Women’s Shelters

“My role is helping women escape from domestic violence,” explains Catherine. “Helping put them into safe accommodation, help them with DVO orders against perpetrators, and making sure they feel safe where they are. I then sit down and do a case plan with them, help them apply for housing, provide transport to find rental properties.”

It’s delicate work, and quite involved. It’s also hands-on work, which Catherine loves.“Being a Torres Strait woman, an indigenous woman, helping my people is important to me,” she says.

“I’ve always wanted to help others. Growing up, we took care of my grandfather’s brothers; they couldn’t do a lot of things on their own,” recalls Catherine.

We all need support at different times in our lives, whether that’s as a child at a daycare centre, an older relative whose body has tired, or a mother and her children escaping domestic violence and figuring out a new world of independence.

“People will choose their path on their own, but I am here on the side, to help, guide and hold their hand, if they want me to,” says Catherine.

“What brings joy to me in this job, is when my ladies come to me and tell me they’ve got their own home, which they don’t share with what they’ve been through. With that house, they are starting again, on a fresh new journey. My greatest joy is seeing the happiness that comes from their independence.”

Catherine says there is a clear, shared purpose of all those working at Yumba-Meta which drives the organisation forward in the same direction.

“Yumba-Meta as a workplace is like a big family. If one goes down, not just one picks you up – everybody will pick you up,” says Catherine. “You will climb that ladder at work, but it’s the managers that are the ladders, they are the ones lifting you up, lifting me up.

“I cared for my husband through three years until he passed,” recalls Jacqui, who relocated to Townsville in 2010 for her husband’s cancer treatment. “He was actually the one who said to me: ‘You should be a nurse’.” Jacqui took her husband’s advice, and in 2014, while studying Nursing, she took a casual position at Yumba-Meta as a Support Worker at women’s refuge Flora House.

“Within my own relationship there had been domestic violence,” shares Jacqui. “My husband was a banana farmhand, but when Cyclone Larry came through in 2006, he cut himself with a cane knife and got a drop foot and couldn’t work, so he became the one at home with the kids while I worked. That changed him, for the better. He walked in my shoes. When he got the cancer, he thought it was karma, but I reminded him he’d changed his life around years before, and it was just bad luck.”

“Working at Flora House, I could relate to the women experiencing domestic violence. It helped me in my work,” says Jacquie. “When you’re going through that [DV], you start making excuses and justify it in your head. It takes a lot for a woman to walk away, especially when they’ve got kids.”

Eventually, Jacqui’s studies required her to travel, so, faced with a crossroad, she chose full-time work with Yumba-Meta. In 2016, management encouraged her to apply for a position as Housing Officer.

“Back then, I didn’t know anything about managing property as a housing officer,” admits Jacqui. “My role is looking after tenants and properties. I had to learn the RTA, the privacy and confidentiality acts, our own YML policies and procedures, and how that all comes together so we can do our job.

“You underestimate yourself and what you can do, but I did it,” says Jacqui. “This is what Yumba-Meta has given me – I’m getting emotional – I love getting out of bed to come to work because I learn every day.”

Does Jacqui have any regrets leaving her Nursing studies? “None at all!”