Marisa Lo Bartolo (@MarisaLoBartolo), from Good Shepherd (@GoodShepANZ) reflects on the recent Australian Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Recovery and Healing Conference in Wollongong. Marisa is a Policy and Advocacy Advisor, and has a particular interest in the primary prevention of gender based violence, trauma recovery, and issues faced by LGBTIQA+ communities.

Speakers from the Australian Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Recovery Alliance. Conrerence photo from Australian Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Recovery Alliance (dfsvrecovery.com.au)

On the 4th and 5th of May 2023, the Australian Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Recovery Alliance held the Inaugural Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Recovery and Healing Conference. It was a space where at least half of those attending, and most of those speaking, came with lived experience. The theme of the conference was ‘the right to recover’, and speakers explored whether our current systems and structures allow people who have experienced violence access to this right. The four pillars of recovery discussed at the conference were: housing and economic recovery, trauma and holistic models of health care, centering children and young people, responsive and accessible pathways to justice.

Housing and economic recovery

Housing and economic recovery speaks to the fact that people need physical safety before they can psychologically recover. They need to be out of immediate danger. As it currently stands, women are staying in emergency accommodation after fleeing abusive relationships for longer periods of time than is intended, because it is extremely difficult to find long term housing. This is a bigger issue for women whose identities are minoritised, such as First Nations women and women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, particularly those on temporary visas. The average wait for social housing in Victoria is 17 months, and the current rental crisis is limiting previously affordable private options. With most rentals being unaffordable for people on low incomes, and in a highly competitive market, it is impossible for many to find a home.

Issues of affordability are gendered: women are the primary users of social security payments, and low-paid, insecure work in woman-dominated sectors is insufficient to support women’s economic security. The announcement of the recent federal budget saw attention drawn to social security payments: there was an acknowledgment that, as they stood, payments were insufficient, especially in the recent cost of living crisis. But the $40 a fortnight increase to a number of the payments is still not enough to create economic security. These stressors on economic security are an inhibitor to recovering from domestic, family, and sexual violence.

Trauma and holistic models of health

Trauma and holistic models of health care explored whether widespread understandings of recovery were accurate in describing domestic, family and sexual violence recovery. The term ‘recovery’ tends to imply that a person will go back to how they were before the incident or trauma. It also implies that there is a time period in which this will take place. But that does not take into account the complexities of the issues of family and sexual violence, and it does not understand how trauma works. The reality is, most will not go back to the person they were before they experienced trauma. As with any experience in life, traumatic experiences shape and mould who we are. And for many, recovery is a lifelong process. The impact of trauma can be something that a person lives with for the rest of their life.

This is not widely understood in general, but particularly in the mental health space. Speakers discussed how pathologisiation of survivors is a common occurrence, which implies that the issues someone is facing after trauma is due to their individual response, rather than due to the situation they find themselves in. A person’s mental and physical symptoms after their experience of trauma is portrayed as something ‘wrong’ with them. However, the effects of trauma are the body and the mind having a normal response to an abnormal, dangerous situation, and individualising normal trauma responses can bring shame and isolation to survivors. Speakers also discussed the lack of understanding about the physiological effects of trauma and the need to participate in physical somatic practices in order to address the trauma that lives in the body (see books that discuss these ideas here, here, and here). These ideas of individualisation and only addressing the mind are seen in counselling and psychology services. As it currently stands, a mental health care plan will give a person 10 sessions per year that they can get a rebate on. This does not acknowledge that recovery is a long-term process, and that ongoing multi-disciplinary support is needed. This lack of understanding creates barriers and more adverse experiences to those who are recovering.

Centering children and young people

Centering children and young people was a key pillar at the recovery conference. Children being victim survivors in their own right is an idea that is rightfully gaining attention, and centring children’s healing and recovery is crucial in the idea of the right to recover. There are a number of factors that result in children experiencing violence differently to adult relatives, including the developmental stage they are in. If left untreated, the impacts of trauma can severely impact the child’s lifelong wellbeing. It is crucial that areas where children live and play, including schools, are aware of the different ways that trauma can present itself, so that children have better access to identification, intervention and support to heal. It is also important that age-appropriate treatments and activities are incorporated into a child’s life, to facilitate early healing and recovery. Limited understanding around children and young people’s experiences of violence is often a key barrier to recovery.

Responsive and accessible pathways to justice

The final pilar was responsive and accessible pathways to justice. This involved discussions around how legal systems, including the family court, the police, mental health systems, and prison systems, as they currently stand, are not conducive to support healing and recovery from domestic, family and sexual violence. Speakers shared how these systems emulated abuse, and that dealing with these systems was retraumatising, or sometimes even more traumatising than the abusive relationship itself. Speakers shared that there needs to be a focus on the gendered and colonial drivers of violence against First Nations women and children, as well as the trauma and abuse that First Nations men experience through colonial power structures. Many First Nations men who use violence have themselves experienced it. These systems as they currently stand are enormous barriers to healing and recovery.

Recovery from violence is a collective effort. Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

Moving to a framework of collective recovery

A common theme across all pillars of recovery was the individualisation of problems: problems of housing and economic security, of trauma and healthcare, of children’s trauma, and of accessing justice. This is how systems and structures currently stand, with the individualisation narrative at their centre. The alternative to this that was spoken about throughout the conference was the need for whole of community healing, collective recovery and whole of community action. Changing the way that systems and structures treat those who have experienced violence, and understanding the nuance in their experience, are ways to work toward whole of community healing. Along with this, committed, long-term funding to services and programs are required to be able to offer support to those who have experienced violence. Government have been putting much needed resources largely into crisis response, and partly into prevention, two important areas. But if recovery resourcing continues to be neglected, survivors stay stuck in cycles of trauma, across lifetimes and generations.

Ultimately, recovery for both people who experience violence and people who use violence is also a tertiary prevention strategy: It is a means to prevent intergenerational trauma. We need to advocate for these changes to recognise the complexity of trauma and recovery, to move toward whole of community action, so that victim survivors are able to be holistically supported in their right to recover.

Posted by @PNagorckaSmith

The 'right to recover': Healing from family, domestic and sexual violence requires community-wide action