At the end of the year, Christmas and New Year come up quickly and you think where has the year gone? We were wondering why we felt a bit tired. Looking back, we achieved a lot in 2022. Here is a summary of our achievements as reported at our Annual General Meeting:
Op Shops
This year we had 20 volunteers help to keep the Geebung and Brisbane City Op Shop doors open. We have continued with the lease for both shops for another 12 months. We were also able to support NDIS workers and mutual obligation workers in the Op Shops. Extra sales were achieved through clothing racks being placed in a coffee shop under Town Hall.
CPR Training and a First Aid
We were able to purchase an automated external defibrillator Philips HeartStart for the Geebung store and undertake training.
A group of ten Broken to Brilliant volunteers made up of nine Op Shop Volunteers, three of whom are also program leaders, and one program facilitator. All attended the full-day CPR and first aid refresher training on 8th April 2022 at Zillmere Community Hall. Each person received a CPR certificate from St John’s Ambulance.
The defibrillator and training were funded by the Queensland Community Foundation.
Fund Raising
Container Exchange
Volunteers continue to collect cans and bottles for recycling from their workplaces, local cafes, friends, and schools, delivering carloads of empty cans and bottles to their nearby Container for Exchange depot. The funds are directly deposited into the Broken to Brilliant bank account when using the Scheme code C10029698. Funds raised in the 2021-22 financial year $2035.26
High Tea
The Broken to Brilliant High Tea was held on Sunday 24 July 2022. It was a great pleasure to welcome Bob Atkinson as our new patron. Karen Jacobsen, GPS Girl and entertainer, also our Patron, performed several meaningful songs, much to the guest's enjoyment. Loretta Ryan once again took on the role of MC.
A group of 13 volunteers with staff from the Lovewell Charity tirelessly worked together to set up the tables, and Christmas decorations, prepared food in the kitchen, served food and packed up. Our guests stated they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The Christmas trees and lights were provided by Christmas Alright. Coffee and Tea were donated by Bean Alliance
Funds raised $3806.28
Raffles and lucky door prizes were enjoyed by everyone.
Melbourne Cup
We enjoyed our 6th year of the Melbourne Cup luncheon at Portabella Restaurant, Albany Creek with 90 diners. All the raffle prizes were donated by Broken to Brilliant. The sweeps ran smoothly once again. The networking and social links at this event are amazing. Each year we have a number of people who acknowledge they are survivors and thank us for the work we are doing to rebuild others' lives. Funds raised $697.05.
Plant sales
The Broken to Brilliant Plant sales continue to grow. During 2022 plant sales were held on the third Saturday of the month. Regular customers eagerly wait as volunteers set up for the plant sales at the Geebung Op shop. Donations of plants and empty pots are growing. The decorative plant containers are donated by the Op shop and a dedicated volunteer drills drainages holes in them. Hundreds of empty pots have been donated mostly from Gwen and her son.
The plant sales have raised $791
Programs
DVART -Domestic Violence Amazing Resilient Thrivers
A two-day session of DV-ART was held at Northgate on 5th and 19th June 2022, led by Domestic Violence Survivors and an Art Psychotherapist - Kerry Tuck, Weird Fishh Expressive Health Services. The session used many mediums as a form of storytelling to help process trauma. There were 10 registrations and 8 people attended. Participants reported that the DV-ART program was beautiful, calming, and peaceful.
The DV-ART program abstract was accepted for a 20-minute oral presentation at the Stop Domestic Violence conference held at the Gold Coast at the end of November.
Testimonial
"DV-ART was a very big step forward for me and my journey towards restoring my life after DV, this program is amazing, and I learnt so much about myself, healing, restoration through the whole experience".
Find out more on our social media, there is a:
blog about the mandalas that were made – Healing through creative symbolism
podcast about the program – Art releases the subconscious trauma
Survivor to Thriver
The Survivor to Thriver mentoring program has continued and there were 5 mentors and 3 mentees. The mentors were able to use existing programs to refer mentees for additional support.
