Mackay Women’s service welcomes Domestic Violence support hub

A new program aims at offering help for unreported domestic and family violence as support services experience surge in cases.

Mackay Whitsunday District Officer Superintendent Dean Cavanagh, CEO of Mackay Women's Services Belinda Berg and Senior Sergeant Kane Hildebrand discuss their new partnership helping victims of domestic and family violence. Photo: Luke Lay

Support workers say a new program could bolster help for victim survivors of domestic violence as Mackay services are stretched under the increasing number of people seeking help.

This comes following a 220 per cent increase in police responses to domestic and family violence in the past 10 years.

In 2025 alone, Mackay Women’s Services have already reported 2300 people walking through their doors in need of support.

Those figures have sparked a new partnership between the service centre and Mackay Whitsunday Police, with a specialist police officer now embedded at MWS offering first hand support to victim survivors.

Practice Manager Stacy Irwin welcomed the new program to support DV services experiencing a surge in cases.

Mackay Whitsunday District Officer Superintendent Dean Cavanagh described the program as a way to bring change to the alarming trend and to help bridge a gap between unreported incidents of domestic abuse.

“We need something different with our service delivery … and one of those best methods that we can put in place is this partnership,” he said.

Practice Manager Stacy Irwin said a range of factors prevented survivors from coming forward leaving many incidents unreported.

“We’re talking about persons who are extremely vulnerable, who are experiencing a number of high risk factors, who need more immediate policing response, it means that they can access that service here with us in the safety of our centre,” she said.

Mackay Whitsunday District Officer Superintendent Dean Cavanagh said the program could bring much needed help to unreported victims of domestic abuse.

“When we see victim survivors coming in, the vast majority of them are also experiencing housing instability.”

Senior Sergeant Kane Hildebrand said the program would try to make it easier for survivors “living in fear” and who are afraid to seek help.

“We’re also aware that there’s significant unreported domestic and family violence in our community,” he said.

“We’re looking to create sort of a hub, where they hub that opportunity to engage with all services at one location and get that support they need”

“This is going to hopefully bring back some of that power and control to the victim survivor.”

Originally published as Mackay Women’s service welcomes Domestic Violence support hub