In addition to counselling, we run peer support groups and trauma informed yoga at CASA House.
CASA House offers peer support groups for victim survivors who have attended individual counselling in relation to sexual assault. The purpose of these groups is to bring together victim survivors with similar experiences and create a safe space to share and feel belonging. This space can help people find recognition, validation, support, strength, healing and a sense of community.
We run groups for people who have experienced childhood sexual abuse, and for victim survivors of adult sexual assault.
We offer different groups for female-identifying, male-identifying and all gender LGBTIQA+ people.
Peer-support groups can offer different benefits to individual counselling. At CASA House, we require people to attend individual counselling before participating in a group. Talking about how sexual assault has impacted you can be difficult. For this reason, it is important participants have had an opportunity to explore impacts individually, before sharing in a group. Most group participants have attended counselling at a CASA, but this is not a requirement.
If you are interested in participating in a group, and this approach could meet your support needs, you can complete a group intake with a counsellor advocate. You will then be placed on a waitlist. The wait can be long, sometimes up to a year. We will contact you when a place in a group is available.
CASA House offers different groups for victim survivors who have experienced sexual assault as an adult or in childhood. There are groups for female-identifying or male-identifying participants as well as groups for all genders. Participants may join the group they feel best suits their experience.
If you would like more information about peer support groups, you can speak to your allocated counsellor advocate, or contact us.
A textile artwork created in peer support group
CASA House runs trauma sensitive yoga sessions for people attending our ongoing counselling.
Trauma sensitive yoga practice can look and feel a bit different from a normal yoga class. This type of yoga aims to support people in building a relationship with their body and to connect more to it. The intention in a session is to create a space that is safe, predictable and non-judgmental.
Trauma sensitive yoga focuses on people making their own choices about how they engage and move their body. There will be space to safely experiment and choose how to engage with:
Trauma Centre Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) is the first and only evidence-based, yoga-based clinical intervention for complex trauma and PTSD.
At CASA House, trauma-sensitive yoga is run by Clare Pritchard. She is a certified Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator. It is free through CASA House and is offered as an 8-week program, four times a year. You can attend the program online, via Zoom.
For more information about trauma-sensitive yoga, you can visit Clare's website.
Participants must attend ongoing counselling before participating in a yoga program at CASA House. In most cases, victim survivors attend counselling appointments while also in the yoga program.
To speak about whether trauma sensitive yoga is right for you, please call us on our intake line, or speak with your counsellor advocate or our intake team.
CASA House acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work, the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. We recognise their continuing connection to, and care for, land and waters. We acknowledge this land was stolen, and that sovereignty was never ceded. We pay our respect to Elders, past and present.