Women's Refugee Worker

Women's Refugee Worker

Introduction

The heart and core of this paper is to critically analyze the situation of the given case study and offer assistance to the client facing refuge woker position.

Background of the case study

o The client, was from a Middle Eastern country and aged 25. She had been in Australia for 2 years, and had very basic English when the incident occurred. Her husband was 40 years old.

o At the time the child (male) was about 3 years old.

o She had no family or friends in Australia other than her husband and his sister (30 years old never married living with the brother).

o Her husband was her cousin. This type of marriage is very common in the Middle East. Therefore the husband's sister was also her cousin.

o The cousin/sister-in-law was her only support. However she was supportive only when her brother was not around. The sister-in-law had a great fear of her brother as he was a violent man and she was working at his business and financially dependent on him.

o The woman said that she was judged for this type of marriage (to a cousin) many times and she didn't understand why.

o The husband was trying to prove that she was mentally ill (which does happen in some in DV cases).

o On the night in question the husband called the police and the mental health crisis team. They phoned Family Welfare Services. The client said the Family Welfare Services workers who attended on the night were a male and a female worker from helpline and they were not CALD background.

o Her Family Welfare Services Case manager allocated after that night was a 28 years old female Anglo-Australian woman.

o The mental health workers were from crisis team. She didn't give much information about the gender or age but was sure that they had no ethnic background.

o She also stated that on that night the husband was interpreting. No other interpreter was used.

o After the incident the husband, the child and the Family Welfare Services worker had AVO's. My client had no support or advocacy. She was not allowed to be with the child alone. As she couldn't get her child back, she went back home to be with the child with the husband's conditions. The domestic violence was very severe she had to leave again and could not take the child as Family Welfare Services did not allow her to take him.

o She came to my service (Women's Refuge) more than a year after the incident.

o When I became involved she was severely depressed and was on medication. She had no legal representation or appropriate support or intervention. Even the woman believed that she was mentally ill.

Women Refuge Worker

A refuge is a safe house which offers temporary accommodation for women and their children. There are over 500 refuges in the UK, providing a place of safety for any woman who needs to escape violence, married or single, ...