Domestic Violence Line
Responsible government
- New South Wales
Fourth Action Plan actions
- Improve support and service system responses
- 16 Enable workforces to provide trauma-informed support with a focus on safety and recovery to victims and survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence.
- 17 Collaborate across services, sectors and workforces to ensure responses to women affected by domestic, family and sexual violence are coordinated, meet women’s needs, avoid women having to retell their story and promote their recovery.
What are we doing?
The NSW Government’s Domestic Violence Line (DV Line) is a 24/7 crisis intervention service for women who experience intimate partner or ex-partner violence. The service provides crisis counselling, advocacy, and assists with referrals to crisis accommodation and women’s refuges. Male callers are also referred to appropriate services.
Women experiencing violence are provided crisis counselling over the phone and/or referred directly to services for face-to-face assessment and support, using interpreter services when needed.
What have we achieved so far?
In 2019-20 and 2020-21, the NSW DV Line received over 20,000 and 22,000 calls respectively, where counselling and referrals were provided to women experiencing domestic and family violence. The average speed with which calls were answered was under one minute and thirty seconds, providing a responsive service for women in crisis or requiring support.
In 2020, the NSW DV Line undertook a project with Dillwynia prison in partnership with Corrections NSW and the Community Restorative Centre (CRC) to offer counselling support to women incarcerated, by adding the service number to the free call list. Corrections NSW and the CRC are now exploring the possibility of expanding this across all women’s prisons in NSW.
The NSW DV Line is regularly involved in promotional campaigns which raise awareness of services and supports available to women experiencing domestic violence. Most recently, the NSW DV Line has been involved in the ‘Speak Out’ campaign. This campaign focuses on sending a clear message to women who may be experiencing violence to “Speak out. We will listen to you, believe you and help you.” The campaign is also running in the CALD community, advertised in Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi and Punjabi languages.
The NSW Domestic Violence Line are currently developing a web chat function and this will be launched in January 2022. This will provide an alternate way to access the service for women who may not feel safe to call the line, or who may prefer to use a chat function to seek support.
What is next?
The DV Line operations will continue to identify opportunities to enhance the service and align it with broader domestic and family violence strategy.
The service is focusing on enhancing support provided to vulnerable groups, such as women with a disability, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander women and women from CALD communities.
The DV Line will continue to actively engage with the service sector to build relationships for referrals and better pathways for women and children experiencing violence.
What difference will we make?
The DV Line ensures women in crisis have timely and responsive 24/7 access to comprehensive support regardless of where they live in NSW.