About Us
Our History
The Victorian specialist sexual assault sector emerged from the social change movements that swept across Australia and much of the world in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The women’s liberation movement gained momentum as groups of women came together to discuss the widespread oppression and violence they experienced in Australian society. Tens of thousands of women across Victoria and the rest of Australia stood up, fought for and won key rights, including gender pay equality, access to contraception and abortion, easier divorce, the sole parenting pension, and free childcare. Crucially, the women’s liberation movement brought issues of violence against women, including rape and family violence, out of the private sphere and into public view. In the 1970s, the first women’s refuges and rape crisis centres were established, run by women volunteers committed to supporting victim survivors.
SASVic acknowledges the strength, courage, and tenacity of feminists of the 1970s, whose work made our sector and our work today possible.
1896
Kids First is founded as the Victorian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (VSPCC).
1970
The first Women’s Liberation conference is held in Melbourne, identifying violence against women as a priority area.
1971
Kids First changes its name from the Victorian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to the Children’s Protection Society (CPS).
1973
Women Against Rape (WAR) forms. Key to the group’s philosophy is the idea that rape is a result of patriarchy rather than a problem of individual behaviour.
1974
Women Against Rape establishes the first rape crisis centre at the Women’s Liberation Centre in Collingwood, run by volunteers.
1975
The federal government, lead by Gough Whitlam, makes funding available for rape crisis centres across Australia, via the states. The Victorian Government withholds funding from the rape crisis centre in Collingwood due to disagreement about management and organisational structures, and the centre eventually closes.
1977
Police Surgeon Peter Bush asks the Queen Victoria Medical Centre, located in the Melbourne CBD, for permission to examine survivors of rape in their emergency department, believing it will provide a better service than the police station. He also asks the hospital whether counselling services can be provided for women who have been raped. Under the leadership of Pat Ferrant, a senior social worker in the hospital’s Department of Psychiatry, social work staff begin providing unfunded counselling services to victim survivors of sexual assault.
1978
Women Against Rape, Geelong forms and opens the Geelong Rape Crisis Centre, run by volunteers. It will later be renamed the Sexual Assault and Family Violence Centre.
1979
The Queen Victoria Medical Centre Sexual Assault Service opens, with funding for one position. It’s the first funded sexual assault service in Victoria. Its location in a public hospital causes considerable debate among women’s health groups who have been fighting hard to challenge the perception that women who have been raped are ‘hysterical’.
1982
The Geelong Rape Crisis Centre receives state government funding.
1983
Ballarat Sexual Assault Clinic is established. It’s now known as Ballarat Centre Against Sexual Assault.
1984
Bendigo Centre Against Sexual Assault is established. It is now known as Centre Against Sexual Assault Central Victoria.
Ballarat Sexual Assault Clinic receives state government funding.
1985
South West Centre Against Sexual Assault is established in Warrnambool.
1986
A Victorian Government report recommends establishing centres against sexual assault for women in all Victorian health regions.
Gippsland Centre Against Sexual Assault is established.
The Australian Childhood Foundation is established as the Victorian Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.
Victoria’s sexual assault services start meeting informally.
1987
CASA House is established to service Melbourne’s inner urban area following a decision to move the Queen Victoria Medical Centre from the Melbourne CBD to Clayton.
North Eastern CASA is established with a $30,000 grant and a single employee. It will later grow into three services: Northern CASA, Goulburn Valley CASA and Eastern CASA.
1988
Goulburn Valley CASA is established.
1991
The Victorian Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (now the Australian Childhood Foundation) begins offering counselling services for children who have experienced sexual abuse and/or family violence.
Mallee Sexual Assault Unit is established.
Victoria’s Sexual Assault Crisis Line opens to co-ordinate a state-wide crisis response.
1992
WestCASA is established.
The Upper Murray Centre Against Sexual Assault is established (now Centre Against Violence).
The Victorian Centres Against Sexual Assault Forum (CASA Forum) is established and service leaders begin meeting once a month. The forum commits to addressing the inequalities within society which result in the perpetration of sexual violence against women, children and men.
1993
Kids First begins its Sexually Abusive Behaviour Treatment program (SABTs), now called harmful sexual behaviour.
A sexual assault service opens at the Royal Children’s Hospital. It’s known as Gatehouse until 2025, when it changes its name to Support After Sexual Harm (SASH).
1994
North Eastern CASA becomes a service of Austin Health.
CASA Forum is incorporated as an association.
1995
Eastern CASA is established and North Eastern CASA changes its name to Northern CASA.
The Australian Childhood Foundation begins its Transformers Program, working with children under 12 using harmful sexual behaviour.
