Tryphina House, Whangarei Women's Refuge

Tryphina House continues to provide 24 hour crisis services, advice, information and support 7 days per week to families, friends, agencies and other referrers, for an increasing number of people in our community.

The activities, services and programmes provided by Tryphina House are diverse. Last year we noted that a number of factors were likely to impact on our operating budget. In particular the increasing number of women with children presenting with no source of income and experiencing severe financial difficulty requiring practical and emergency support which had contributed to a decline in income received for accommodation costs and a corresponding increase in our emergency expenditure.

Notwithstanding the record number of referrals into our service over the past 12 months we have also forecast a $50,000 decrease in confirmed funding for the current financial year. Therefore it has become a priority for us to find the additional resourcing required for Tryphina House to meet the existing demand for service without compromising the safety and wellbeing of our women and children.

Tryphina House continues to work with vulnerable families to reduce their vulnerability through enhanced and situational safety planning to isolate, remove and reduce risk, through to comprehensive support plans designed to develop women and children’s coping skills to manage stressful situations, create supportive and trusting relationships and involve families in meaningful activities, whether that be parenting, volunteering, working or educational and training opportunities. We also look to tackle the root causes of inequality, isolation, discrimination and poverty. This year we have continued to attend a number of forums to raise and discuss our concerns in regards to the ongoing issues effecting our communities most at risk.

Our 24-hour Crisis Line is staffed by trained advocates to provide emergency access for women and children to our Safe House. We also provide emergency information and advice to other statutory and community agencies, and victims of violence with provision for follow-up community-based work and counselling. Our after hours Crisis Line continues to be shared with our sister Refuge Te Puna O Te Aroha.

Statistics for the year ended 30 June 2017 show that Tryphina House Staff and Crisis Line Volunteers at Tryphina House received or made a total of 12,554 calls which were either crisis calls requiring an immediate response or from people in the community seeking advice and information or directly related to women and children being supported in the community or a residential Refuge safe house including referrals to health and other services. Tryphina House Staff and Collective Members also contributed thousands of hours of their voluntary time over the year to answer the crisis line and support women and children after hours.

Residential support includes the provision of 24-hour access to safe accommodation, emergency supplies, clothing and transport for women and children. Support and advocacy services provide information and assistance with health needs, legal matters, housing, access to benefits, and referrals to other community and statutory agencies as required. All clients are worked with from a case management perspective, which includes the acknowledgement of needs beyond the immediate crisis and abuse issues.

For the year ended 30 June 2017: Tryphina House supported 113 residential clients across our two safe houses. The total bed nights provided for was 5,458 which in comparison to the 2016 financial year was 4,561 and the average length of stay in the safe house was 49.62 nights which in comparison to the 2016 year was 38.33 nights. Due to the ongoing housing issues in Whangarei women and children are staying in our safe houses longer, which has meant that we have had to consistently look to other safety avenues as both our safe houses have been consistently full throughout the year.

Our community support includes advocacy for women and children living with violence. Advocates educate women about the cycle of violence and the impacts on children, and help both women and children to develop safety plans and Advocacy and support with health needs, legal matters, housing, access to benefits, and referrals to other community and statutory agencies as required. Community-based support is also available to former safe house residents who move back into the community.

Outreach support focuses on improving the ability of high risk individuals and their families to improve their current situation. The service works to prevent and reduce re-victimization and re-offending and includes comprehensive safety and support planning. The service is designed to provide longer and higher intensity support to high risk victims, and more complex women and children whose circumstances are impacted by; active charges and/or prior criminal offending, alcohol and drug use and/or mental health and/or the intergenerational effects of domestic violence.

Family Centered Services: A direct service to families’ inline with our other community services. The service works to restore safety and wellbeing where family violence has, or is at risk of recurring and create longer-term change. This service utilizes and focuses on effective, innovative and collaborative ways of reducing family violence while meeting the specific needs of those individuals and their families receiving the service. In the last year this service was received by more than double our contracted volume of families/whanau that restored their safety and wellbeing where family violence was occurring. Refuge Advocate’s worked directly with these families/whanau to support them to create the longer term change required to prevent family violence from reoccurring. This has been achieved through helping women and their children to access the services that they have needed as they have needed them, while often reconnecting women with their immediate and wider families/whanau and local community for longer term support.

Every team member of Tryphina House, Women’s Refuge continues to play a part in supporting these families to achieve their goals. Tryphina House acknowledges that the successes are not only a team effort but also a community effort and that without the multiple contracts and supports received from other agencies and individuals by Tryphina House, for these families and many others their outcomes would not have been so positive without a combined team effort. The overall plans for these families continue to be integrated and cohesive, and because the plans are determined by the families we support, they both access and engage with services appropriate to their needs.

Tryphina House continues to receive referrals from and for ‘high need’ and ‘complex’ clients, which has resulted in a significant number of additional hours being spent with both residential and community clients. Without new and significant resourcing we will be unable to sustain our current level of service provision.