
Recommendation 9.1
The Australian Government and state and territory governments should fund dedicated community support services for victims and survivors in each jurisdiction, to provide an integrated model of advocacy and support and counselling to children and adults who experienced childhood sexual abuse in institutional contexts. Funding and related agreements should require and enable these services to:
a. be trauma-informed and have an understanding of institutional child sexual abuse
b. be collaborative, available, accessible, acceptable and high quality
c. use case management and brokerage to coordinate and meet service needs
d. support and supervise peer-led support models. 

Why is this is such an important and consequential recommendation for governments to act on?  

Based on the 2023 Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS) and findings from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, disclosure of child sexual abuse (CSA) in Australia is a complex, often long-delayed, and, for many, a never-realized process.

• Non-Disclosure: Almost half (45.2%) of all people who experience CSA in Australia never disclose it to anyone.
• Delay: Survivors often take a long time to tell, with an average delay of 23.9 years, and many only disclose as adults.
• However, recent data suggests 70.2% of those who do disclose, first do so during childhood.

Integrated services which include a trauma informed model of care, means that any service or supports increase the likelihood of the safe disclosure of child sexual abuse by people accessing their services. And the connection with all the appropriate trauma informed services and supports.

NSW have developed an Integrated Trauma-Informed Care Framework

When our petition was tabled in Victorian Parliament on Thursday 9 June 2022, we raised the significant, relevant work the NSW government was doing, in response to recommendation 9.1. Which at that time was the development of their Integrated Prevention and Response to Violence, Abuse and Neglect Framework, which was about to be reviewed.

NSW have since then, evaluatated their framework for integrated services and care, and importantly also created an Integrated Trauma-Informed Care Framework.

"Potentially traumatic experiences are common in the general population, including for children and young people. Those in contact with the child protection system are known to have experienced trauma, and children in some other populations are also at an increased risk of having experienced adverse events. The Tune Review highlighted trauma-informed practice and policy as keys to a successful service continuum for vulnerable children and families. Recommendation 9.8 from the Royal Commission Final Report also highlighted the importance of trauma-informed care, and proposed that:

1. The Australian Government and state and territory government agencies responsible for the delivery of human services should ensure relevant policy frameworks and strategies recognise the needs of victims and survivors and the benefits of implementing trauma-informed approaches.
2. Identifying and responding early to children who have experienced trauma can protect against its long-term effects.11,12 Health staff and services have a key role in preventing trauma, as well as mitigating the impacts
   of trauma on children and young people.
3. Although there are many individual examples of integrated and trauma-informed service provision within NSW Health, a system-wide approach is needed to support change across human services, including the
   NSW Health system.

How

1. The framework will guide system-wide change by outlining principles, implementation domains, strategic objectives and behaviour change required to provide integrated trauma-informed care.
2.  The principles of integrated trauma-informed care will be addressed across all domains of the NSW Health system, including governance and leadership, training and workforce development, policy, monitoring and quality assurance, engagement and involvement, financing, cross-sector collaboration, physical environment, quality service provision, and evaluation and technology."

We spoke with NSW Health in 2022 about this work, and will reach out again, to get more details on what they have implemented to-date.

Why is this so importnat, and exciting?

This shifts our current advocacy from asking what the Victorian government has done regarding the implementation of integrated and trauma informed services in response to recommendation 9.1, of which we can find no evidence this has happened.

To asking the Victorian government if they are working with, and learning from, what the NSW government has already implemented, and the other relevant changes they are planning.

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