Herstory

Light green silhouette of a morton bay fig tree

At DVAC we work to increase safety for women, children/young people and individuals. We are passionate leaders preventing and responding to gender-based violence. We are a values-based, feminist organisation that is all about building community awareness and collaboration, strong  accountability for people who use violence and supporting survivors and their children to live a life of their choice.

We provide specialist domestic, family and sexual violence services located in greater Ipswich, Toowoomba, Darling and Southern Downs Regions. We also provide education and training and integrated service responses.

Last year we supported over 8,900 individuals to understand family, domestic and sexual violence. We provided support for survivors to increase their immediate safety and to move through their journey of healing. We worked within our community and with other services in our regions to work together to provide the right service at the right time.

Last year:

  • We provided over 15,000 individual appointments.
  • We worked with men who used intimate partner violence to understand their impact on violence on their families and to make real changes in their behaviours to improve their family safety.
  • We provided Court Support to hundreds of individuals to navigate a complex and challenging time in their lives.
  • We supported over 2,600 students in schools providing information to young people to recognise and prevent future domestic, family and sexual violence.

At DVAC we provide high quality, targeted services that are value for money and consistently meet contractual requirements. We have responded as an agile and professional Organisation to the challenges posed by COVID-19.  Our staff are highly skilled and competent, and we have a strong organisational governance, Board and membership base. We meet HSQF standards and have a strong commitment to continuous quality improvement.

We are a reputable service provider in our communities because we work with community to achieve goals, working together to improve safety for women, children/young people and individuals. Our aim is to prevent future gender-based violence.

Herstory

green leaf1996

Established in 1996, our organisation was known as the Domestic Violence Regional Service (Ipswich and Surrounds) Ipswich. With a staff of nine, we provided crises response, court support and counselling.

green leaf2007

In 2007 we rebranded to Ipswich Women’s Centre Against Domestic Violence, initially with a staff of 10.

green leaf2010

In 2010 we restructured to better respond to growth and sector wide changes to funding and the service provision landscape. We employed 11 workers, providing a range of services to the community of Ipswich and regional communities of Gatton, Laidley, Esk, Lowood, Boonah, Goodna and Inala. We had a change of focus from longer term therapeutic interventions to safety, strengthening risk assessment and intake procedures, and utilising the Community Development worker role to establish closer working relationships within the sector and community.

green leaf2011

In 2011 we received Healthy Relationships funding through the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs to provide the comprehensive LOVE BITES program designed by NAPCAN.

We established the Greater Ipswich Region LOVE BITES Facilitator Team. This program was very successful and finished in 2013.

green leaf2012

In 2012 we received The Safety UpGrades Funding Initiative from the Department of Communities to enable women and their children to stay safely in their homes.

We signed up for the Supportlink Referrals, seeing a significant increase in referrals. We also focused on community engagement to resource our region to actively step in and walk with us against violence. We introduced the campaign ‘Ipswich Says No to Violence’ with the committee organising ‘Walk a Mile in her Shoes’ march during Domestic and Family Violence Month.

We also chaired the Ipswich Coordinated Community Response to Domestic and Family Violence working with a number of crucial key stakeholders collaborating to realise a shared vision about how the Ipswich community responds to domestic and family violence.

green leaf2016

We changed our name to the Domestic Violence Action Centre Inc. expanding our services and our geographical coverage to include Ipswich, Toowoomba and Darling Downs regions with outreach to Stanthorpe and Warwick areas.

green leaf2017

The Domestic Violence Action Centre expanded to include Health Liaison and Child Safety Liaison roles and the specialist DFV and SV service for Toowoomba, Darling and Southern Downs, providing a whole suite of services across the region, including support and behaviour intervention services for men using violence. We became one of the largest specialist family and domestic violence and sexual assault service providers in Queensland, with 50 staff.

The Being Heard program (domestic violence healthy relationships education) reached 1300 students from: Ipswich State High School, Bremer Secondary College, Lowood State High School, St Mary’s College, Redbank State High School, Girls Grammar, Forest Lake State High School and Hymba Yumba.

The Integrated Response team commenced.

The ReNew Program Pilot working with adolescent boys and their mothers commenced, independently evaluated by Griffith University.

green leaf2018

The High Risk Team Commenced.

The Youth Sexual Violence service in Toowoomba received funding to provide counselling and case management support for individuals aged 12–18 who have experienced sexual violence.

green leaf2019

We reviewed our Constitution and completed a Service Review with a focus on strengthening and consolidating our organisation following a period of growth.

green leaf2020

We initiated virtual and telephone service delivery to respond to the challenges of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Our teams worked from home for sustained periods, and our service delivery continued throughout the global pandemic. We received COVID-19 enhancement funds to support the organisation to respond to the demands on service delivery during the pandemic.

green leaf2021

DVAC celebrated 25 years of empowering people in our communities.

Domestic Violence Action Centre in white words on a purple background around a Moreton Bay Fig tree.

In an emergency call the Police on 000

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Our website has a quick exit button near the bottom right-hand corner of the page. This button will close the DVAC website and open ABC News and the Google homepage. The button may be helpful if you are worried that you are being monitored and you are concerned that someone is about to see you looking at the DVAC site.

You may also want to delete your browser history. This means that the history of the websites you have visited will not be able to be seen. For information on deleting your internet history click here to visit the esafety web site.

If someone is monitoring your online activity using spyware or monitoring devices, they may still be able to see that you have visited this website.

To discuss your online safety, speak with your DVAC support worker or call DVConnect 1800 811 811 (24-hour telephone advice line) or 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) (24-hour telephone counselling line).

For more information on your digital safety see: