'It's infuriating': Three things a survivor never wants to hear

In the wake of the tragic murder of Forbes woman Molly Ticehurst, the NSW government announced a $230 million emergency package to stamp out domestic violence in the state.

But Dubbo domestic violence counsellor Mary Davenport thinks the whole system, and the way domestic violence is talked about, needs to change before society will see any change.

"Yes, we probably need more money. Yes, we probably need more services. But we don't have an adequate message going through the services," she told the Daily Liberal.

"When I had a client sitting on my couch, really in dire straits, an education and awareness approach was borderline insulting... It was almost like putting a bandaid on a broken leg.

"Victims are 100 percent judged. Perpetrators are understood. We need to change that narrative."

Ms Davenport is the founder of Maggie's Legacy, a program she wrote in 2018 for another woman who died at the hands of her partner in 2017.

A survivor of domestic violence herself, she witnessed firsthand the shortfalls in the system.

"My lived experience taught me more than anything that I've learnt in the academic role. I mean this respectfully, but they look at it from outside in," she said.

"I've even got clients who are going through so-called trauma informed practices and are led to anger management workshops and courses. I mean, how much more victim blaming can you get? It infuriates me."

She said the key to ending domestic violence is understanding coercive control. That is, any behaviour used by a perpetrator to establish and maintain control over another person.

"Perpetrators, enter into a hurt, harm and hide perspective. They wanna hurt victims physically, financially, socially and emotionally," Ms Davenport said.

"They want to harm their independence and happiness and they will do it by hiding through the legal system, teachers, schools, family, friends and the worst is through their own children."

Rather than "expert outsiders" coming up with a plan for victims, Maggie's Legacy helps them unpack how coercive control works in their own life and to establish and navigate a safety plan.

"The victims have been navigating their safety well before they've reached us, they know it better than us. We are not experts on their safety. They are," she said.

"Do not say to her 'you should be doing this' because a victim has been told what to do, when to do it, how to do it and why to do it for a long time.

"Someone else who is well meaning saying 'you should be doing this' and 'you should be doing that' is actually perpetuating the domestic violence cycle."

Maggie's Legacy has been working with the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council (OLALC) and the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service to coercive control workshops to the community.

Ms Davenport also counsels at the Bathurst Women's and Children's Refuge.

OLALC CEO Annette Steele said at first she was sceptical about the program at first but she has already seen the difference it has made.

"We're doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So we're trying to do things differently," she said.

"Maggie's is a completely different look at domestic violence and what we found is that it's actually giving women a better understanding of the mechanics of where they are and we haven't yet had a client come back through the service."

She said enabling women to better understand their experiences and empowering them to come up with their own safety plan is "crucial".

"At the moment it's people sitting around a table and going 'this organisation has to do that', 'this organisation has to do that'," she said.

"Nobody's actually asked this woman, is that going to work?

"This is going to have to be a generational change. But if we don't start now we're gonna lose more women and I do not want to lose a woman on my watch."

Among other things, the $230 million NSW Government package includes $73 towards reforming the NSW justice system and $48m to roll out the Staying Home Leaving Violence (SHLV) program statewide.

While the funding has been welcomed, Domestic Violence NSW chief executive Delia Donovan said more funding for housing and homelessness services was needed.

Domestic and family violence is the leading cause of homelessness for women in Australia.

Ms Davenport agreed.

"When you couple domestic violence with the housing crisis and financial crisis, it's all very well to give emergency payments but it doesn't lock in security for someone's housing situation," she said.

She would also like to see an overhaul of the Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) system.

"It is difficult to get an AVO, they don't hand them out like lollies. There's certain criterias and it's all evidence based," she said.

"Guess what? A perpetrator doesn't want to leave a trail of evidence. Domestic violence happens in secrecy when there's no one around when they're vulnerable.

"Noone else can see that behaviour yet the criminal justice system wants evidence."