Domestic Violence and Economic Abuse

In this episode of Lady News, we sit down with Robin Ray, CEO of Beryl Women Inc. in Canberra, to unpack economic abuse as a powerful and often hidden tactic of domestic and family violence.

Robin is a proud Kamilaroi woman born in the small NSW country town of Collarenebri, where she grew up on the Aboriginal Reserve. Before becoming CEO, she worked within the service as an Aboriginal Support Worker, gaining deep frontline experience supporting women escaping violence and navigating complex systems.

In our conversation, Robin explains how financial control is woven through everyday life for women experiencing abuse - from stolen identity documents and coerced access to Centrelink accounts, to blocked bank access and debts taken out in a woman’s name. Often these tactics remain hidden until a woman tries to take a simple step toward independence - like buying groceries, catching a bus, or opening her own bank account.

Drawing on decades of frontline experience, Robin speaks about the intergenerational patterns of violence she has witnessed: mothers arriving at services with their children, and those same children returning years later as adults needing support. These realities pushed Beryl to reshape its model around trauma-informed, wraparound care.

Sometimes the first steps to safety are practical ones - replacing identity documents, securing income, opening a bank account, enrolling children in school. Only once stability begins to return is there space to process the deeper story.

Robin also reflects on how systemic barriers compound risk, particularly for Aboriginal women who may face racism, poverty, and historic distrust of institutions, as well as limited safe access to financial services.

The conversation also shines a light on gaps within the support system itself: crisis funding models built around three-month stays when real recovery often takes nine to twelve months or more; older women and women with disabilities falling through service gaps; and children frequently treated as secondary to a parent’s case rather than as clients with their own needs.

Through initiatives like Beryl’s therapy van, counselling and support can reach families directly, removing transport and cost barriers and ensuring that early intervention and prevention are more than just policy language.

The message running through Robin’s work is simple but profound: real safety is built through trust, time and community - not quick fixes.

 Resources mentioned in this episode

Power & Control Wheel

https://www.theduluthmodel.org/wheels/

Beryl Women Inc. (Canberra)
https://beryl.org.au

Donate to Beryl Women
https://beryl.org.au/donate

Domestic Violence Crisis Service ACT
https://dvcs.org.au

📞 02 6280 0900

1800RESPECT – National Domestic Violence Support
https://www.1800respect.org.au

📞 1800 737 732

Women's Legal Centre ACT

Transcript

Content Warning And Framing

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Before we begin, we want to acknowledge that this podcast discusses domestic and family violence. Please take care while listening. And if you need support, resources are available in the show notes or on our website at ladynews.com.au. Lady News with Elise and Penny.

Guest Introduction: Robin Martin

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Today on the Lady News Podcast, we're shining a light on economic abuse, another one of the key pieces of the power and control wheel that we've been exploring in past episodes. Robin Martin, CEO of Beryl Women, joins us to share the real impacts of financial control, intergenerational trauma, and how women and children can find support and safety. Based in Canberra, Beryl Women offers crisis accommodation and support for women and their children escaping domestic and family violence, including short-term, low-cost housing for those experiencing homelessness as a result of violence. Let's hear what Robin has to share.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Welcome to the Lady News podcast. Thank you. Today we're focusing on economic abuse. And the reason why we reached out to chat with you in particular is because the work that you're doing with Beryl. And you are very proud to say that you are a feminist organization. And that's why we really want to, I guess, give you the opportunity to um let our listeners know what's happening in your space and how economic abuse affects the people who you see walk through your doors. And we know that you've worked with women and children at Beryl for decades, from the early days as an Aboriginal support worker right through to now as a CEO. When you look at economic abuse through an intergenerational lens, what are the unique pressures Aboriginal women face that mainstream systems consistently miss?