HEART – Healing Equine Art Resilience Therapy
In 2022 we completed 7 HEART programs held at the Therapy Pod Tallebudgera on 12th March, 4th June, 14th July, 30th July, 10th September, 8th October and 17th December.
The HEART program was funded by the Commonwealth Bank staff foundation with a grant of $10,000. There are 4 paid facilitators leading the program Tracey, Jane, Jamie and Fiona and we have two volunteer facilitators Amber and Lyle.
For each session, we aim for ten participants adults and children aged over five.
For the 7 programs held, we had 76 registrations, and 57 people attended, made up of 34 women and 23 children. An attendance rate of 75%.
96% reported that they would attend again
76% reported that the programs helped them to reconnect with their ‘self’
84% reported that the programs helped them to reconnect with nature
51% reported that the programs helped them to reconnect with family
57% reported that the programs helped them to reconnect with life
Participants reported the day to be helpful as they felt calmer, at peace, relaxed, stronger, grounded, welcomed, belonging, connected, brighter, supported, safe, understood, seen, loved, refreshed, happier and better.
The HEART program abstract was accepted for a poster presentation at the Stop Domestic Violence conference held at the Gold Coast at the end of November.
Financial Superwomen
Six free Financial Superwomen workshops were held on Saturdays in safe locations in Wooloowin, two at Northlakes and three at Varsity Lakes on the Gold Coast.
These workshops aimed to provide domestic abuse survivors with
tools for financial decision-making. During each one-day workshop, there are six 30-minute simultaneous interactive information sessions covering banking, budgeting, renting, buying a home, starting a business and recovering from domestic violence. In addition, individual appointments can be made with lawyers, human resources and insurance brokers and a Justice of the Peace.
The results below are from the first four workshops, there were 138 registrations and 71 attended, an attendance rate of 51%. Sixty evaluation forms were received. These showed a statistically significant improvement in 13 out of 15 questions on the pre-post evaluation forms, with the Financial Superwomen workshop improving participants' confidence in their financial knowledge, knowing how to solve financial problems, and finding the support to rebuild their lives after abuse.
The evaluations and attendance count from the last two workshops are yet to be analysed.
This program has been funded by:
Four sessions at Wooloowin, Northlakes and two at Varsity Lakes on the Gold Coast funded by Investing in Queensland Women, Department of Justice
·Two sessions Northlakes and Varsity Lakes funded by Bendigo Bank Paradise Point
Blogging STARS
This capacity-building program supports domestic violence survivors who would like to improve their writing skills while they are rebuilding their lives after domestic violence. Bloggers will learn about the key writing elements of an impactful blog while progressing through the self-care strategies. The Blogging STARS focused on Blogging, Sleep, Tapping, Activity, Regulation, Support and creating a self-care plan.
Five participants enrolled in the program. Participants were educated on each self-care strategy and asked to try each self-care strategy for 4 weeks and write about their experience in a blog. Participants received writing coaching on their blogs. At the end of the program, they write about their overall experience and create their own self-care plan.
This program aims to encourage participants to practice self-care and self-development strategies that are evidence-based and will enhance their well-being. The program also raises awareness of these strategies for domestic violence survivors. There is a formal pre-post evaluation that includes surveys on empowerment, well-being, writing and program feedback. Each survivor's blogs are published on our blog page
'Coerced to Courageous' - Author Program
Ten domestic violence survivors enrolled in the author program. There were three Zoom writing training sessions held on the 19th May, 9th of June and 17th July. The four-day live-in writing workshop was held 25th -28th August at Woodlands of Marburg. The authors have written a 3,000 – 3,500-word chapter. These are currently being proofread. The book launch is being held on 19th March 2023 between 12-2:30 pm at The Point Brisbane Hotel
This program is funded by the Whitehouse Foundation
Author Program Testimonials
"It has been an interesting and cathartic journey writing my story and it has lifted a burden I did not know I was carrying. I knew it would be therapeutic, but the benefits have been greater than I could have imagined".
