Daisy App Connects More Women to Support Services
3 September 2015 at 10:44 am
A federally funded app to assist women experiencing the impacts of sexual assault, domestic and family violence has been upgraded to assist those who are vision impaired, in remote areas of Australia, or where English is not their first language.
The Daisy App – developed with input from all State and Territory Governments and funded by the Federal Government – has been downloaded approximately 100 times each week since its launch in March. In total, there have been more than 2,000 downloads nationally.
The updated app has new features including translated information across 28 language groups, text-to-voice functionality for women with a vision impairment (or low literacy) and an SMS function for women living in rural or remote areas.
The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women, Senator Michaelia Cash, said the App was a valuable tool for women experiencing violence to access services relevant to their unique situation.
“We need to make accessing support for women experiencing violence as easy as possible. Acknowledging that every situation is different, the updated app will now be more relevant and more accessible to a wider scope of women,” Senator Cash said.
“For example, for some women living in isolated parts of Australia, police may not be the first point of response. We also know that women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds represent a significant portion of women living in violent situations. Daisy 2.0 seeks to address those specific groups to increase accessibility for women across Australia.
“To make accessing support as straightforward as possible, Daisy provides women with an easy-to-use list of specialist sexual assault, domestic and family violence services in their state and local area.”
Special features of Daisy include a “Get Help” function that allows users to quickly call 000 and a “Quick Exit” button to leave screens containing service information.
Australian of the Year, Rosie Batty praised the app for helping to raise awareness of women’s rights and options and connecting even more women to services.
“Family and friends can also use Daisy to gather information to support a loved-one’s decision making,” Batty said.
Batty also emphasised the importance of connecting women with specialist services, like the ones listed on Daisy.
“When you are experiencing gendered violence, people often tell you what to do – but the strongest predictor of a woman’s safety is the woman herself,” she said.
“What Daisy gives you is options and choices – it will help connect you with options and make choices that suit you, not what people tell you to do. If a refuge is the help you want, you can access that information. If you want specialist support, that’s there too.
“The phone is often the thing that you keep the closest so to have all this information on an app is fantastic. It’s helpful and convenient and it will make connecting to the right organisations a lot easier.”
In June, the Daisy App won a 2015 Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) Victorian iAward for government innovation.
Daisy is free to download from Google Play for Android phones and the App Store for iPhones. Find out more here.
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, domestic or family violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit www.1800RESPECT.org.au – the National Sexual Assault Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service.
