Social Work & Advocacy
We deliver a holistic and culturally appropriate service to clients, working closely with our legal and financial counselling teams. We provide long and short-term case management, focusing on support in the areas of family and domestic violence, elder abuse, and housing.
Having a multi-disciplinary approach, we provide advocacy for our clients and work with other community organisations and legal services to precipitate law reform and correct systemic injustices that impact our clients.
If you think that you are experiencing family violence or elder abuse, or public tenancy (East Kimberley only) our experienced social work support team members provide a welcoming and respectful environment, where you can talk confidentially about your experiences and choose your preferred course of action.
Our staff can talk to you at your home or a suitable community location that meets your needs if you prefer.
Family Violence
The social work team operates within the KCLS holistic service delivery model with a primary focus on assisting domestic violence victims, including older clients, at risk of, or currently experiencing domestic violence or being taken advantage of, mistreated, or neglected in some way financially, emotionally, or physically. KCLS support includes facilitating referrals out to a wide range of other matters to other service providers, if required. The methodology was designed to take an interdisciplinary approach to case management to get to the root causes of our shared client’s difficulties and help address multiple challenges simultaneously.
Elder Abuse
Elder abuse is any action, or lack of action, deliberate or unintentional, which causes distress, harm, or serious risk of harm to an older person, or loss or damage to property or assets. Similarly, a person commits an act of abuse if they:
Cause someone else to abuse the victim
Allow someone else to abuse the victim
Cause or allow someone to participate in an act of abuse
Some instances of elder abuse can constitute a criminal offence, such as assault. Other types of elder abuse may have different legal remedies, such as a civil claim or an intervention order being issued, for example.
Types of Elder Abuse
Elder abuse can take many different forms and a person may experience more than one type of abuse. It is generally accepted that the types of elder abuse (and some examples of what constitutes that abuse) are:
Physical, such as inflicting pain or injury on a person
Psychological, such as using actions or language to intimidate a person or cause them fear or distress, depriving them of their liberty, threatening to institutionalise them or cause them physical injury, using racial or derogatory taunts
Financial, such as misusing the person's money, assets, property, or resources, improper use of planning documents such as Powers of Attorney, unlawful access and use of a person's bank account, incurring debts in the person's name without their knowledge, coercing a person to sign legal or financial documents, preventing a person from seeking or keeping employment
Social, such as isolating the person, unreasonable denial of their social, financial, or domestic autonomy, unreasonably restricting access to friends or family, and stopping social contact with others
Neglect, such as failing to provide adequate food, shelter, accommodation, clothing, and medical care to a person, refusing to allow others to provide this care to a person
Sexual, such as non-consensual sexual contact, behaviour, or language
Humbugging
"Humbugging" is an Aboriginal term used in the Kimberley to describe when someone demands money that belongs to someone else with no intention of repaying it. It is used to describe demands that are repeated, often with a threat or actual physical, emotional, or psychological abuse if the person refuses. Sometimes the term is used to describe outright theft, for example when somebody uses another person’s bank card or Centrepay arrangements without their permission.
Public Tenancy Support Service (East Kimberley only)
We work with clients in Public Housing at risk of losing their tenancy proving support giving the client knowledge and capacity to retain and sustain their tenancy independently.