Completed Projects
2009 Common Cents: Common Cents is a financial capability mentoring program funded by the Victorian Women's Trust that was completed in December 2009. This project was highly successful, with some mentor pairs continuing to meet after the funding ceased. Significant financial awareness, understanding and changed circumstance were gained for the women, due to the encouragement and support of their mentors
Abortion has been removed from the Victorian Crimes Act and to be regulated as a health service.
Our joining together with so many organisations and individuals has resulted in this monumental achievement.
Many thanks to everyone who contributed. Thanks in particular to members of the Victorian Parliament who approached this significant decision with deep reflection which led to incredibly informed debate. Many thanks to those women and men who assisted by providing leadership within and across the political parties.
Sixteen women from across the Goulburn Valley and North East Victoria participated in this research project which WHGNE conducted in 2003. The first document records their experiences and their recommendations for change; the accompanying research report evaluates these findings.
Stories of Women Leaving Violent Situations
Woman to Woman is a qualitative participatory research designed to explore the effects of breast cancer and breast cancer treatment on rural women. The women were asked to reflect on the effect of breast cancer on their lives generally and on the nature and quality of the services they received. They spoke about what was helpful to them and gave their views on how services may be further enhanced.
Count Me Two , an action research project undertaken from September 2001- September 2002, has sought to discover barriers to sexual health and to identify or develop strategies that potentially improve sexual health for women with intellectual disability. The work has been conducted in Wangaratta in partnership with women with intellectual disability, service providers and training providers.
Further work involved a partnership between women with disabilities and health practitioners working for health promotion and education.
Due to the success of the creative arts project for the 1999 Week Without Violence, another project was developed to incorporate creative arts therapy into existing family violence support groups for women and young people in the Hume region in 2000, by Jacquie Coupe.
Between January and September 1996, Project Worker, Ruth Barr undertook this project, which aimed to improve the local service system’s response to women experiencing postnatal depression. A focus in this research was that the voices of women as consumers of health and community services be heard. The Project gathered information through interviews with Wangaratta women, postal survey of service providers and two information seminars. The project reports findings using the three strands of:
- service systems structure, range of services and preferred service models
- detection and recognition of postnatal depression, and
- linkages and service co-ordination.
Recommendations are made in regard to:
· achieving a specialist support service for PND in Wangaratta.
· community and professional education
· detection and assessment
· antenatal education, and
· referral and co-ordination.
By Themselves was a research project undertaken to investigate the specific housing and support needs of young pregnant and parenting women in the City of Greater Shepparton. This project grew from concern felt in Shepparton in the mid 1990s that there were many young pregnant women and young mothers whose needs for assistance from community service agencies were unable to be met. Shepparton has roughly twice the average Victoria birth rate for young women 15-19 years. The project auspice was Goulburn Accommodation Program Inc. and Women's Health Goulburn North East successfully tendered for the project consultancy. The study commenced in January 1997 conducted by Project Worker Ruth Barr.The research included individual interviews, focus groups and consultation with service providers.
The project outcomes included:
- Wesley Uniting Church, Shepparton making available a property owned by them for an integrated, intensive, case-managed housing and support service for a lead tenant and two young women under 20 and their children, and
- improvement of the existing framework of housing and support services.
