Inside the secret place saving women

It is one of Melbourne’s most secret addresses, hidden behind a high, but nondescript fence and protected by 16 security cameras that are monitored constantly.

There are no signs indicating what this place is, and it is not on any map. There is one door in and out, and anyone granted entry must sign a strict nondisclosure agreement. Everyone at intake has their belongings swept for trackers (some form of which is found on more than 70 per cent).

Inside, it is flooded with natural light and as homely as it can be given the security required at one of the few, non-motel, places in Victoria where those at the highest risk of being killed by partners come to stay alive – and receive tools to start an independent existence.

As a couple of women, known as clients, sit quietly with case managers in what is set up to feel like a loungeroom, a nurse walks the hallway cradling a newborn baby while its mother gets some rest. The gender of the baby cannot be given here for safety reasons.

Dr Chelsea Tobin, seated in a Safe Steps crisis shelter unit, is determined to get Victorian women at risk of death by family violence into adequate accommodation and out of motels, where they can be left for days. Credit: Eddie Jim

The mother came to Safe Steps’ pilot “wrap around” service, Sanctuary, in late pregnancy, fleeing a man who threatened both of their lives.

Staff made a birth plan in case she went into labour when the part-time nurse was off-duty. They went with her to support her during the premature birth by caesarean, then brought the pair back.

“This is our first baby born here,” says Safe Steps chief executive Dr Chelsea Tobin, who is given permission by the mother for the baby to be photographed so long as their identity is not revealed.

“We are doing post-natal care, post-surgery checks, making sure the baby’s latching on – we’ve also got baby scales, the baby was underweight at birth,” she says.

The baby’s mother is one of seven women and nine children currently residing here, with one of the seven units empty for a few hours after its previous occupant left this morning, taking her pet rabbit. “It will be full again tonight,” says Tobin.

The woman who left could return safely to a family member’s home, “because the person using violence has been remanded until mid-June, and it’s likely he’s going to prison once he goes to court,” says Sanctuary’s residential manager, Nicole.

A child’s bedroom, vacant only for a few hours after the last resident transitioned out of Safe Steps’ high-security facility, Sanctuary.Credit: Eddie Jim

Nicole and her team manage everything from the child protection process to emergency dentistry for clients who have been unable to access healthcare. They work fast during the women’s stays of up to three weeks to set them up as best they can for a new life, reducing the chance they will be forced back to the old one.

One woman here came with multiple lacerations in her mouth caused by her braces when she was beaten to the head by her partner. The wires had been broken during his previous assaults, and she had tried to remove them with pliers because he had blocked her from visiting the dentist.

She arrived straight from hospital, with extensive bruising to her body and face. The children with her saw many attacks, says Tobin, and “[she] had multiple loose teeth from the [latest] assault”. Some of these had to be removed, Nicole says.

Another woman staying when The Age visited was 32 weeks pregnant and being forcibly sent overseas by her partner to have the pregnancy terminated when she called Safe Steps’ crisis line. She was put in a motel for a night, then moved to Sanctuary the following day.

A fourth client direct from hospital received multiple bruises, burns and cuts from “being dragged around the house by her hair while being assaulted”, Tobin says. Another was beaten with a golf club by her partner and lost an eye.

In February, a woman arrived after having been forced to return to her violent partner when he threatened to kill her cats; he sent her graphic photos of him holding one off the ground by its throat, causing her to go back.

When she did, says Tobin, “she was physically assaulted and entered Safe Steps’ motel accommodation directly from hospital”. She was transferred here the following day, and staff and police retrieved her cats and brought them to her.

As Australians protest a wave of recent, high-profile killings of women, allegedly murdered by violent men, Tobin is among those demanding that more women like these – at high risk of serious harm, but also needing a range of supports to help them establish lives away from abusers – receive this kind of support, rather than lingering in motels.

Two clients staying in the Safe Steps ‘Sanctuary’ service do an activity with case workers in a light-filled communal area.Credit: Eddie Jim

Every night in Victoria, Tobin says, approximately 200 women and children in similar situations are housed in hotels and motels because there are no available, supported places.