2001
SECASA starts its sexually abusive behaviours treatment services (SABTS) program, now known as harmful sexual behaviour. It provides services to 12-18-year-olds.
2002
Victoria’s centres against sexual assault participate in the state government’s two steering committees to reduce family violence and sexual assault.
2003 – 2006
The Victorian Law Reform Commission conducts an inquiry into sexual offences, handing down its final report in 2004. CASA Forum and many of its members make submissions, and representatives of two sexual assault services (CASA House and Barwon CASA) sit on the inquiry’s advisory committee. The final report makes important recommendations which lead to landmark reforms being passed in 2006, including establishing multi-disciplinary centres and forensic nurses, and allowing children to prerecord evidence during trials.
2004
CASA House pilots a sexual assault prevention program in secondary schools (SAPPSS), taking a whole-of-school approach to prevention. SAPPSS serves as a model for school-based primary prevention programs delivered by other sexual assault services.
2005
New legislation gives the Children’s Court the ability to place children between 10 and 15 on therapeutic treatment orders, and specialist sexual assault services start receiving funding to provide assessment and treatment services to children and young people with “problem sexual behaviours” and “sexually abusive behaviours” (now known as harmful sexual behaviour).
2006
CASA Central Victoria is funded to provide services to Tarrengower women’s prison, and WestCASA is funded to provide services to the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.
2007
Multidisciplinary Centres (MDC) pilots are started in Mildura with Mallee Sexual Assault Unit, and in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne with South Eastern CASA.
CASA Forum, RMIT and the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACSSA) receive funding from the Victorian Government to begin a sexual assault workforce development project, providing training to workers across the sector on best practice approaches and models for working with victim survivors of sexual assault.
2008
CASA Forum participates in consultations for Australia’s first National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children, which is released in 2011.
2009
Northern CASA and WestCASA receive grants from the federal government’s Respectful Relationships Education grant program to deliver the sexual assault prevention program in secondary schools (SAPPSS) developed by CASA House.
2010
Bass Coast Health’s counselling service is established.
1800 RESPECT launches.
2012
The Upper Murray Centre Against Sexual Assault and the Cooroonya Domestic Violence Centre merge to become the Centre Against Violence.
The Barwon Multidisciplinary Centre opens in Geelong, with the Sexual Assault and Family Violence Centre (SAFVC) moving in.
South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault (SECASA) begins its Making Rights Reality program to provide extra help to adults and children with disability who have experienced sexual assault or family violence.
2014 – 2015
The Victorian Government funds Our Watch to pilot a Respectful Relationships Education program in 19 schools. CASA Forum participates in the program’s reference group, contributing knowledge and experience from various school-based primary prevention programs run by sexual assault services, such as SAPPSS.
2015
Victoria begins a Royal Commission into Family Violence, headed by Marcia Neave. CASA Forum and individual sexual assault services make submissions. The inquiry recommends more collaboration between family violence services and specialist sexual assault services, leading to the implementation of the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment (MARAM) framework and the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme. It also recommends expanding harmful sexual behaviour programs to young people up to 18 years old. Along with DV Victoria (now Safe + Equal), CASA Forum plays an instrumental role in progressing these recommendations.
The Bendigo Multi Disciplinary Centre opens.
2013 – 2017
CASA Forum and specialist sexual assault services make submissions to the Australian Government’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which begins public hearings in 2013. Specialist sexual assault services assist clients with preparing their own submissions and telling their stories to the commission. The Royal Commission hands down its final report in 2017, containing 189 recommendations to make institutions safer for children and set up a national redress scheme.
Media coverage of the Royal Commission leads to increased demand on Victoria’s specialist sexual assault services and an increase in reporting of sexual assault to police. The sector receives a welcome boost in funding to assist with this.
2018
Victoria’s Restore program starts, providing counselling to people who experienced institutional child sexual abuse. The program is led by SECASA as part of a five organisation consortium including all sexual assault services, Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, Open Place, Care Leavers Australasian Network and Drummond Street.
2019
Victoria’s 2019/20 budget allocates funding to design and implement an Aboriginal sexual assault support service model.
2020
CASA Forum reincorporates as Sexual Assault Services Victoria (SASVic).
2021
SASVic receives funding to appoint its inaugural CEO, Kathleen Maltzahn, and begins growing as an organisation.
SASVic makes a submission to the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s into Inquiry into Improving Justice Responses to Sexual Offences. The final report leads to important reforms to the way the law defines consent, as well as updates to image-based abuse offences.
2024
Following SASVic’s advocacy, the Victorian Government announces a pilot program for Justice Navigators.