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Shift the Narrative Framework

Proposal Summary

The Government should mandate trauma-informed communication training for all professionals who interact with sexual violence survivors, and establish "Voice Safety Coordinators"

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As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who has spent 15+ years researching trauma's impact on voice and communication, I've witnessed a fundamental flaw in our approach to sexual violence: we keep asking survivors to speak up in systems designed to silence them. When a survivor finally finds the courage to report, often taking decades, as research shows an average of 23.4 years, they encounter professionals who, despite good intentions, lack the trauma-informed skills to create genuine safety for truth-telling.

During my own journey through the legal system, I experienced this firsthand. After reporting abuse that occurred 40 years earlier, I was told that the discrepancy between initially describing my experience as "abuse" in my twenties versus using the word "rape" in my forties was problematic for prosecution. What the system failed to understand was that it took 23 years of healing to access the language that accurately described my experience. This isn't an inconsistency, it's trauma recovery. Yet our systems penalise survivors for the very healing process that enables them to speak their truth. 

Most sexual violence prevention focuses on teaching potential victims how to stay safe or encouraging survivors to "speak up." But this approach misunderstands the fundamental dynamics at play. Sexual violence thrives in environments where voices are systematically silenced, where power imbalances go unchallenged, and where early warning signs of predatory behaviour are ignored or minimised. Survivors often possess extraordinary radar for detecting unsafe dynamics, what I call "survivor intelligence", but we've created few safe pathways for this critical information to be heard and acted upon.

The Government's own statistics show that only 23% of sexual assault victims ever report the crime, and of those cases investigated, less than 10% result in trials, with only 1% ending in conviction. These numbers represent a system-wide failure to create conditions where truth-telling is safe, supported, and effective. We're not just failing individual survivors, we're failing to prevent future violence by not learning from the intelligence survivors possess about predatory patterns and unsafe environments.

This is my website - www.bespeak.au 

This is a link to my book I published in March this year. - The Courage to Speak Your Truth - Shifting the Narrative on Childhood Sexual Abuse 

https://authors-direct.com/spotify/?code=SPOT-01JQ-WHKY-KHRS-EJ49-RMJB-JAARKJ

• Justice system responses – police
• prosecutions and courts
• Sexual violence in the context of family violence