OUR HISTORY

WCHM was established in 1990 and was originally located in Phillip. It was known as ‘The Canberra Women’s Health Centre’, and commenced its operation as the result of identified need by ACT women’s refuges and the ACT government Women’s Health Service. It was clear at the time women’s health and wellbeing needs could not solely be met by existing services.

At the opening of the Centre, Dorothy Broom stated:

“It is the business of this Centre to facilitate us, as women, to reclaim knowledge of and responsibility for our own bodies and our own health.”

Dorothy went on to state:

“…our distinctive needs include reproductive and gynecological concerns, but to limit 'women’s health' to such concerns is a kind of medicalised version of the tabloid newspaper’s page 2 photograph….our health needs as women can never be restricted to 'complaints and conditions unique to women' without fragmenting us into a collection of unrelated organ systems, tissues, and body parts to be repaired, replaced, or removed like the elements of a faulty machine. So it is revolutionary when we move to reintegrate the fragmented parts, and to devise ways of placing ourselves back in the healing relationship as responsible agents…”

Dorothy’s words were significant, and at the time revolutionary, paving the way forward for WCHM’s many years of work with women’s health and wellbeing.

In 1992, the Centre moved to The Pearce Community Centre and has to date remained at this location. In the mid 1990s, the name was changed to Women’s Centre for Health Matters Inc. so that the Centre was acknowledged as a distinct service and not confused with the Women’s Health Service.

In the past the Centre has provided a number of essential services to ACT Women. These included the Women’s Health Information Line which operated for 30 hours per week, attended to by a registered nurse. This service provided confidential information on all women’s health issues, referral, phone counselling and support. Up until 2007 a Women’s Health Library offered a large range of pamphlets, books, videos and audio cassettes. The dissemination of the library came as a result of books being outdated and the increasing availability of current up to date information electronically. The first ‘Having A Baby in Canberra’ (HABIC) pamphlet was issued in 1999 and has proven to be WCHM’s most requested information item. This pamphlet, and an associated information session still run today in partnership with the Maternity Coalition.

Over the years the WCHM has constantly evolved to meet the changing needs of women in Canberra. Today, the emphasis has moved from away from a direct service delivery model and towards a community development, building capacity approach using the social determinants of health model. With this change has come a new focus for the Centre on identifying and responding to the unmet health needs of ACT women through social research, project work, health promotion, advocacy and capacity building.

WCHM Celebrates 20 Years of Supporting Women in the ACT and Surrounds

On Thursday 5 May 2011 WCHM celebrated its 20th birthday! The celebration was held at the Legislative Assembly and featured an exhibition of memorabilia from the Centre’s past. There were also some exceptional speakers who each offered their thoughts on the Centre’s evolution and spoke to the future of health and health care for women in the ACT.

Following a few congratulatory words by the ACT Minister for Women, Joy Burch, WCHM founding member, Sue Andrews, formally launched the WCHM history booklet and took a few moments to reflect on the Centre’s history. Guests were reminded that the Canberra Women’s Health Centre (now the Women’s Centre for Health Matters), was born out of the very first National Women’s Health Policy in 1989, and that that it had been officially opened on 23 April 1991 in the green space opposite the Centre in the middle of Colbee Court by the women of Canberra (a copy of Sue’s speech is available below.)  Sue was followed by Dorothy Broome, who, having spoken at the opening of the Centre in 1991, took the opportunity to reflect on the past twenty years and comment on the changing, a much more mainstream, approach of community based women’s health organisations in pushing for change.

Following the retrospective were four speakers who shared their thoughts about the future of health care in the ACT, particularly for the groups of women at risk of disadvantage with whom WCHM works. The first speaker, Darlene Cox from the Health Care Consumers Association (HCCA) of the ACT, took the opportunity to comment on the debate surrounding the inclusion of gender as a social determinant of health in the new Primary Health Care Strategy. Christina Ryan from Advocacy for Inclusion took the opportunity to raise the ongoing issues for women with disabilities, which are not being addressed by mainstream disability policies and programs. These include ensuring the rights of women with disabilities to have children and the elimination of violence against women with disabilities by carers. Continuing with this theme, Branka Trajkovski from Toora Women’s Inc. discussed the challenges that remain for women who have experienced violence and welcomed the few initiatives in the recently announced ACT Budget. In particularly, Branka acknowledged the allocated funding for programs to achieve behavioural change in offenders. Last but not least, was Padma Menon, WCHM Board member and Director of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia (FECCA). Padma spoke of the challenging but essential step of engaging culturally and linguistically diverse women to ensure that they are partners in designing and directing the supports and services they receive. One measure, which WCHM has documented through previous research, is working with communities not for them and accepting that empowerment looks different in different contexts.

To close the formalities Alison Osmand, WCHM Board Chair, thanked the speakers and formally launched four companion reports to It goes with the Territory! ACT Women’s views about Health and Wellbeing Information. The four companion reports present the views of young women, older women, women who are mental health carers and women with disabilities. These reports are all available under the publications section of the website and members will be receiving hard copies of these publications in the mail shortly.

The speakers were followed by a delightful performance by the a’cappella choir, the Cyrenes who have a special connection to WCHM’s past. In 1999 the Cyrenes approached WCHM to support and auspice their application for an ACT Government Healthpact Grant to assist the staging of their original production On the Soles of Her Feet. The Cyrenes are a women's community choir with a passion for singing songs by, for, and about women and their experiences, and about social justice. They celebrated their own 20th Anniversary in 2009. The Choir sang four songs, raising the spirits and energy of the crowd before they had the opportunity to taste the delicious WCHM 20th Birthday cupcakes and peruse the exhibition about the trials and triumphs of WCHM over the last two decades.

The birthday was a great success with over 120 attendees, but more than that, it was an opportunity for women and men working in community, health, education and government to reflect on the history of women’s health in the ACT and to think to the future: the challenges, the priorities, and the opportunities. WCHM was also able to hear from our partners on the work they think is yet to be done.

Sue Andrews 20th Birthday Speaking Notes (48 KB)

Sue Andrews 20th Birthday Speaking Notes (39 KB)

Click on the first photo to enlarge the image.

Next

WCHM took this opportunity to formally launch its published twenty year history, documenting the women, the trials and triumphs that make the Centre what it is today.

WCHM History (460 KB)