Safe Steps is Victoria’s 24/7 family violence response service, and prides itself on assessment of risk, but managing it is far more difficult for women in private accommodation.

“Ninety-three per cent of our Category One [emergency] incidents happen when women are in motels,” she says. These include “suicide, abduction, death, multiple emergency services being called.”

In here, nothing is left to chance. In the front office, a whiteboard is crammed with detail about each resident and the status of their health, legal, income and other administrative needs, including children’s vaccinations. To reduce the need for them to go out, all their requirements are met by organisations sending services on-site.

Dr Chelsea Tobin, an economist-turned chief executive at Safe Steps, says most critical incidents involving those fleeing violence happen when they are housed in motels because supported places such as Sanctuary are too few on the ground.Credit: Eddie Jim

Any police or legal visits, to help secure personal safety orders, are listed on the board, as well as any Centrelink visits. Whether the woman was able to grab identification when she fled, or if it and other property needs to be retrieved by police and staff – possible with intervention orders – is also listed.

The streets, suburbs or shopping centres where it is unsafe for each client to go, or where clients need to be accompanied for protection are catalogued. A few metres from the board is a bedroom for the staff member rostered on each night. The clients are never left unattended.

“We’ve got 10 days to three weeks on average in this crisis space, so we work very intensively and very quickly to meet as many protective factors as we can,” says Nicole. “[This is] so they can exit back into the community safely, or find a refuge vacancy where they can then concentrate on housing options.”

To keep children connected with education, one room here is set up as a little classroom, and today a teacher is sitting at a low table with a bunch of kids doing some reading.

Their mothers have often had their movements controlled by the perpetrator and have not had access to employment, so they are given basic training to work in a café or hairdressing salon while they are in Sanctuary. This is all done to try to boost their chances of a “safe exit”.

“I don’t see this as a crisis centre, but as a secondary prevention tool, because of 200 people who have been through it [since its quiet opening last October], only one person has gone back to the perpetrator,” says Tobin. “Whereas with motels, there is a 50 per cent unsafe exit rate.”

A safe exit means being able to avoid returning to the dangerous home, and to forge a new start away from the perpetrator, including getting children re-connected with school, getting work and establishing independent profiles with government services such as Medicare.

This is vital to strike out alone, but Nicole says one of the most personally rewarding aspects of her job is seeing women and children become less subdued. She sees mothers and children starting to relax during music and play therapy sessions.

The private counselling room where victim-survivors of family violence can begin to receive therapy for trauma, or pray if they wish.Credit: Eddie Jim

“At the start they are quiet; [but] even toddlers and infants, who don’t make eye-contact with other adults, within a couple of days they’re running around squealing, the dummies are out of their mouths, they’re not so [physically] attached to mum,” she says.

It is a joy to see mothers and children “learning to touch again without fear – because touch has been about violence.”

Though women staying in the centre when The Age visits are too fearful to speak to media, even anonymously, one recent client is willing to talk, with Nicole’s introduction. She wants to stress the difference made by such comprehensive support.

“When I escaped from my house, I had no vision of the future,” says the woman, who was given the Safe Steps number by another organisation she had turned to for help to escape abuse. “I was in a lot of pain from the physical violence that happened to me.

“Because I was also abused financially, I didn’t have enough money [for accommodation], and I was really scared and confronted when that organisation said to me, ‘you might not find any places … because you’ve got a car, you can sleep in your car’,” she said.

Safe Steps’ placed her in a hotel before moving to Sanctuary for three weeks of recovery. “I never thought I was going to be in the status of ‘victim survivor’; victim, I don’t even like that word, but they empowered me to reach the status of survivor.

“They supported me to find a transitional house. Now I’m being supported with another organisation, which helps survivors in the longer term,” she said. “In summary: they shaped my future.”

The phone number for Victoria’s 24/7 family violence response line, Safe Steps, is 1800 015 188. If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636.

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