Stepping Out Program

28/11/2025

Christmas is a tricky time of year for CSA survivors with all its shouty messages of consumerism and community. It can exacerbate feelings of social isolation and socioeconomic disadvantage, both impacts of childhood trauma through no fault of their own.

This is why Stepping Out is so pleased and proud to be part of the Addi Road community which looks after people whose Christmas does not look like a K-mart commercial. Their annual Hampers of Hope campaign is truly the spirit of Christmas - volunteers pack hampers full of donated treats for vulnerable members of the community to help through the festive season.

“Each hamper is a message of care, dignity and solidarity - a reminder that our community stands together.”

Today at social inclusion group, we decorated tags for the hampers in art class with Assemblage Sisters. We’ll be helping to pack hampers in a few weeks and, of course, our people will each receive a hamper for the holiday period. There’s even hampers for pets who are cherished family members.

Thank you to Addi Road for providing a community space where our people feel safe, supported and included 🎄🎄🎄
Addi Road Community Organisation
The Assemblage Sisters

25/11/2025

16 Days of Activism Against Gendered Violence - Day #1

Unite Against Violence: No More Empty Shoes Vigil

On display in Martin Place, 49 pairs of shoes represent the humanity of each of the women whose lives were stolen by gendered violence in the past year.

Stepping Out stands in honour of the women for whom child s*xual abuse (CSA) set in motion a lifelong trajectory of risk and harm. For far too many survivors, CSA is not an isolated event - it is a key driver of domestic, family and s*xual violence which can shape lives marked by complex trauma, ongoing abuse and disadvantage.

As we move through the next 16 days of activism, we honour both victims and survivors of gendered violence and call for systems that recognise a lifespan approach 🧡🧡🧡

25/11/2025

18/11/2025

“Unite Against Violence: No More Empty Shoes” is a campaign to honour victims of domestic and family violence, advocating for change as part of the UN’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence.

Come show solidarity next Tuesday 25th November, from 8am to 1.30pm at Martin Place in Sydney CBD 🌹🌹🌹

18/11/2025

Another free lunchtime training webinar tomorrow at midday for frontline disability and community workers on the topic of trauma-informed practice when working with survivors of child s*xual abuse.

Contact us at info@steppingout.org.au if you’d like to join in 💜💜💜

18/11/2025

Thanks to Mady from Addi Road’s Australian Martial Arts Academy for our trauma-informed self-defense class yesterday, specifically for female survivors of child s*xual abuse. Requested by survivors and tailored to their trauma, it was a fun activity with the serious purpose of helping them feel safer and more confident in the community. It was empowering, envigorating and inclusive with lots of laughs, kicks and discussions around personal safety 🥋🥋🥋

11/11/2025

Free training for frontline disability workers.

Stepping Out is running free lunchtime webinars on the prevalence and impacts of child s*xual abuse and trauma-informed responses to disclosures in the disability sector.

For more details, please reach out to us at info@steppingout.org.au

08/11/2025

Remember to breathe. It’s the best, easiest and most immediate method for self-regulation 🙏💜🧘‍♀️

04/11/2025

Stepping Out was pleased to participate last Friday in Lucy’s Project’s National Roundtable on Domestic and Family Violence Perpetrated against People and Animals.

With a magnificent harbour view from fifty floors up, the event was well-attended with diverse representation of both people and animals. Anyone with a pet understands them to be a sentient being and cherished family member but this close connection is exploited in abusive relationships characterised by coercive control. Here are some of the shocking statistics:

🐈‍⬛ 73% of Australian households include animal/s.
🐩 DFV perpetrators often threaten, harm and kill animals to intimidate and control women and children (AIFS)
🐴 Cruelty and harm directed to pets/animals can indicate risk of future and more severe violence (ANROWS National Risk Assessment Principles for DFV)
🐇 48% of practitioners report working with DFV victims who stay with perpetrator for more than a year due to fear or threat of an animal being harmed (DVNSW)
🐕 A huge barrier to leaving violence is a lack of animal-inclusive accommodation, both in refuges and the private market.

Included are slides, the view and Spiegel, a tuxedo cat rescued from torture and violence in a youth refuge by Melissa, our CEO. He was on his last legs, utterly traumatised, but lived another eight years, thriving in a safe and loving environment. He died aged 20, a metaphor for the right to safe housing and a life free of violence, for both humans and animals alike.

For more information, check out Lucy’s Project at https://lucysproject.com/

31/10/2025

“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”
Nora Ephron

Xuanwei Su

31/10/2025

Lynette Curran reading from her CSA memoir “Dreams of Taboo” at Pitt Street Uniting Church for a Blue Knot Foundation event. Lynette is a familiar face to us all after a long career as an actress. As happens in the dissociative process of CSA, she says she left her body and found her vocation. We saw the astonishing result in this performance - a seasoned professional reading her own shocking story with humour, humanity and disarming candour. The crowd was spellbound. Lynette is working with playwright Alana Valentine on a one-woman show of her memoir, hopefully and most appropriately for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. The book is available on Amazon and we hope to see it on the stage in the near future 🤩🤩🤩lynette