- Click here for a gallery of photographs from Sunday's walk
SANDRA Sheridan has been at the frontline of domestic violence assistance for more than 15 years.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Mid Coast Women's Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service coordinator helps women who have been subjected to attacks.
Usually they have been assaulted by a man, and most commonly it is someone close to them.
"It's not a way of solving problems," Ms Sheridan said. "Hurting the person that you love is not a way of dealing with some issues that are happening in your life, or your family's lives.
"And change can happen."
In the last year the service has helped 727 women who have been affected by domestic violence.
They've assisted their clients get 342 final, as opposed to interim, apprehended violence orders, and have referred another 887 to vital services.
Ms Sheridan said police are working "very proactively" to make a change in this region, while governments play their part by considering reforms.
These reforms, she believes, will establish support networks to assist everybody involved in intimate partner violence "so that there will be less women killed."
The It Stops Here Safer Pathways will be rolled out across the state over the next three years.
It will include police and other services working together, and means every domestic violence event reported to police will go to a central coordinating point.
"And then they'll come down to the local coordinating points," Ms Sheridan said. "That means every woman will have the opportunity to have contact, to be offered referrals, to check on their risk of safety.
"It means not only will police be doing it, but there'll be a further checks as well."
She wants businesses to lead the way with understanding the costs of such insidious abuse. "There needs to be an awareness that domestic violence prevents women from earning an income, from going to work, from not performing at their best.
"If that understanding can be broadened then the supports will be there more for women, and it will start to make a difference."
Her comments were echoed by White Ribbon Day ambassador Neil Langstaff, who will be speaking at Hastings Morning Talkers at Town Green Inn's upstairs tomorrow from 7am.
"The perpetrators are predominantly male, and it's important for men to realise it's a male problem," he said
"Everyone knows someone who has been affected by domestic violence. We all have to work together to reduce incidents, because it doesn't discriminate."
ben.cooper@fairfaxmedia.com.au