Survivor Experience Service
The Survivor Experience Service supports people who have experienced abuse in state and non-state care environments.
On this page
Trigger warning
This page talks about abuse in care. We intend for the information to be helpful but know it can be very upsetting. If you feel upset after reading this page, it could be good to talk about it with family or friends. There are also helplines you can call that support people’s mental wellbeing.
Introducing the Survivor Experience Service
The Survivor Experience Service (SES) provides free support for people who experienced abuse in state care, faith-based care, or other care settings like private schools and non-governmental organisations.
State care refers to situations where the Government takes responsibility for someone’s care. Examples of state care can include:
government-run disability, health, psychiatric, or mental health facilities
foster care placements
children's homes and residential institutions
youth justice residences.
Non-state care refers to care environments not run by the Government. They may be run by organisations such as:
charities
privately owned organisations
non-profit organisations
churches.
SES aims to be fully accessible for people with different disabilities and will work with you to suit your needs.
What the Survivor Experience Service does
SES offers two key services to survivors of abuse in care:
a safe place to share their experiences
assistance in accessing their care records.
Sharing your experiences
SES aims to create a safe, supportive, and confidential place for Survivors of abuse in care to discuss their experiences. SES staff understand abuse in care and its impact on Survivors and their families. Having someone like this listen and validate your experiences can support in your healing and help you feel relief and less burdened.
The first step is to contact SES. The team will help you register for their service and arrange a time and place for you to share your experiences. You don’t need to talk about your experiences when you first contact SES.
You decide what you want to share and how you do it. It can be face to face, via a video chat, or in writing.
Typically, people will talk about their experiences in a private session with trained SES staff. SES staff will listen and support you while you share your experiences. They’ll also provide potential next steps, such as seeking wellbeing support or redress (amends for harm you experienced). The session normally takes 60 to 90 minutes.
Record support
SES can support Survivors of abuse in care with requesting and understanding their care records.
Survivors may want to access their care records for a range of reasons including:
understanding what happened
filling in gaps in their memory
validating their experiences
supporting healing and closure
supporting redress
correcting mistakes in their records.
Receiving and reading care records can sometimes be emotional or overwhelming. SES is there to support you through this and help you understand the information in your records.
Get in touch SES and they will help you register for their service and talk you through what you need to do next.
The SES team knows how emotionally difficult it can be to share experiences of abuse and receive your records. To help with this, they provide free short term wellbeing support which can include up to six sessions of counselling, therapy, art therapy, or massage/mirimiri.
Find out more
The SES website has a lot more information, including info in Easy Read, large print, audio, and braille.
Visit the Survivor Experience Service website