THE SEXUAL ABUSE CENTRE
AGENCY DEVELOPMENT

The Sexual Abuse Centre is a Not-for-Profit organisation supporting Rape and Incest survivors, both female and male, throughout the Canterbury, New Zealand region. We are an established and respected part of the Not-for-profit sector. Our service is unique in that we are the only agency in the wider Canterbury area providing quality, professional support, counselling and education for adult survivors of rape and incest, their families and friends, and the wider community which is free of charge thus accessible to all in the community.

In 1989, a group of women met for the first time at the commencement of a survivors support group for sexually abused women. At the end of the group, they continued to meet, and maintain contact with each other. In June 1990, a newspaper article was published advising the public of the temporary closure of Christchurch Rape Crisis. The above group offered their services to assist in the restructuring of the service to ensure a continued service for sexual abuse survivors during the period of reconstruction. This did not take place and in September of 1990 the group started the Rape and Incest Survivors Support Centre (RISSC), now the Sexual Abuse Centre.

The Sexual Abuse Centre became a permanent social service agency in the Canterbury region, becoming an incorporated society in 1991. The organisation moved to offices in the Cramner Centre where it has been for the past nine and a half years. The agency now provides a much more diverse range of services that those first initially provided by RISSC, hence the need now to search for bigger premises.

Significant Events in the life of the Agency include:

• In 1996 the Sexual Abuse Centre changed its constitution from working with only female survivors of sexual abuse to make the service available for both female and male survivors of rape and sexual abuse, their partners, supporters and friends.

• 1997 saw the service change from working in a collective structure to that of a Board of Trustees working from a business model where each board member holds a portfolio pertinent to their own individual skills and knowledge. They are responsible for Policy Development, Strategic Planning and Employment.

• 1999 saw a name change for the agency to reflect the diversity in the range of clients that it now served and the services that it now provided. The Rape and Incest Survivors Support Centre became The Sexual Abuse Centre.

The Sexual Abuse Centre continues to provide a high quality, professional service to all who contact us. Our services to the community now include:

• Telephone Counselling Service
• Sexual Abuse Survivors Groups
• 1-1 counselling
• Information and Advocacy
• Training and Education