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Nobody asks to be abused or sexually assaulted. Remember blame and responsibility belongs to the perpetrator(s). It’s not your fault.

You are a survivor – we do not think of anyone who comes into our agency as a victim.

Everybody reacts differently. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to react. Many different thoughts and feelings can accompany sexual abuse and can make it difficult to ask for help. It is never too late.

Get therapy / counselling

Whanganui Safe and Free has professionally registered specialist counsellors/therapists to work with survivors of sexual assault and abuse, providing quality counselling experience.

Our therapists work from our Whanganui office.

ACC Counselling

Whether or not a person decides to have ACC or other Counselling, it is strongly recommended that the sexual assault or abuse is recorded as soon as possible by your family doctor, who will lodge a formal claim with ACC. This because, just as with physical injury, support is applicable from the time that ACC registers the injury.

Get educated – prevention education services

Prevention education programmes build awareness of situations, skills, and strategies, to reduce the risk of sexual abuse occurring.

Whanganui Safe and Free has two core programmes to offer the community, and the capacity to adapt educational material to address the particular needs of different ages, family or community groups.

My Body Belongs To Me is a pre-school programme that teaches basic messages about body ownership, appropriate touch, and help-seeking.

More info

My Body Belongs To Me


It is never too early for children to learn how to keep themselves safe and there are programmes and resources that can help young ones to do this in an age-appropriate, accessible way. Whanganui Safe and Free provides its preschool prevention programme “My Body Belongs To Me” in preschools around Whanganui to more than 400 children a year, helping children to develop personal safety skills that include:

Developing a concept of body ownership
Persistence in telling
Distinguishing secrets and surprises
Differentiating good feelings from bad feelings
Essentially providing children with a voice

The programme was developed over a period of time by experts in the field of child sexual abuse and is taught in a logical, lively, age-appropriate manner, which encourages consistent messages in the home and classroom. Positive benefits of the programme are wide ranging, including the fact that children often discuss their feelings more with their parents and are bullied less.

My Body Belongs To Me teaches children:

How to name body parts
Assertion about the ownership of their bodies
Touching rules
Identifying feelings
How to tell someone to get something to stop happening

Whanganui Safe and Free offers a parent workshop prior to the programme being delivered. This enables parents and caregivers to ask any questions about the programme. We encourage parents and caregivers to attend the sessions with their children and talk about the programme with them afterwards to reinforce learning. It often gives a starting point and is a conversation starter for open communication between parents and their children.

We get wonderful feedback from parents and schools who have taken part in the programme, indicating that “My Body Belongs To Me” is well received and reinforcing that it is considered an important part of our children’s education.
Educating young children can be challenging and it is common for parents to feel ill-equipped to teach their children important safety skills in an age-appropriate manner. Nevertheless, due to their age, developmental level and trusting natures, young children are dependent on adults to keep them safe, and the “My Bod Belongs to Me” programme helps parents and caregivers to do so..

Whanganui Safe and Free provides this preventative education programme to reduce the number of survivors who will need our therapeutic services in the future.
Be proactive – not reactive.
EDUCATION IS THE KEY

Loves Me Not

Whanganui Safe and Free Educators also co-present the “Loves Me Not” programme about recognizing relationship violence, alongside NZ Police in local secondary schools.

Get support – advocacy and support services

Kaiawhina support provides wrap-around support for family/ whānau in addition to the therapeutic work of Counsellors.

Kaiawhina support can include practical support and advocacy, including if necessary, referrals to other agencies for specific interventions, in order to remove barriers that may be hindering the individual/family/whānau from healing.

We recommend that clients only have one therapeutic relationship at any one time. Although other issues such as alcohol or other drugs, relationship or anger issues, may interconnect with the effects of sexual trauma, it is safer to achieve one piece of work with the appropriate Counsellor rather than attempt all of the changes and healing at the same time. Kaiawhina support can help clients or their family/whānau access those other appropriate services.

Support is available for both the survivor of sexual abuse, and their family/whānau, supporters and caregivers. Sometimes there is a waiting period before a Counsellor or Therapist is available to take new referrals, and so new referrals to the service are offered Kaiawhina support while on the waiting list for Counselling.