Hi everyone,
This week the Victorian budget was handed down by Treasurer Jaclyn Symes, who was previously Attorney-General.
Before I go to that, though, thank you so much to SECASA's Amanda Parkinson and Nadine Ramsay for yesterday's Member Services Forum on older adults who have experienced sexual assault. SECASA is doing great work in this area, having developed a comprehensive model aimed at improving access to sexual assault services for older adults.
This year's budget had three wins, one significant and surprising, one a medium win, and one very small but helpful.
As you know, we've been campaigning hard for funding to develop an emergency response to CSA in schools, in collaboration with the Department of Education, in response to your feedback about the growing number of school-related SV, and the strain of having to balance responding well and quickly with maintaining work with existing clients. As you'll see below, the budget has $7.4 million for this work - a wonderful surprise to see in the budget papers.
The budget also extended the lapsing funding for direct service work in the sector for two years, which had been 25 per cent of all funding. Interestingly, at the VCOSS budget lunch yesterday, the Treasurer showed she was aware of the impact of short-term funding, and said she was looking at the lengths of contracts.
Finally, our small win. Until now, SV funding has been bundled under FV funding, so you couldn't tell how much funding was for our sector's work. Following advocacy to the government, this year for the first time, our funding was clearly set out under its own setting.
So thank you to everyone who joined their voice to our campaigning!
In solidarity,
Kathleen
CEO, SASVic
