Annie Mandela, Hobart
The Hobart Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) was set up 16 years ago, originally funded to service women on a long-term basis and men in crisis. It provides a 24-hour crisis response and counselling service for all survivors of sexual assault. Four years ago, SASS also set up a children's service.
Under a new Tasmania-wide service delivery standard, SASS will be expected to see men on a longer-term basis. However, the state government has not increased funding from the original levels provided for the women's only service.
The government is also changing the way SASS is funded, by outlining very specific services they wish to purchase from agencies. This new "pathway" model limits the services SASS can provide by stipulating the length of time counsellors can work with clients. This means that 75% of clients using SASS services would be restricted to seven counselling sessions.
In addition, only 5% of total clients could receive counselling as long-term clients (up to six months). Encouraging mostly short-term clients undermines the quality of service delivery, and will not allow counsellors to assist survivors of sexual assault adequately. Carolyn, a SASS counsellor, told Green Left Weekly: "This totally undermines the experiences of survivors of childhood trauma.
"No research that I can find talks about that kind of short-term counselling having any kind of impact on a survivor's life. So it just ends up shifting the person around and it also obscures from the general public the actual costs of the long-term effects of sexual abuse."
Carolyn explained that if the real cost of sexual assault was addressed it would be huge, and governments aren't prepared to pay for it. "If you could reduce the incidence of child abuse, there would be a lot less people in the mental health system, a lot less people in the prison system, a lot less people on welfare, a lot more people able to contribute."
The funding agreement also allows only 5% for community education. This involves presenting talks at schools and giving training to other professionals who deal with survivors of sexual assault. Community education is one way of preventing sexual assault from happening in the first place.
From Green Left Weekly, March 10, 2004.
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