Family Violence Services 

About Family Violence

Family violence is not one particular experience. It may include a number of different forms of abuse, control and/or violence.

For example, a partner or relative may:

• Stop you from seeing your family and friends
• Constantly check up on what you’re doing
• Control family finances
• Threaten to disclose your sexual orientation or gender identity
• Humiliate you and/or your children by being verbally abusive
• Hurt, or threaten to hurt, you and/or your children with physical violence
• Sexually abuse you and/or your children.

How we can help

Berry Street provides specialist family violence services to women, LGBTIQ+ people and children who have experienced any form of family violence. This includes intimate partner violence, child abuse, elder abuse, carer abuse, parental abuse, sibling abuse, child to parent abuse and abuse within kinship relationships.

Our specialist family violence services are free and available to:

• women, LGBTIQ+ people and children who live or work within Melbourne’s Northern suburbs or the Central Highlands in Western Victoria
• women, LGBTIQ+ people and children who are seeking assistance, information or support in relation to family violence
• relatives or friends who are seeking information and support
• workers from agencies who are seeking further information or a secondary consult about family violence.

We can provide information about and access to other services, such as:

• after hours family violence crisis support
• legal services
• housing, including refuges and emergency housing
• therapeutic support
• children’s support services
• counselling
• Community Health Centres
• risk management program for women, LGBTIQ+ people and children at high risk.