RESEARCH TO POLICY AND PRACTICE

Women’s Input into a Trauma-informed systems model of care in Health settings: The WITH study.
Key findings and future directions

Survivors of sexual violence can experience a range of trauma-related mental health problems, and pre-existing mental illness can also increase women’s vulnerability to sexual violence. However, although mental health and sexual violence services often see the same women, there is often a lack of communication and cross-referrals between services.

Based in Victoria and New South Wales, the research drew on qualitative work with women, stakeholders, and practitioners, as well as digital storytelling, and engaged with evidence and current theory around systems change in health settings. The findings provide guidance for future improvements to the health care system when responding to women with mental health problems and sexual violence, and other co-existing conditions that lead to trauma.

Trauma-informed care seeks to create safety for patients by understanding the effects of trauma and its close links to health and behaviour. Ideally, women experiencing mental health problems and sexual violence would have a pathway to safety and care no matter which service they approach first. But there has been little evaluative evidence to inform organisational and systems change, and no current organisational model outlines how services can optimally undertake trauma-informed care when both mental health problems and a history of sexual violence are present.

 

 

Publication details

ANROWS Compass (Research to policy and practice papers) are concise papers that summarise key findings of research on violence against women and their children, including research produced under ANROWS’s research program, and provide advice on the implications for policy and practice.

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Authors

PROFESSOR KELSEY HEGARTY
The University of Melbourne

DR LAURA TARZIA
Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne

MS ALYSSHA FOOKS
Project Manager, The Royal Women’s Hospital

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR SUSAN REES
The University of New South Wales