"The retreat was one of the best experiences of my life and has changed the direction I was going from being a prisoner to finding myself, forgiving my failings and dropping the anger and bitterness for the perpetrator and the broken patriarchal systems. The B2B authors program has giving me hope and a supportive circle of friends to sustain me on my new adventure".
"I am dancing with happiness and embracing my learnings through this healing journey".
Online Steps to Rebuild your life
The free online education Steps to rebuild your life after domestic violence is based on the key themes from the book Broken to Brilliant. This is a continual education program that is not revenue producing for Broken to Brilliant. The books that are distributed to participants are sponsored by grants. The grants to support this program and resources have been linked to the Financial Superwomen program.
In 2022, 83 people enrolled in the online course. Topics covered in the course included fun your way, the importance of friends, financial fitness, fitness your way, frugal food and your brilliant future.
Two Broken to Brilliant volunteers are the course champions and offers participants support to complete the program.
Podcasting Training
Podcast equipment training 10 people trained.
Chris McCallum Sound Engineer conducted the podcast equipment training for 10 people including 3 Broken to Brilliant Directors and program leaders on Sunday 3rd April 2022.
Podcast development training 10 people trained.
Joanne Helder, Media and Communications professional in radio and podcasting, trained ten people including 3 Broken to Brilliant Directors and program leaders on how to develop, edit and release a podcast. Sessions were held over Zoom on the 4th and 11th of April 2022.
Podcast recording training 5 people trained.
Chris McCallum Sound Engineer conducted the podcast recording training for five program leaders on 19th June 2022 at Northgate Community Hall.
The podcast training was funded by the Queensland Community Foundation.
Broken to Brilliant's Voice of Survivors Podcast listen here
Cultivating Brilliance Survivor Series
Swivel! out of stress with Theresa Cameron - Cultivating Brilliance Survivor Series on Sunday 27th November at 5.30 pm. We learned how to unwind without unravelling. There were 9 easy one-minute exercises to help us relax. Swivel! will help to disrupt negative patterns and emotions that can occur in everyday situations.
Financial Wellbeing with Melissa Meagher - Cultivating Brilliance
Survivor Series. This practical and informative presentation gave us the opportunity to explore our own financial health and we were able to take away proven strategies that we could immediately do for our Financial Independence.
Our last guest speaker for the 2022 Cultivating Brilliance Survivor Series was Social Media Safety with Megan Burnett, Communications Consultant. This session was held on Wednesday 7th December 7 pm via ZOOM. Social media is an incredible tool to connect with our loved ones. Like anything, using social media comes with risks. This session showed us how to navigate social media safely, we learned a lot of tools to keep our socials safe.
Police Recruit Lived Experience Session
Police recruit education where domestic violence survivors share their ‘lived experiences’ of police involvement in their cases. The aim is to:
Increase Police recruit's understanding of a victim’s experiences of domestic violence
Improve how Police Officers respond to domestic violence cases
For Police recruits to understand domestic violence as important and valuable work and crucial to community safety.
Broken to Brilliant has been engaged for a twelve-month trial of lived experience education for the QPSA with 9 sessions in Brisbane and one Townsville session planned. These sessions provided authentic lived-experience survivors face-to-face and via video. We presented good and not-so-good police interactions with survivors showcasing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD), mental health, adolescent violence, a victim misidentified as a perpetrator and a male victim.
The first session was held on the 10th of November with 71 police recruits. Of these, 91% reported that they found the session to be valuable, with 55% reporting the session to be highly valuable and 22% reporting the session as fairly valuable. A more detailed analysis of the feedback surveys is yet to be undertaken.
Stop Domestic Violence Conference 30 Nov-2 Dec 2022 Gold Coast.
Broken to Brilliant had two abstracts accepted:
1. HEART - The HEART Connection
2. DVART - Art Releases the Subconscious Trauma
See the Stop Domestic Violence Conference Program