SPEAKER_01 2:07

From my experience, Aboriginal women experience economic abuse in many ways that mainstream systems don't uh recognise or fail to identify. For many women, the abuse is not just financial but deeply connected to intergenerational trauma, cultural obligations, and systemic inequalities. One of the biggest pressures is the expectation to provide financially for extended family, often while navigating poverty, insecure housing, and limited access to safe banking and ID documents as well as part of that. So economic abuse can occur alongside cultural shame, where women feel obligated to meet family demands, even when it places them at risk. Mainstream services often overlook how poverty, racism, and the lack of culturally safe services compound this abuse. And for many Aboriginal women who distrust institutions due to historical and ongoing discrimination, making it harder for them to seek help or safely disclose financial control or fraud.

Building Trust And Wraparound Care

SPEAKER_02 3:19

You said something really important there, that there is a lack of trust in institutions. And I guess when you're experiencing a disadvantage personally, it is felt even more when there is nowhere to go that you can trust. And I guess that's where Beryl comes in. That yeah, you must be that place where women can go and children can go where they feel that safety.

Practical Steps To Regain Control

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, we have a staff team of 10 women that work here, all from different cultural backgrounds, all from different life experiences. Some of that has been lived experience around domestic and sexual violence. Um, so there's the capacity for us to just meet women where they're at and and be with them, sit with them quietly, listening, taking on, you know, we're able to place ourselves in their shoes. It's about being open and transparent with the women that we're working with and with the children. Being able to provide that support, the way that we work with women is is through a it's a wraparound service. So we're not just dealing with domestic violence, we're not just dealing with trauma. There's some really practical things that need to happen when a woman first enters the service. One of those things is around, you know, getting in touch with Centrelink because they don't have an income, or he has access to their income. And so changing bank accounts, changing Centrelink information so that she's the only one that has access to it. All of those sorts of things, letting her know some women, you know, we've had that have accessed the service over the years do not know how to shop, do not know how to use an ATM card or have ever walked into a bank because someone else has always done that and had that control. So, you know, we we do um some really practical work around that. And that might involve jumping on a bus to show a woman how that works. They don't have that experience, so because they've never been allowed to have that control. So, in order for them to move on and move out of our service, we need to walk with them and show them. And of course, there's respect and it's all around self-determination and you know, we're very big on that.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

When I was reading your um bio, I read that some statistic about a certain period of time where you didn't see the generations, you didn't see the pattern repeat itself through your doors at Beryl, which is a really profound result to have in your sector because it's the biggest flaw in case management. We are reactive, our society, and we don't look ahead to try and, you know, make sure that these women and children aren't back. How do you do that?

Breaking The Cycle With Trauma-Informed Practice

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Well, that's a really good question because when I first started here, it was like a revolving door. Like women were being offered public housing. You know, sometimes it was in a really short time and you know, it could be less than three months. So it really gave us limited time to, you know, work really comprehensively with them. We had a lot of women with drug and alcohol issues. We had a lot of women who were, yes, experiencing domestic and family violence. But we were also at that time, we were seeing a lot of women coming in with their children. And then 10 years later, we'd see those children coming back into the service as clients within their own right with their own children. And um, some of the perpetrators of those young women were child clients as well. So we had to look at the way that we were working and make some really big changes. And so we weren't necessarily working from a trauma-informed framework at that time, and you know, our model of accommodation has changed, the number of staff have changed, the way that we're working has changed as well. And I can say for the last maybe 20 years, we haven't seen uh we haven't had that experience again.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

That's incredible. And just talking about the fact that you were having or you're practicing in a trauma-informed way without even knowing it. Similar to America's focus on holistic intergenerational case management. And you have also referenced this system, which is really interesting. So, why do you think it has taken Australia so long to, I guess, label what you're already doing and develop a trauma-informed response, which simply put is just making sure the case management style is not adding additional trauma to a person.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Exactly. The difference is that it's around funding. And I think that, you know, federal government and local and territory and state governments, they want to see I don't know what that expression is.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Paying for their buck.

