“Last week I saw four DV cases. On average it’s around one,” she said, adding that the enormity of the problem on a national scale means that small regions such as Gloucester get forgotten as a mere speck on the ocean. 

“People think it doesn’t happen here, in Gloucester, but it does. I’ve been trying to raise awareness about it for the last three months, it’s a growing problem.”

Ms Wiesner does not think it should be called domestic violence, because “that infers just women”.

“I think it should be called family violence - after all, it affects every member of the family,” she said. 

Only the week prior, she had spent a substantial amount of time on the phone trying to find a safe place for a mother and her 14-year-old son. 

“The mother can go into a shelter, but the boy can’t. At 14, he is not classed as a child. They wanted to send him to a youth refuge. How is that helpful?” she asked.

The closest women’s shelter is Taree, but according to Ms Wiesner it is always full. Forster’s community campaign to get a shelter up and running is almost complete, with one home and a cottage due to be available mid December. Designed to cater to both Great Lakes and Gloucester clients, it has already identified a list of potential clients but the shelters do not necessarily solve the issue of accommodation for those from Gloucester.

“Not everyone wants to leave their town,” Ms Wiesner exclaimed. 

Jobs, family, friends, schooling are all contributing factors to violence victims not wanting to completely abandon their lives. So in the absence of anything else, many will just ‘stick it out’. 

“You ring the domestic violence and homelessness numbers and they might offer to put them up in an approved motel in Taree. But if they haven’t got a car, how are they going to get there? What will they do for food? Support?” she asked.

According to Ms Wiesner, Gloucester’s geographical isolation does not help.

“There’s no mobile phone coverage out of town, no buses. It’s a revolving door of abuse, because there’s no way out.”

Compounding the problem is the region’s small population, where everyone knows someone. 

“Here, half the town is related to the other. Friends and family either won’t believe her if she tells them what’s going on, or worse yet, they shun her. It’s called ‘secondary wounding’.”

Thursdays and Fridays are reportedly the worst days for incidences, and if the victim gets caught in the act of trying to leave, things only get worse. 

“Women with disabilities are twice as likely to get beaten. Aboriginal women are 35 times more likely. A woman will attempt to leave on average 22 times before she succeeds,” Ms Wiesner said.

With one out of every three domestic violence cases reported to police involving children, leaving can be full of hurdles. Ms Wiesner cites a recent case where she used up two mobile phone batteries over one afternoon trying to access help from ‘hotlines’ on behalf of a woman and her children. 

“I completed three loads of washing while I was on hold,” she said. 

“I had the same set of questions each time, working through their system.  Finally near the end they said ‘Because you have children with you, I will have to put in a mandatory report to the Department of Community Services! What do you think most women would do? They’re going to hang up!”

Ms Wiesner said most of her clients come in looking for emergency relief such as food.

“It’s a soft entry. I then ask them some questions, and then it all starts coming out. I’m the catcher but there’s nowhere I can zoom them off to,” she said.

“They’ll often have no money, no credit cards, are controlled, and sneak any spare cash out of their groceries.”

But with no shelter in Gloucester or motels approved for government emergency funding (the closest is Taree) there is literally nowhere to go locally without calling upon the support of the churches. 

“I ring them all. I rotate them, and they pay for a room. They’re fantastic. I then ring the local police and they keep an eye on them.”

So before she retires in five years, Ms Wiesner wants to see a safehouse in Gloucester.

“What most of them need is a space to rest for four days, clear their head, sleep, feed themselves and their kids and work out what they are going to do next.”

Adding that a safehouse needs to be near the police station, Ms Wiesner said that it could also be split to provide accommodation for Gloucester’s transient homeless population, many of whom are forced off terminating trains at Gloucester on weekends with nowhere else to go.

“A safehouse needs to be for everybody,” she said.

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Residents are encouraged to stand up, speak out and act by taking the White Ribbon Oath to stop violence against women this Saturday November 28, beginning with a walk at 10am down Gloucester’s main street, meeting at Leading Appliances. This will be followed by Gloucester’s White Ribbon Advocate Dr Col Martin leading residents through the White Ribbon Oath at Billabong Park. The Mens Shed will have at last 77 white crosses displayed until December 10 (Human Rights Day) to represent those women who have died this year.