Collective pools support for DV services

A DECADE ago, Kylie Johanson and her two-year-old child fled their home, survivors of domestic violence.

Although she had developed the courage to leave, Ms Johanson was also pregnant with her second child, and found it difficult to access the support and resources she needed.

“You need shelter, legal support, and the police told me they couldn’t protect me unless I had an intervention order in place,” she said.

“I applied for legal aid four times, as a single parent on a pension with nothing, and I still couldn’t get it. I went through five court cases, also trying to work and support my children financially.

“It’s really hard. When you’re in that emotional state and that heightened fear, you really need someone to help you, to tell you what path to follow, and what options are available.”

With an awareness that resources available are underfunded, and 25 years of business development experience, Ms Johanson has launched her own national domestic violence charity, DV Collective, run from her home office in Ballarat.

The aim is to secure corporate sponsors who can donate funds, products, and resources, which will trickle down to the collective’s member charities and organisations.

“My purpose is to make sure that a woman doesn’t go through the journey that I went through,” she said.

“I’m not recreating anything, there’s hundreds of organisations out there, but if I can generate some resources that are going to help these existing organisations, and help more women, then that’s my goal.

“As soon as organisations become a member, they can access a quite significant pool of funding, and pro bono products and services, and they’ll be connected to a wide range of resources they wouldn’t normally be able to receive, especially in a small town.”

Businesses already supporting DV Collective include Zip, IBM, and Superloop, a company that could offer wi-fi and mobile service to victims of domestic violence.

“Big retail companies are asking, ‘what do the shelters across Australia need?’ and saying they can reach out to their suppliers,” Ms Johanson said.

“With COVID, people have been trapped at home with domestic violence escalating. DV is now on the radar of corporate Australia, so corporate Australia needs to put domestic violence policies in place.”

DV Collective also provides a human resources toolkit listing all members across the country, which HR departments can make accessible to their employees via their intranet.

“Anyone will be able to see what services are around them in Ballarat, for example, that are there to support them,” Ms Johanson said.

“We want employers to make sure they’re supporting their employees.”

The charity was officially launched in Sydney last week, and Ms Johanson said it was a celebration of the connections she’s made so far.

“It takes a lot of skills and resources to create a charity, and big national organisations have been very supportive and providing skills, like IT software skills, to create a portal,” she said.

“We wouldn’t be able to create that platform without those connections because it would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”