I'm Liz Atherton, I'm passionate In helping domestic violence victims.
I am an Internationally Certified Life Coach and provide Life Coaching and Life Facilitation to assist other people to lead a happy and safe life, both emotionally and physically.
I have suffered domestic violence and moved through several family court cases and was forced to use government services to gain protection from an abusive ex partner. There are processes that are required and without having sufficient financial support (which victims often are subjected to limited funds), dis-empowered my ability to gain the protection I needed. My goal is to prevent other victims from ever enduring this stressful process and provide knowledge and support to assist victims through the process of exiting their relationships as quickly and safely as possible with the services and systems available to them within Australia and in particular their state.
The Problem
There is 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men suffering from domestic violence by their partner in Australia right now! These are horrible statistics of 19.7% of our population that have begun with emotional abuse and often lead to financial, psychological, sexual, physical violence and sadly sometimes homicide, accounting for 40% of Australian murders.
It can be extremely difficult to exit a relationship, depending on fears, threats, finances available, children, family support, isolation and other stresses. Leaving a relationship when the other parent has access to the children can expose victims to further violence and is why victims return as the stress is too high as they are often paralysed with fear, have no clear path to gain the assistance required, particularly when their is no evidence of physical violence and understand the legal process. Relationships sometimes end when authorities takes a victim seriously when they have physical injuries as proof because the victim acknowledges they are in a domestic violence relationship.
When this process begins, victims are already under immense stress, they get referred to other government departments for support and help which will greatly assist them. However there is no clear path in the process, such as how to protect themselves with psychological violence, how to obtain psychological support and gain financial aid in having family court orders for contact started or amended. There is often referrals to different services but lacks guidance and integration. Therefore victims are left to meander through each service being referred to the other.
Victims need to understand how civil (state) and family courts work, even if it is financial settlement with no children or just a violence protection order. But where victims are already financially implicated, their path forward is held back purely because of lack of funds to pay the "experts" or are simply not supported in some states by the Police acting on their behalf.
Our Solution
To date I have helped several clients develop skills by educating these people with knowledge on how the systems work to enable them to exit their domestic violence relationships and watch them grow into happy individuals. Providing this education will assist many others, especially through providing low cost or free online courses where victims can access the support necessary. Creating a Not-For-Profit business to provide these courses available to all victims Australia Wide so long as victims have support to a community service or other provided computer.
Our Vision
Support shall not only stop there, as the Not-For-Profit business obtains Deductible Gift Recipient status as a charity grants and donations will be tax deductible and therefore further support such as counselling and coaching will be provided to our clients reducing these statistics enormously.
How this will work
Creating a website that will host several courses containing videos explaining the different aspects such as:
- Understanding the different levels of domestic violence
- Triggers and warning points
- Establishing violence protection orders
- Seeking assistance financially from the government
- Understanding how family court process
- Healing and moving forward
- Educating young adults the dynamics of domestic violence through schools
- Developing indigenous support systems in remote places.
- Support and educating domestic violence support workers such as Police, Doctors, Psychologists, Nurses, Community Services of our courses and provide referrals for their clients.
We need your help
We can't do this on our own. We need Australia's help to assist us to start the business and create the courses.
By supporting this campaign, you will be a part of something big. You will be changing the domestic violence numbers, improving the government support and awareness and most of all impact the number of children witnessing violence repeating the patterns throughout their adulthood.
You can support our mission by buying some of our great branded stationery items, gift vouchers, website & social media advertising and Key Note Speaking with our CEO Liz Atherton at your place of choice! Or just donate any amount you choose, so every single dollar will go towards this project.
