St John’s Community Services Darlinghurst
January - May 2019
The Challenge
St John’s Community Services, in Darlinghurst in inner Sydney, has decades of experience running quality social services to support the local homeless community. They wanted to design a program with a high level of technical rigour specifically targeting women leaving domestic violence. St John’s was interested in testing their hypothesis that there was a need for more support for women experiencing domestic violence in the local area. They wanted the program designed as a pilot with guidance on monitoring and evaluation to equip the board to decide whether to extend beyond the six-month trial.
The solution
We worked with St John’s to provide a program design document that mapped other local services to identify gaps, consolidated advice from other domestic violence services and survivors, set out the program logic, and provided a risk management matrix, a budget, and terms of reference for staff. The program design proposed creating a drop-in cafe for women who have left domestic violence. The cafe is to be staffed by a social worker supported by a team of female volunteers to offer a listening ear, practical support, legal advice, safety planning, and accompaniment to appointments.
The outcome
The client was happy with the design and the program is now operating as Banksia Women, a service for women who have experienced domestic violence to access casework support through a social worker who has been employed full-time. In the early days of operation, the social worker already has a full caseload of clients through referrals from local services, and there is enough demand to consider employing another staff member. The social worker reports on the pilot’s impact to the board using the guidance in the program design document.
More information about the current program can be viewed on the Banksia Women website.
