No. This is a volunteer role where community members who have the time and desire to help participate in training to assist them to support other community members. 

It might be accurate information about what is family violence and helping someone who is being coerced, controlled or abused to realise that they are being treated in a disrespectful and harmful way.

It may be working through a safety plan with someone in their own language so they can find things they can do to be safer. 

It may be attending a meeting with a lawyer, a Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner, the police, court or other family violence or family law related event with the person they are supporting so that they don’t feel so alone and frightened. 

It may be organising an information session for their mothers group, community group, church group or sporting group to talk about issues like consent,  respect, legal rights in Australia or more. The CSP doesn’t have to run the session, there are lots of people to help but they are the ones who know what their community members want and need. 

It may be something else and as long as it is safe, appropriate that is OK. 

We will need a clean police check and working with children check. 

You can’t be a Community Support Person if you have convictions for violence, abuse, child or sexual abuse and other crimes. 

While we understand that you may have redeemed yourself and no longer harm other people this is not the role for you. 

We were looking at the statistics about who is vulnerable to family violence and noticed that there are a number of groups of people who are more likely to be stuck in abusive situations for longer and with higher risk behaviours threatening their lives. 

We’ve also noticed that while services may be there it can be hard for some people to overcome the barriers and access them. Especially if they are suffering from mental health or disability issues that make them even more vulnerable to abuse. 

People don’t always get the help they need because of the vulnerabilities that mean they need the help!

Interact Support is all about identifying gaps in the safety net provided by social services in Australia and doing something about them.  

We are in the early stages of developing the program.  We’ll be wanting to talk to everyone we can about the program so if you are interested in being part of this project stay tuned. 

We’ll be inviting memberships of Interact Support to join our volunteer team developing the program and opening up enrolments into the CSP training later in the year.