Women & Children First (formerly Manly Warringah Women’s Resource Centre) is not for profit, community based service for women and children that provides crisis accommodation and support services for women and children escaping domestic violence, intimate partner violence and family violence and abuse. We offer a complete wrap around services that case manages the women and children to ensure they receive the support, counselling and enrichment they need to get back on their feet and live whole and happy lives. Our goal is to ensure every client who contacts our service will feel safe, secure and connected.

We have a group style home refuge on the lower North Shore, a 6 unit individual living refuge on the Northern Beaches and as a result of an increased demand for our services due to COVID-19.

In the 2019 financial year, 940 women and children were supported by all of our services. In July 2020, we saw a 291% increase in demand for our services including crisis accommodation.

Donations go directly to support the immediate and personal needs of women and children in our care, and include:

• $10 buys a tube of paw paw ointment and a packet of bandaids to soothe grazed knees and chaffed lips
• $20 buys the school shoes left behind on the front porch OR a bottle of children’s Panadol
• $50 pays for the first meal a mother and her children receive when they arrive at the refuge
• $100 pays for a Mother and child to attend a counselling session
• $200 pays for a childcare worker to watch over children while their mother attends court OR a day out in school holidays when otherwise they would remain at the refuge
• $500 buys a new bunk bed for a mother and child moving into transitional housing or pots, pans and dishware for their own kitchen