DV crisis leaves Rockingham women’s refuge full after surge in demand for services

The founder of a Rockingham women’s refuge says there has been a surge in demand for its services, leaving no available beds for women and children at risk. Lucy Saw Centre Association’s Anne Moore has spent 30 years helping survivors of family and domestic violence, and runs two local refuges offering 18 beds for women and 85 for their children. The association also offers complementary services including the Safe at Home and community outreach programs, and has workers co-located with police and Child Protection and Family Support staff at Rockingham, Mandurah and Cockburn police stations. “There has been an increase across all our services,” Ms Moore said. “Women are reporting to police at a higher rate, which in my opinion is a good thing as they are feeling safer to do so. “Police must have FDV training so they can respond properly.” Ms Moore said family violence was a concern for Rockingham, as well as the south metro region and the State. “Lucy Saw have two refuges with 18 available beds for women and 85 children at any one time – there are no beds available in the metro area (at the time of printing),” she said. She said beds were being taken as soon as they became available. Ms Moore is also a board member of the Centre for Women’s Safety and Wellbeing, which convened an emergency summit on family violence last Thursday attended by survivors, support services, the Premier and relevant ministers, and WA police’s top brass. She told The West Australian after the summit that many women would not report their experiences because they had “nowhere to go”. “That is terrifying to think about — that some women think if they ring the police, they are going to become homeless,” she said. “If we had beds and funding and support, the women would come and we would save lives. “Domestic violence can go from a verbal argument one day to a death the next — people need to fully understand that is highly possible.” Nicole Lambert, chief executive of Mandurah-based Allambee, said the organisation was seeing “extraordinarily high rates” of family and domestic violence in the region, with people at risk having to wait up to 10 months for help. “The Peel region has extraordinarily high rates of family and domestic violence, and sexual violence, and so there is a massive need here for women and children in terms of prevention, and then in crisis and immediate support, and then longer term recovery work as well,” she said. Ms Lambert said there was a combined wait list of 150 people across Allambee’s adult and child family domestic violence and sexual violence services “at any given point in time”. “We are so busy now that we’re really probably primarily only servicing people at high risk and in high need,” she said. “The people who have a little bit more capacity, we’re encouraging them to seek more generalist support, because they will otherwise be waiting for long periods of time on the wait list, up to maybe nine months, 10 months on the wait list.” Ms Lambert attended the emergency summit and said it followed alarm raised by those within the family violence sector. “It was an opportunity for the sector, and the voices of victim survivors, for us to get together and call on the Premier, and his key ministers to come and hear from us around the action that we think needs to happen, and also hear our requests for that action to be taken seriously, and to be acted on immediately,” she said. “We know the State’s got money, it’s just about priorities. “And we’re basically saying, you know, enough is enough, and it’s time to invest in saving people’s lives.” Ms Lambert said community services in general experienced an “unprecedented need” from the community during the COVID pandemic, which has since “levelled off” but has not returned to pre-COVID levels. She said this was because the pandemic had “put a lot of strain on people”, and that had continued with other stressors including the housing shortage and increased cost of living. “That has flow on effects to mental health issues,” she said. “It has flow on effects to alcohol and drug use, has flow on effects to increased levels of violence as a consequence of increased levels of stress or alcohol abuse. “It’s not the cause of family and domestic violence, but it is an aggravating factor.” 1800 RESPECT Women’s Domestic Violence Helpline: 1800 007 339 Men’s Domestic Violence Helpline: 1800 000 599