PWDA-Landing-Page-Header - People with Disability Australia

Building Access project

Our Building Access project is an innovative initiative enabling domestic and family violence (DFV) services to better meet the needs of women and children with disability.

Resources on DFV and disability

Read our handbook on supporting people with intellectual disability who have experienced Domestic and Family Violence here.

Watch the accompanying video for the handbook here.

The above handbook and video were created in collaboration with the Queensland–based WWILD Sexual Violence Prevention Association. The handbook is targeted at the NSW sexual, domestic and family violence (SDFV) sector and aims to develop people’s skills and knowledge on how to support people with intellectual or learning disability who have experienced domestic and family violence.

The below resources were produced by PWDA and DVNSW, and updated in 2021:

30 Ways to Make Your Service More Accessible – PDF and Word
Creating an Inclusion Action Plan – PDF and Word
Women with Disability and Domestic and Family Violence: A guide for policy and practice – PDF and Word

You can also watch our videos on YouTube.

Easy Read resources

This project is funded by Women NSW.

Woman sitting on a lounge next to a window. Her face is partially hidden in the shadow of her long dark hair and her hand which is covering half of her face and she is looking upset and alone.

About DFV for women and children with disability

Women with disability are approximately 40 per cent more likely to experience Domestic and Family Violence (or DFV), an alarming statistic when considered in the context of Australia’s DFV epidemic.

Many women find it harder to escape violence because DFV services are inaccessible for women with disability. PWDA’s Building Access project aims to increase the accessibility of DFV services for women with disability in New South Wales.

PWDA is working with our friends at Domestic Violence NSW and Women’s Community Shelters to improve responses for women with disability experiencing violence.

DFV services include but are not limited to:

Women’s health centres
Counselling services
Accommodation and homelessness services
Family support services
Legal services
Women’s resource centres
Organisations tackling these issues on a sector-wide systemic level

Women with disability may experience barriers to accessing services, including:

Physical barriers that mean they can’t access services
Information about the services may be inaccessible
The staff who work at the services may not feel confident supporting women with disability
Policies or practices in these services might exclude women with disability.

We can do the following to support DFV services in becoming more accessible:

Perform an access review of the service to assess barriers for women with disability to the service
Provide a detailed report on physical, information and attitudinal barriers and advice on implementing greater procedural access
Provide guidance on how to develop a Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) for DFV services
Connect the service to a Community of Practice
Provide Disability Awareness and NDIS training

The Building Access project’s Expert Advisory Group is made up of disability advocates, women with disability, violence organisations, government representatives and other people who are interested in the project.