About BWAHS
Building Stronger Communities through Social Empowerment
In partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, BWAHS leaders, influence and deliver culturally safe responses to family violence.
Boorndawan Willam Aboriginal Healing Service (BWAHS) is the lead specialist Aboriginal Specific family violence service that provides a service in the Eastern Metropolitan Region including both the Inner and Outer East. BWAHS was established in 2006 following the recommendations of the Victorian Eastern Family Violence Strategy Taskforce Report (2003).
BWAHS uses cultural knowledge and understandings to offer a unique healing experience. Including a broader understanding of kin and family systems, the addition of elder abuse and lateral violence in our definition of family violence, as well as the whole of family and community focus which means we have healing spaces for women, men, children and young people in our service delivery.
BWAHS transitioned to being an independent Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation on the 25th of March 2019 and provides a range of services and programs to Aboriginal individuals and families who are experiencing, are at risk of experiencing or use family violence.
The organisation has developed an excellent record of providing high-quality family violence and trauma-informed intensive case management, integrated family service responses and evidence based therapeutic programs to individuals and groups for a whole family approach. We undertake informed practice and consider research and knowledge to be key to delivery of effective services. Our award winning Education and Training Team in informed practice through training and research.
In 2006, the Nilimkal Kangoo Eastern Metropolitan Indigenous Family Violence Action Group (IFVAG), in partnership with EACH was successful in its application to the Department of Human Services for the development of an Indigenous Healing Service in servicing the Outer Eastern suburbs. Thus, Boorndawan Willam Aboriginal Healing Service was established, with a focus on the provision of a culturally relevant prevention and post-intervention program to Indigenous people in the Eastern Metropolitan Region who were affected by family violence.
The name, Boorndawan Willam, derives from the Wathaurong and Woiwurrung languages. Boorndawan (Wathaurong) meaning ‘safe’ and Willam (Woiwurrung) meaning ‘house’, combine to create a ‘safe house’. The healing service acknowledges the use of these words in the development of the organizations name. Built on the back of the Indigenous Family Violence Task Force Report (2003), Boorndawan Willam Aboriginal Healing Service adheres to the holistic approach stipulated in the report.
This approach, which is contextualised in a cultural and spiritual environment, is underpinned by the integration of Aboriginal teachings into individual services and interventions to support and protect victims of family violence, deliver specialized services for women, children and men, provide guidance for perpetrators and sustain the recovery and healing of individuals, families and communities.
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