Unis: stop leaving rape survivors without adequate support

Win! Hotline for student survivors of Uni sexual violence

Great news! After weeks of campaign pressure, Australia’s Universities have just announced that they will establish the dedicated specialist counseling hotline for students affected by sexual assault that Fair Agenda members and partners have called for!

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Previous: Right now students at Australian universities are being sexually assaulted at an alarming rate -- and many students affected by this violence and trauma aren’t being provided with adequate service support.

At Universities across the country, students who have been raped or sexually assaulted on campus are being told they have to wait up to four weeks for a university counseling appointment. Others who have dropped out of their degrees because of the impact of the assault are being refused access to university counseling services altogether.[1]

Student advocates say university facilitates are “already stretched beyond capacity”. And that demand is set to increase further, with a pending report into the issue expected to trigger further disclosures from victim-survivors when it is delivered in August.

Student group End Rape on Campus and survivor advocate Nina Funnell are calling for universities to address this problem by funding a dedicated specialist counseling hotline for affected students. 

Can you join the call on Universities to make sure they have timely, adequate, and trauma informed counseling services for students and former students affected by violence on campus?

 

Find out more (click to view)

In response to other similar inquiries into broad scale sexual violence (such as the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse), specialist support hotlines have been set up to support those affected, in recognition that existing NGO services don’t have capacity to respond to the additional trauma and demand caused by these kinds of inquiry.

Student advocates say that a new dedicated and specialist service is needed to help alleviate existing pressure on university counseling services and also to ensure a consistency in the quality of counseling service provision across the university sector. Media reports suggest that most university services are staffed by generalist counselors who do not necessarily have specific expertise in sexual assault trauma, with some university websites stating that they can assist with problems such as "exam stress", "procrastination", or "adjusting to university life"; and only some have the specialised capacity to respond to sexual assault trauma.

You can view the call from End Rape on Campus Australia here.

*If you or someone you know is experiencing family violence, you can call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 for 24/7 support. If you are in immediate danger call 000.*

-References-

1. Rape victims face four-week wait for counselling at some universities, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 May 2017.

2,276 SIGNATURES SO FAR

To Universities Australia, and all Australian Universities,

We are extremely concerned that victim-survivors affected by sexual violence at university aren’t able to access timely and appropriate service support.  

We urge you to ensure that all students and former students affected by sexual violence at university have access to adequate, timely and trauma informed counselling services. 

We particularly note our support for the call to establish a specialist and trauma informed 24/7 counselling hotline to be run by sexual assault experts like Rape and Domestic Violence Service Australia ahead of the Australian Human Rights Commission report in August.

Signed,

Fair Agenda will email petition signers from time to time with important updates

* required fields

Latest activity

Eileen , 4170  /  signed 2017-06-21 16:41:37 +1000
Clare , W12 7GE  /  signed 2017-06-21 16:19:53 +1000
"So many women I know from my university days were sexually assaulted while they were students. They were made to seek help if they could find it, the onus was on them to seek out those services and persist with trying to access them. In some cases I do not think they found help at all; they just lived with it. In one case my friend sought help from a psychologist, but only years after the event. If I had been subject to a sexual assault I would not have known where to turn either."
Georgina , 3095  /  signed 2017-06-21 15:55:08 +1000
Naomi , 2904  /  signed 2017-06-21 15:49:54 +1000
Nina , 3011  /  signed 2017-06-21 15:24:40 +1000
Anne , 3483  /  signed 2017-06-21 15:19:39 +1000
"I am a Student Officer at an Australian university calling students to advise them on many aspects of university life. Many students I speak to already have many mental health issues to contend with so counselling services need to be increased exponentially."
Susan , 2579  /  signed 2017-06-21 14:52:55 +1000
Ainslee , 3057  /  signed 2017-06-21 14:32:38 +1000
Tanya , 2750  /  signed 2017-06-21 12:41:03 +1000
"Young women have their futures jeapodised and often come to a holt under the trauma of sexual and domestic violence. Often men inflict the pain and trauma under the guise of male priviledge, then no services are available to assist women and all hopes of any form of social equality are stripped from ALL women. Women are placed back into the ultimate of state of subservience without service that can assist at the time of the event."
Coll , 3002  /  signed 2017-06-21 12:15:23 +1000
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