Care in Collaboration: Preventing Secondary Victimisation Through a Holistic Approach to Pre-Court Sexual Violence Interventions

Although men’s sexual violence is well known as a problem of epidemic proportions and a cause of significant harm, effective prevention strategies have yet to be developed and the effectiveness of services for victims cannot be guaranteed. Most victims of sexual violence choose not to report, but those who do may still incur exacerbation of rape’s destructive effects by those who are meant to help. Interested to know how responsiveness could be improved, I began this study by examining the literature on services for victims in order to identify the ingredients of good practice. Integrated specialist services which include support and advocacy with legal/forensic services emerged as the ideal. Finding that such systems had been positively evaluated in their real-life applications, New Zealand’s responsiveness was analysed with reference to this multi-agency model. I was particularly interested to know what supported the development of such a model and what the impediments might be to its development in New Zealand. Since literature indicated that government input was vital to implementation o