GenWest's children's counselling program helps children heal and feel safe again. It is not simply a recovery service. It is a critical part of breaking the cycle of family violence.
For thousands of children, home is not always a place of safety. In 2025, children were present at more than a third of reported family violence incidents in Victoria, according to Victoria Police. Behind that statistic are children trying to make sense of fear, instability and violence.
When the violence stops, their experiences don’t simply disappear. Children’s recovery from family violence cannot be assumed to just happen without dedicated support.
Children have their own experiences to process, their own impacts to heal from and their own pathway to recovery. They need specialist support to help them heal, rebuild their sense of safety and move forward.
At GenWest, our Children’s Counselling service supports more than 300 children and young people who have experienced family violence, as well as their support networks, every year. We are funded to support 250 children - we often support many more than this.
Our counsellors work with children to help them to understand what's happened, build their confidence and emotional skills, and recover from their experiences.
“Before counselling, I felt like my feelings were too big. Now I know they’re okay.”
Child, age 9
This work can change the course of a child’s life
We know that children who experience family violence are two to three times more likely to go on to experience intimate partner violence later in life. Research also indicates that boys who experience family violence may be at greater risk of using violence themselves as adults.
This is why children’s counselling is not simply a recovery service. It is a critical part of breaking the cycle of family violence.
This is something GenWest has heard firsthand. Our Survivor Advisory Group member, Lauren, experienced family violence as a child. She told us:
"My childhood trauma and experiences of abuse shaped who I am as an adult. I did not receive any intervention or support for my experiences of family violence, and I have spent my adult life attempting to retroactively heal what that support might’ve provided me.
"GenWest’s services would have changed my trajectory, they would have helped a young, scared Lauren learn not to fear the world, and I feel deep in my heart that these services would’ve meant years not wasted to wondering what was wrong with me.
"I am so hopeful and heartened that children have access to these services, that GenWest is committed to interrupting the generational impacts of family violence and that every child who accesses these services will have something that I never had."
Lauren also told us that it was only as an adult that she understood the experiences she'd had as a child were family violence: she was never recognised by the services supporting her mum as a survivor in her right.
Children are too often relegated to the role of 'witness' to the violence, rather than having their own unique needs and their own pathway to recovery.
Lengthy waits for support delay healing
Right now, more than 100 children are waiting to access Children's Counselling through GenWest. Some children are waiting up to eight months.
Eight months is a long time in any child’s life. It is even longer when a child is trying to recover from family violence.
GenWest is urgently trying to source an additional $500,000 in funding to clear this waiting list and give these children the support they need now.
Funding children’s counselling is an investment in safety, recovery and prevention. It means children do not have to wait months for the chance to talk to someone who understands what they have experienced. It means families can get the support they need to rebuild.
There is another urgent issue we must address: changing the systems that make children's experiences worse
When a child accesses family violence counselling, they should be able to trust that their records are confidential and that the information they share will only be used to support their safety and wellbeing.
Yet children’s counselling records can currently be subpoenaed in Family Court matters, including by people who use violence. This creates the unacceptable possibility that systems intended to protect children can instead be weaponised against them.
Family Court matters involving family violence require specialist expertise and stronger safeguards. Child safety must be at the centre of these proceedings. Court processes must recognise systems abuse, coercive control and the dynamics of family violence, and ensure they do not inadvertently create further opportunities for harm.
Children deserve better
Children deserve to be recognised as victim survivors of family violence in their own right. They deserve timely, specialist support to recover from family violence. And they deserve systems that put their safety ahead of the interests of those who have harmed them.
We need to invest in children now - starting with the $500,000 GenWest needs to ensure children are no longer waiting for help.
If we are serious about breaking the cycle of family violence, we cannot afford to wait.
“Children aren’t simply witnesses to family violence. They experience it too, and they need their own pathway to safety, healing and recovery. For a child, recovery can mean learning that their feelings are valid, rebuilding trust in the people around them and beginning to feel hopeful about what comes next. That’s why specialist, child-focused support matters.”
GenWest CEO Dale Wakefield
