Women's Health Services Network

Working together for the health, safety and wellbeing of all Victorian women and gender diverse people

Image of young Indigenous Australian woman sitting on a stair while studying.

The Victorian Women's Health Services Network is a collective of 12 state government-funded women's health services.

We understand what health and wellbeing issues matter the most to women and gender diverse people, and support policy-makers and services to create a better, fairer health system.

This moves us closer to a world where all women and gender diverse people can access the health information, supports and services they need, whenever and wherever they need them.

Our network consists of:

“A key role of the women’s health services is that they are able to focus on all the different women’s health issues and draw connections between the various issues – for instance, rates of sexual violence, access to reproductive health services, and mental health indicators – and look at the whole picture of women’s health. All these issues coalesce and impact ultimately on health status for women.”

– Cath Hannon, Project Manager, Clinical Champions Project at Royal Women’s Hospital
“Women’s health services are specialists in the social construction of gender, and how gender functions to sustain structural inequalities that in turn produce inequities in living conditions and disparities in population health … Women’s health services are unparalleled in their understanding and prioritisation of violence against women, and in their leadership, reach and practices for preventing violence. They are like no other stakeholder in Victoria’s prevention system in this regard.”

– Dr Wei Leng Kwok, independent consultant in gender equality and primary prevention of violence against women
“Women’s health services are very connected to the needs and related services that exist in their neck of the woods – they are anchored in place. Primary prevention work when done well should be grassroots. It’s about hearts and minds and shifting behaviours at a grassroots level – and that comes from community-led work and the women’s health services do this very well.”

– Matt Tyler, Executive Director, The Men’s Project at Jesuit Social Services
“One of the things the sector does beautifully is share what we have learned with each other at every stage of our work, building and refining that work along the way. One organisation will focus on a topic because it is important for their region. They undertake the projects – provide the evidence, the information, the lived experience – then share that with other women’s health services. The scale up that is possible is incredible.”

– Dr Robyn Gregory, women’s health, family violence and prevention of violence against women consultant (Women’s Health West 2008–2021)