Funding Limits And Long Stays

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, that's it. And so the number of people going through services gives them that. So we're funded as a crisis accommodation service, which is three months. But on average, we've got women staying with us anywhere from nine to twelve months. We've had women with us for three years, and there's reasons for that because of the size of the family and not being able to access public housing because of that. But there are also women who have immigration issues so don't have an income, but have no options. So, you know, we we don't ask women to leave. Um, we continue to work with them, we provide them the support that they need. It's a wraparound service. So, you know, we acknowledge what the trauma is. Sometimes it might be three or four months before we actually have a conversation about their experiences, the, you know, the DV, because we're dealing with all the other stuff that's presented at the very beginning, which could be school enrollments, clothing, that really practical um help and support that many services don't do.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Um the admin of the situation. Exactly. And women are usually at that stage in a survival mode. And then when the dust settles, then the things start coming up and you feel relaxed to start talking.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

So Yeah, and it's about building um relationships and trust. The way that we work with women is through an Aboriginal lens, um, because I'm sitting in this job, and so we work with all women within that same framework. So Aboriginal women being the most disadvantaged group in this country, what we know is that if it's if it meets the needs of Aboriginal women, it's going to meet everybody's needs. So that's the framework which we work in, and it and it's um client-directed, it's self-determination in practice. You know, we don't do for a woman what she can't do for herself.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Yeah, you've also mentioned um women with a disability and older women who are not being given, I guess, that um extra care that they need at the moment. Like everyone is grouped in together. What can we do or what can government do to meet the needs of these women?

Aboriginal Lens And Self-Determination

SPEAKER_01 11:01

I think older women, they seem to be the biggest growing group of women who are who are trying to access services. I don't think the Australian government has caught up on that. There's very limited um services available to them. And some of those women have some really chronic health conditions that may or may not be as a result of their DV history. We've seen women here that have um really chronic health conditions because of their domestic violence.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

It takes its toll, and then you know, it also then costs the government. So prevention would be a much smarter way to move forward. Um if there was one ask from local government, what would it be?

Older Women And Disability Gaps

SPEAKER_01 11:48

I'd like to see more focus on children and young people. There's a real gap in our sector, and I don't think that's just in the ACT. I think it's right across the country where children and young people are not seen as clients within their own right, and they absolutely are. And so access to services for them is very limited. There are so many barriers for women to get their children into those services, which include transport, the cost to access um medical professionals, whether that's therapy or you know, doctors, medication, a whole range of things, but they're kind of just sitting out there on their own. And, you know, some services will uh see them as clients in their own right, which we do. We have a mobile van that it's a therapy van that travels around to our clients and provides therapeutic care counseling, and the van itself is kitted out, completely kitted out with everything that you would need as a therapist to provide that to children and young people. So, you know, we also have other programs here specifically um targeted to children and young people as well. And the reality is that children and young people across the homelessness sector and DV sector are the biggest client group. Like we have more children in our service than we do women. We might have had, say, 50 women in the service, but out of that 50 women, we've probably had a hundred kids. There's a big gap there. Yeah.

Children As Clients In Their Own Right

SPEAKER_00 13:24

And not spoken about so much either. Robin, if someone listening to this podcast was to find themselves in a crisis situation, what would be the process for accessing Beryl? Will they contact Beryl directly or do they get a referral? What's the best point of contact?

SPEAKER_01 13:43

It can be through um the the central access point into homelessness services here in the ACT. We have women who turn up at the door. We have other service providers referring clients as well. And we have clients who will refer their friends or family. Initially, we'll have a conversation with them. If we have accommodation available, we'll we'll do a process with them. But if we don't, we don't want to know their story because we don't need to know it. As you probably know, women are asked their story numerous times, and yeah, it's it's too much. So we want to be respectful and we don't want to re-traumatise because it is re-traumatizing. Police will refer, social workers, other services in the sector will also refer.

Respecting Stories And Reducing Harm

Closing And Support Links

SPEAKER_02 14:32

I really like what you said about not asking women to tell their story and validating the fact that it is asked of them a lot when they are seeking assistance in that situation. And it's so exhausting. So thank you for acknowledging that. And I think our listeners will really feel um heard with that, Robin. You've been listening to Lady News with Elise and Penny. Join us on Instagram or at ladynews.com.au