Support for Abuse Victims "Flawed"

Sky News
October 1, 2015

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2015/10/01/support-for-abuse-victims--flawed-.html

Australia's support and treatment services for victims of child sexual abuse will be investigated.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Thursday called for submissions on issues relating to advocacy, support and therapeutic treatment services.

Commission CEO Philip Reed said that through case studies and private sessions, attention had been drawn to the lack of quality support services, as well as difficulties that survivors faced when seeking support and therapeutic treatment services.

The commission has held more than 4000 private sessions and is starting its 33rd public hearing on Tuesday next week.

It will be investigating how former child residents of Salvation Army homes in South Australia were treated between 1940 and 1990.

Mr Reed said that through consultations on redress and civil litigation it was clear survivors had a range of needs beyond being able to access counselling and psychological care.

The final recommendations of the consultations are with the federal government.

The redress scheme now being considered by states, territories and the federal government has factored in providing adequate medical and psychological help for as many as 65,000 survivors of abuse.

It calls for the expansion of the Medicare scheme so that people can get the prolonged help needed to recover from the trauma of abuse inflicted when they were children.

Mr Reed said the commission noted in its recommendations on redress and civil litigation that a separate project was needed to investigate the adequacy of current advocacy and support services.

The issues paper is the launch of that project.

In a statement, Mr Reed said it was anticipated that following a review of the submissions a consultation paper would be published and there would be a call for public submissions.

Interested individuals and organisations wishing to respond to the issues paper have until November 13 to lodge a submission.

The final recommendations on advocacy and support and therapeutic services will be contained in the Royal Commissions final report in 2017.