Help for family violence in rural areas

A lot of the measures that have been put in place around assistance and support in lockdown are accessible to rural communities too.

Many people experiencing family violence in rural areas can feel very isolated

That was why initiatives like Joint Venture were building on lessons learnt from last year's lockdown and assuring those who lived in rural towns like Dannevirke still had as much access to support as those in urban centres.

Fiona Ross, director of Joint Venture, Family Violence and Sexual Violence said it was known that family violence tended to escalate in times of crisis, including isolation.

There had been a spike in family violence incidents last year and there was an awareness of the potential for an increase in violence in the current situation, post-level 4 lockdown in the Tararua District.

A Dannevirke police spokesman said he had not seen any noticeable increase in family violence incidents in the area during the two-week lockdown period.

Ross said a lot of measures that had been put in place around assistance and support in lockdown were accessible for rural communities.

"We are working to put support and information in place for anyone at increased risk in their bubbles – including people living in rural areas."

Ross said that included having helpline and service details all over agencies' and NGOs' websites as well as the Covid-19 site.

There were also various measures such as pressing 55 for those in imminent danger and unable to speak to a 111 operator, and shielded site websites where people could get help without their search showing up in their browser history.

"From the outset of the pandemic last year, the Government categorised family violence and sexual violence services as essential services in the Covid-19 response," Ross said.

That meant Joint Venture, which brought together nine core government agencies, worked together and with community partners to co-ordinate information about where to get help.

"Essentially, we have to make it easy for people to know where to get help if they need it."

Ross said other measures included supplying supermarkets with training information around recognising signs of abuse and resources such as posters.

"We've got a pandemic working group operating with leadership from the community, to bring people in specialist family violence and sexual violence sector together to get real time feedback and identify actions needed to make it easier for community services to operate. This group has met monthly since the first lockdowns last year and is continuing to meet during this current lockdown.

"This was all stepped up last year when it was needed, so we're not having to reinvent the wheel. What we are doing is building on what we learned last time.

"We are freshening it all up, making sure everything's current and working with Joint Venture agencies and NGOs to keep getting the support out there at this critical time – including for people in rural New Zealand."

Information on support services are listed on

Safe Bubble

.