Counselling wait lists worsen as sexual violence claims spike

An article from The Manawatu Standard by Georgia Forrester.

Social services are  under strain as more people seek support for incidents of sexual violence.
Abuse and Rape Crisis Support Manawatu (ARCS) manager Ann Kent said the service was at capacity and had extended its hours in Palmerston North and Horowhenua, yet it still hadn't made a dent in its waiting list.
There was a two-to-three-month waiting list at ARCS for its counselling services.
The number of Manawatū people claiming ACC support for sexual violence cases had also spiked in the past year.
Figures released by ACC show there was a 24.2 per cent spike in claims made in the Manawatū District in the past financial year.
People who have experienced sexual abuse or sexual assault can lodge a sensitive claim with ACC and seek cover and entitlements for treatment, rehabilitation and compensation.
The number of sensitive claims made in Palmerston North increased by 16.3 per cent between 2015/16 and 2016/17.
Manawatū District claim costs reached $930,000 in the past year, with $2.5 million in costs paid to claims in Palmerston North.
Palmerston North was just below the national increase, which was up 16.5 per cent.
ACC redesigned its sensitive claim service in 2014 to improve accessibility,  but figures between 2012 and 2017 show a gradual increase in claims in the Manawatū area.
Kent said the ACC system was great,  but the current demand on counselling services was challenging and they were not able to keep up.
"I'm not aware of any agencies that are not experiencing an extra demand."
In an ideal world, counselling services would be offered to people there and then, but it was not realistic, she said.
During the nearly 10 years Kent had been a manager at the service, she had seen staff and client numbers jump.
Client numbers for counselling had remained steady in the past two years, but that was due to services already being at capacity, she said.
The service had expanded over time to keep up with demand, but there was no more funding available for further expansion.
Kent was unable to say whether there had been any increase in incidents of sexual violence.
"We believe that a lot of the increase is due to people being prepared to come forward to get support rather than keep silent about the abuse that they have experienced."
Police figures show reports of sexual assault and related offending tended to fluctuate monthly in the Central District.
There were 553 reports made in 2016 in the Central District, which includes Manawatū, Whanganui and Taranaki.
So far there had been 270 reports in the first six months of 2017.
Although there had not been a national campaign against sexual violence specifically, Kent said the 'It's Not OK' domestic violence campaign likely benefited the cause.
About 40 per cent of cases of violence between partners also involved sexual violence, she said.
Although there was a waiting list, Kent said social work services were still offered to people in the meantime. She encouraged people to come forward and use the services.
"What we don't want is for people to feel alone in this. We don't want them to feel completely isolated."
Green Party spokeswoman Jan Logie understood the pressure services were under, as some organisations had already raised concerns with her about heavy staff case loads.
Research showed only about one in 10 victims of sexual violence were reported.
"What we are seeing at the moment is still the tip of the iceberg."
However Logie said two-to-three-month waiting lists were too long.
A person may have waited 20 years before the trauma became too much and they finally sought help from a service. Those people needed help there and then.
Although preventative work was under way, there was still a lot of work to be done, she said.
A free national sexual violence helpline is scheduled to go live to the public on December 1, rolled out by the Ministry of Social Development.

© 2017 Fairfax New Zealand Ltd

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/97663396/counselling-wait-lists-worsen-as-sexual-violence-claims-spike

Dame Paula Rebstock has learnt to ignore the criticism that comes with the job

An article from Stuff by Jo Moir

Public servant Paula Rebstock has been recognised for her services to the state by being made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Jo Moir spoke to her about her most challenging roles, the sacrifices and how she deals with, often negative, public scrutiny. Money-hungry, a patchy performer, unqualified for your job: for most people, having those insults hurled your way would make 2015 an annus horribilis.
For Paula Rebstock, however, the barbs were nothing compared to some of the darkest days in her career.
When a lone gunman walked into a Work and Income office in Ashburton in September 2014, killing two staff and leaving a third seriously injured, Rebstock - chairwoman of the Work and Income board - stood alongside workers and the community as they struggled to make sense of the tragedy.
"The senseless loss of life of staff, those things are the things that are truly hard to deal with, and those things put life in perspective."
Now, her appointment as a Dame Companion of the NZ Order of Merit has provided a new perspective on her years of work. On New Year's Eve, Rebstock, her husband and two daughters will take up glasses of bubbles from their holiday home in the Bay of Islands, toasting a successful year rounded off with a "surprising" honour that brought her to tears.
Standing in the kitchen with her husband while opening the mail, Rebstock thought nothing of a letter from Government House, assuming it was her annual invite to Waitangi Day commemorations.
"I opened it and was really quite taken back. My husband said to me, 'What is wrong with you?' and I handed him the letter with tears running down my face. He looked at me and said, 'Oh God'."
Rebstock's two daughters, aged 20 and 24, have made "a lot of allowances for the certain work schedule their mother keeps" so she was straight on the phone to tell them the news.
"It was a special family moment, no question."
This isn't Rebstock's first award: after completely revamping the Commerce Commission, she was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009.
Rebstock, originally from Montana in the United States, moved to New Zealand in 1987 and says the honour helped her to feel at home.
"For me it was something about being accepted in this country and really being a New Zealander like everyone else."
First employed by Treasury as an economist, she then served in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet before moving to the Commerce Commission, where she became chair in 2003.
"When I left the Commerce Commission I always thought that would be the thing in my career I'd most feel proud of because we really did shift the work of the Commerce Commission to be far more productive."
On leaving the Commission in 2009, Rebstock was asked to lead an expert panel on probation services, which at the time was "really in a state of crisis".
"They were an agency under siege."
After cleaning up that mess, Rebstock moved onto ACC where her first experience on the board was a "terrible privacy breach". Details of thousands of ACC clients, some who fell under sensitive claims, were accidentally sent to ACC claimant Bronwyn Pullar.
"It really rocked the organisation...it involved a fairly large transformation in order to earn back the trust and confidence of our customers."
Most recently, Rebstock has been chairing a review of Child Youth and Family - a government department that has endured years of overhauls but no real change.
"If I'm honest I don't think I realised how big a challenge it was going to be...we've not done well by children who come into the care of the state."
Labour leader Andrew Little was scathing about her $2000-a-day salary for the review, saying she was "in it for herself" in what he described as a "pretty patchy career".
Rebstock is not new to criticism of her work, singling out "relentless" scrutiny while at the Commerce Commission, but says she does not let the political jibes get the best of her.
"These things are political processes and it's part of the game...it would be crazy if I allowed myself to get caught up in that - that's not to say at the time I didn't think, 'Gosh, why am I doing this again?'."
For now, it's Christmas at home, then a month at the beach and much excitement at the news her elderly parents and sister plan to travel to New Zealand in the New Year to celebrate her honour.
"People have to make a lot of allowances for you in their life when you get involved in a lot of these things and my family have always done that."

© 2016 Fairfax New Zealand Ltd

www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/75403036/Dame-Paula-Rebstock-has-learnt-to-ignore-the-criticism-that-comes-with-the-job