Promising Practice Programs

16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign

Agency Women's Health Statewide
Website http://www.whs.sa.gov.au
Contact Senior Project Officer
Phone (08) 8239 9600
Email info@whs.sa.gov.au
Start date January 2002
End date February 2003
The program will run again in the future.
Program type Community awareness/education
Geographical area Urban (Adelaide, SA)
Target group Women
Adult survivors
Male victims
Service providers
Description This program was a consciousness raising campaign aimed at increasing awareness about the prevalence rate of childhood sexual abuse as it relates to adults survivors. It was also about the importance of listening and believing adults when they disclose their experiences. Another aim of the program was to dispel the myth that child sexual assault only happens to someone else.

The following campaign message was developed:
1 in 3 Women are survivors of childhood sexual abuse, we are your grandmothers, mothers, sisters, daughters, partners, cousins, friends... Listen, Believe... Make our Journey Easier...
The strategies developed for distributing the campaign message relied on a range of resources. These included:

  • Eleven 24ft x 2ft bus posters, placed on metropolitan buses for periods of 4-8 weeks.
  • An Avant Card distribution of 10,000 free postcards carrying campaign messages to a range of venues across Adelaide. Two postcard types were distributed: one replicated the bus message as above, the other was developed for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
  • A poster with the same visual image as the bus poster was printed and distributed to community agencies. In addition a pamphlet was developed to support families, partners and friends to understand the effects of child sexual abuse on women survivors.
Promising practice examples Takes account of contemporary research and practice developments in the field of sexual assault.
Demonstrates a sensitivity towards the barriers faced by victim/survivors in disclosing and reporting sexual assault.
Includes processes of accountability and evaluation.
Demonstrates a capacity for replication (i.e. other services/organisations could adapt/re-model the program for their use).

Community awareness campaign to promote community understanding around disclosure by women who were subjected to childhood sexual abuse. Part of this awareness raising was alerting the community to prevalence rates of childhood sexual abuse in the adult population.
Philosophical framework This program is underpinned by a feminist understanding of childhood sexual abuse. It was also informed by a primary health care approach to making inequalities in health visible.
Publications Stojadinovic, T. (2003) "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence: Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Listen and Believe Community Campaign and Child Sexual Abuse", Australian Institute of Criminology Conference, Child Sexual Abuse: Justice Response or Alternative Resolution, Adelaide. Available at www.aic.gov.au/conferences/2003-abuse/stojadinovic.html

Women's Health Statewide, 2004, "Evaluation of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign Report". Available at www.whs.sa.gov.au
Evaluation Internal evaluation.
The evaluation incorporated both qualitative and quantitative measures. Levels of distribution, take up rate of the two postcards, pamphlet and posters were used to evaluate the program. In addition, anecdotal data collected from women survivors of childhood sexual abuse who were involved in the development of resources and the launch of the campaign were used.

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