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‘I’m devastated’: Funding row threatens kids’ places at renowned family and domestic violence centre
By Eryk Bagshaw
Up to 100 children a year face being blocked from accessing one of the state’s most recognised family and domestic violence intervention centres as it gets caught in the middle of a funding battle between parents, two government departments and a charity.
The Dalwood Spilstead Service is facing a shortfall of up to $1 million in annual government funding that is being redistributed through The Benevolent Society, leaving two-thirds of current families and future referrals blocked from accessing the service at the site in Seaforth from July.
The Dalwood Spilstead Service is facing a funding threat. Credit: Louise Kennerley
“I’m absolutely devastated,” said Sydney mother and domestic violence victim Sarah, who asked to be identified only by a pseudonym for legal reasons.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has committed $230 million to help curb rising levels of family violence and said “nothing is off the table” as he responds to a wave of attacks that have shaken the community.
But parents at Dalwood have accused the state government of abandoning them.
In a letter to parents last week, NSW Health executive Anthony Schembri confirmed the partnership arrangement with The Benevolent Society was “being dissolved”. Schembri said the government would continue funding support services for 30 to 40 families a year in the Northern Sydney Local Health District.
Mothers Michele and Sarah, not her real name for legal reasons, at Dalwood on Thursday.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Dr Bijou Blick, a paediatric medical officer who worked with Dalwood Spilstead and NSW Health for two decades, said up to 70 per cent of children and families who use the service have a history of domestic violence.
“The Dalwood Spilstead Service is being run into the ground,” she said. “At least 100 children a year, who could have been in the Dalwood Spilstead Service program, will now revert back to a conventional Department of Communities and Justice program.”
Sarah said the service provided shelter from an abusive relationship and a diagnosis for her autistic son.
“Without Dalwood I wouldn’t have a relationship with my kids,” she said. “My eldest has made it through to year 12. He’s only been suspended once. It has literally changed his life and everyone else’s around him.”
The service has helped feed, school and counsel parents and children across an area stretching from Hornsby to Ryde since 1978. It emerged from the Dalwood Children’s Home established by philanthropist Albert Dalwood in 1928 under a trust to help mothers and children in need.
Schembri said Dalwood had provided “outstanding family preservation services” but the 17-year partnership with The Benevolent Society was ending “due to increasing divergence in the service models which are not aligned with the [Dalwood] integrated model of care for children and their parents.
“[Dalwood] does have higher engagement and completion rates than the state average for the Family Preservation Programs,” he said. “However, without the published data from other providers, we are unable to identify if the service is more effective.”
Completion rates are driven by families and children achieving their goals, including staying out of state care.
Blick said the state average for family preservation services is 33 per cent. Dalwood’s average completion rate is 83 per cent.
In 2014, Edward Melhuish, professor of human development at the University of Oxford, said the performance of the service meant there was a “powerful case for extending the Dalwood Spilstead model more widely across NSW, and indeed Australia.”
A Department of Communities and Justice spokesman said the government would continue to fund The Benevolent Society to deliver the same number of family preservation placements across Sydney’s north.
“No children will miss out,” he said. “The end of the partnership between The Benevolent Society and Northern Sydney Local Health District will not change the availability of family preservation services.”
The Ministry of Health said the decision was made mutually with The Benevolent Society and that parents and staff had been informed of the change.
But Blick and members of the Parents in Action group at Dalwood claim the decision was made without them and staff being consulted. Blick said the centre was facing a shortfall of $1 million a year.
“They are defunding an award-winning internationally recognised service and giving it to a service that on any comparative measure doesn’t stack up,” Blick said.
Sarah said the government was letting down families facing a cost-of-living crisis.
“What do you think domestic violence is caused by? The stresses in life. People here can’t even afford bread,” she said. “More and more families having these problems, and they’re taking away what works?”
Another Sydney mother who asked only to be identified by her first name, Michele, said the centre was a second home after it supported her through severe post-natal depression.
“I’d probably be six foot under if Dalwood wasn’t here,” she said. “It is just appalling what they’re doing through the Department of Communities and Justice and NSW Health.
“Here we get to become part of a community; we belong. We’re not just getting a token home visit from some random person for an hour.”
Blick accused the government of sentencing the organisation to death by a thousand cuts.
“It’s a slow bleed,” she said. “Why on earth have the Department of Communities and Justice and The Benevolent Society allowed funding to be diverted?”
Henrietta Foulds, The Benevolent Society’s director of operations said the charity was committed to ensuring that families across Northern Sydney were well-supported with any transition between services, as well as supporting any new clients referred to the program.
In 2019, the NSW Liberal government abandoned plans to sell part of the Dalwood Spilstead site. The decision followed a community backlash to a proposal to allow four residential blocks to be built on the prime piece of northern beaches real estate.
If you or anyone you know needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 (and see lifeline.org.au), 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), the National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service on 1800 211 028 or Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800.
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