SASVic Members Hub
Resources and Practice Tools
Delve into practice guidance and sexual violence resources
Below you’ll find a range of resources on areas from addressing barriers faced by migrant and refugee survivors to the impacts of pornography.
> SASVic fact sheets
> Practice guidance
> Booklets and information for clients
SASVIC Fact Sheets
Centre of Advancing Women Practice Tips
Through a partnership with grassroots organisation Centre of Advancing Women, SASVic has explored what factors within the specialist sexual assault sector may contribute to barriers for migrant and refugee survivors of sexual violence in accessing services.
You can read the report, Access to Sexual Assault Services for Refugee Background Women, published by Centre of Advancing Women as part of this partnership. The report includes recommendations for the sector.
As part of this project, SASVic has published a tip sheet for practitioners.
Child sexual abuse and grooming
SASVic has developed two information pages to help people, including parents and caregivers, understand and respond to child sexual abuse and grooming.
SASVic also developed the podcast, ‘Support children to recovery after child sexual abuse’ in response to alleged child sexual abuse perpetrated in child care centres in Melbourne. The podcast features four practitioners from the specialist sexual assault sector: Caroline Whitehouse, Blythe McAuley, Shureeka Alves and Michael Derby.
Listen on Podbean or Spotify
Watch on Vimeo
Non-fatal strangulation (NFS)
Non-fatal strangulation is pressure applied to the neck that compresses or blocks airflow and/or blood flow that doesn’t cause immediate death. Sexual strangulation, colloquially known as ‘choking’ has become an increasingly common part of sex for many younger people and is frequently used in pornography. However, it is never safe, even when there may be consent, as even modest amounts of pressure can result in health risks.
You can learn more about NFS in the context of sexual violence and family violence, including risks, response and legislation, in our fact sheet.
More NFS resources
- Breathless campaign
- It left no marks (Women’s Health NSW)
- A guide by Scarleteen developed for young people or to use with young people on safer alternatives to sexual strangulation
The impacts of pornography
Services are increasingly seeing the impacts of pornography, both in their work with survivors of sexual assault and with children and young people who use harmful sexual behaviour. Mainstream pornography features high levels of gendered aggression and violence, reinforcing many of the gendered drivers of violence against women, including condoning violence and stereotypical views about gender roles.
You can learn more by downloading our fact sheet or reading our discussion paper.
More resources on the impacts of pornography
‘It’s time we talked’: a violence prevention project to understand and address the influence of pornography
Community of Practices (CoPs) Fact Sheet
Community of Practices, or CoPs, are used to enable sector staff to regularly meet with others who have shared interest or experience to facilitate information sharing, explore concerns and themes, and collectively develop their expertise in a particular domain.
PRACTICE GUIDANCE
The REACH Project Practitioner Guidelines
Understanding what helps people to recover after sexual violence is core to the specialist sexual assault sector’s work. The REACH Project does just that, finding that meaning making, non-traditional therapies and justice can be important for recovery, as well as one-to-one specialist sexual assault counselling.
This research was undertaken by SASVic, the University of Melbourne and Women with Disabilities Victoria. As part of the project, we also published practitioner guidelines to translate the findings into practice.
Engaging with victims and survivors of child sexual abuse: A practice guide for workers and organisations: An Australian Government initiative
This practice guide includes evidence-based information and comprehensive resources to help specialist sexual assault services respond to children, young people and adults who are victim survivors of child sexual abuse.
Best Practice Supervision Guidelines: Family violence, sexual assault and child wellbeing
These guidelines present best practice guidance and examples to help our sector provide regular and effective supervision for their workforces.
Best Practice Supervision Guidelines >
Videos and discussion guides >
e-Safety Commissioner support services resources
Technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) is an ever-evolving form of sexual violence. The e-Safety Commissioner provides resources for frontline workers to help them support people dealing with TFSV, including how to request material to be removed.
Transfemme practice guide
This practice guide responds to the objectification and fetishisation of trans women and trans feminine people by cisgender men.
BOOKLETS AND INFORMATION TO SHARE
Making Rights Reality Easy Read Booklets
Making Rights Reality is a program at South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault (SECASA) that provides extra help to adults and children with disability who have experienced sexual violence or family violence. The program aims to make sure people with disability have equal access to counselling, the criminal justice system and the Financial Assistance Scheme. It is available across all SECASA sites. Easy Read Booklets have been developed as part of Making Rights Reality.
Easy Read is a communication format specifically designed to make content simple, clear and easily understandable
- Counselling after sexual assault booklet >
- Crisis care after sexual assault booklet >
- Money to help you after sexual assault booklet >
- Having a health check after sexual assault booklet >
- Common feelings after sexual violence booklet *new* >
- What is grooming? booklet > *new*
- Making the decision to tell someone booklet *new* >
If you have any feedback on these booklets, please email comms@sasvic.org.au
More Easy Read resources:
Resources from the CASAForum website
Creative Arts in Group Work by Susan Bradborn, CASA House (2010) >
Susan Bradborn discusses how creative arts as a useful tool in sexual assault support group activities and how it can be integrated in many ways using a variety of modalities.
Dissociation and complex trauma by Esen Uygun, WestCASA (2014)
In this paper, Esen Uygen focuses on the work of Van der Hart, Nijenhuis and Steele’s (2006) The Theory of Structural Dissociation of the Personality (TSDP) in primary, secondary and tertiary level and how to work with these kind of presentation holding the 3-phase trauma in mind.
Sexual violence research and evaluations
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