Our Presenters

Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Women’s Legal Centre is a statewide community legal centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, children and young people in NSW. Their mission is to help clients who have impacted by violence, including domestic/family violence or sexual violence. They support clients with legal issues connected to violence, victims support compensation, family law and child protection issues, providing legal advice and case work. This training is just one of their community legal education initiatives which was developed through specialist Commonwealth funding. They are actively committed to social justice and law reform.

Christine Robinson is a Bundjalung woman. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Wirringa Baiya and the co-chair of The NSW Aboriginal Women’s Advisory Network (AWAN) Co-chair. Christine has worked in domestic and family violence, and sexual violence for over 30 years and has been in the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Women’s Legal Centre for 20 years.

She is a member of the NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team, the NSW Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Council, the First Nations Coercive Control Reference Group and the Domestic Violence Sector Reference Group.

Madeleine Heath was admitted as a solicitor in 2002 just after her first child was born. Before coming to the law, she gained an Arts degree and worked in the disability and international aid sectors. Whilst studying law and as a newly admitted solicitor she worked, in a variety of private legal firms in the personal injury, criminal and family law jurisdictions. She became a permanent part-time solicitor at Wirringa Baiya in 2007 after her third child was born. In 2015 she had a nine-month secondment to Knowmore legal service, the independent national community legal centre to help people engage with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Over the years she has participated in a variety of committees dealing with domestic/family violence and been a contributor and co-contributed to articles in the Indigenous Law Bulletin.

Oletha Ribeiro is a proud Torres Strait Islander woman from St. Paul – Moa Island. Oletha is the Torres Strait Islander Specialist Case Worker on the team ensuring there is cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, children, and youth when disclosing their traumas. Her primary role is to provide advocacy and referrals to help women and children gain the knowledge, strength, and empower them to live independently

Oletha has supported Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women escaping domestic, family and sexual violence for over 10 years, with has extensive experience in working with Aboriginal and Torres strait Islander victims of violence seeking safety in Aboriginal refuges.

What the training will cover

Part 1: Adult Sexual Assault

How to identify what is sexual violence, what consent looks like, types of sexual offences, reporting and legal options for adults who have experienced sexual assault and where to get help.

Part 2: Child Sexual Assault

This will the definition of child sexual assault, myths and facts, how to understand grooming, reporting options, investigations processes, the criminal justice process and care orders.

Location

The training will be held at Rydges, Campbelltown, 15 Old Menangle Road, Campbelltown There is lots of parking space available or it is about a 15-minute flat walk or 5 minute taxi ride from Campbelltown train station.

Who this training is for

Counsellors, caseworkers and support workers who work with people who have experienced sexual violence. Please note registrations will be managed on a “first come, first served basis”. Once the training is full, your name will go onto a waitlist.

NADA is committed to delivering sustainable professional development opportunities that minimise environmental, economic and social impacts.

To reduce food wastage and maximise the benefits of budget allocations and the expertise and time of our facilitators, we ask you to ensure that you can commit to attending this professional development before registering. To support our commitment to delivering sustainable events, we have introduced a new registration process. Please ensure you read this carefully.

We appreciate your understanding with this.

This includes ensuring you have approval from your management to attend, have allocated this time in your calendars and advised clients in advance that you will be unable to respond unless there is a crisis.

How registrations will be managed

· Once your registration has been received, you will receive a confirmation email.

· Two weeks prior, you will receive a reminder email. We ask you to respond to confirm your place in the training.

· If we do not hear from you within 48 hours of the email being sent, we will assume you no longer wish to attend, and your place will be offered to someone else.

· We appreciate that unforeseen things can arise and ask that should this occur you advise us as soon as possible so that your place can be offered to another worker.

Any questions

Please email jawaahir@nada.org.au regarding registrations or training needs, or antonia@nada.org.au regarding the course content.