ACC Media Release
20 August 2009

ACC focuses on recovery for victims of sexual abuse

ACC has been talking to sexual abuse counsellors, psychotherapists, psychiatrists and psychologists about how it can achieve better outcomes for people who have a significant mental injury as a result of sexual abuse or a sexual assault.

“We’ve been concerned for some time about whether we have been getting the best outcomes for this very vulnerable group,” said Dr Kevin Morris, ACC’s Director of Clinical Services. “In the past, we haven’t had the benefit of a clear-evidence-based framework that shows the most effective way to treat and rehabilitate people who have suffered from sexual abuse. So four years ago we started working with psychologists, psychotherapists and other experts in this area to create a set of comprehensive guidelines that focus on treating individuals appropriately to work towards rehabilitation.

“We will be following the recommendations made in the Massey Guidelines for the Assessment and Treatment of Mental Injury as a result of Sexual Assault or Sexual Abuse. These guidelines were developed in New Zealand, for New Zealanders and focus on the best ways to get people back to their everyday lives after they have suffered sexual abuse.”

The Massey Guidelines were published in 2008 and suggest that relative, shorter-term therapy is more beneficial for many clients than long term therapy. The guidelines also state that sexual abuse should be viewed as a ‘complex life experience’ not a disorder or a life sentence.

To align itself with these guidelines ACC is proposing changing the way it works with its sensitive claims clients by introducing a standard procedure which focuses on early diagnosis of the presence of a mental injury to enable earlier decisions on claims and therapy to be made. The number of counselling sessions and progress being made will also be more closely monitored, with a focus on a positive return to everyday life for the client as the main goal.

“ACC’s role in supporting people who have suffered a significant mental injury as a result of sexual abuse is to rehabilitate the mental injury. We want to give the best, most appropriate evidence based service for each individual, as individual needs can obviously differ,” said Dr Morris. “We are looking at other options for rehabilitation as well”.

“We’ve just run eight workshops across the country with providers in the field and have already modified our proposal to reflect their feedback. Our main focus is to put the future of people who have suffered sexual abuse first here and we are using some strong research to support the changes we propose.”

ENDS

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