Blue Knot Redress Support Service

The Blue Knot Redress Support Service is a service that can help adults who have lived through institutional child sexual abuse in a place like a school, church or community group. We can help you write to a scheme set up by the government about what happened to you. They have agreed to assess your situation and where they can, find ways to acknowledge the harm. This is called Redress.

The Redress Support Service operates from 9am-5pm AEST/AEDT, 5 days a week. Phone calls are recorded for training and quality assurance purposes (find out more).

Man in Black Crew Neck Shirt Holding Yellow Ceramic Mug Beside a Woman

How can we help you?

The Blue Knot Redress Support Service team can provide scheduled telephone or videoconferencing sessions. During these sessions we can walk you through your National Redress Scheme, your options and the application process.

This is a free service.

A big part of what we do in the Redress team is support hope, not only hope in telling the story and in the outcome but hope in themselves. We work to build our clients up when some of them may have never had hope before. We not only believe them but we believe in them. This is something I hold for a lot of my clients.
- Redress Caseworker

What will happen?

You will be assigned a Redress Therapeutic Caseworker. All caseworkers are qualified health professionals who will support you in a trauma-informed way. Each caseworker has experience in writing Redress applications and can support you as you navigate different emotions which may arise during this process.

If you have already lodged your application and receive a request for further information (S24) from the National Redress Scheme, our Redress Therapeutic Caseworkers can help you respond.

We can also act as your nominee. This allows us to talk with the National Redress Scheme on your behalf. If we are your nominee, we can provide you with updates about the progress of your application and support you through the process.

We can:

  • Support you to learn about the Scheme
  • Discuss your eligibility for the Scheme
  • Support you while you choose whether you want to apply or not
  • Walk you through the application process
  • Prepare and write your application with you
  • Access relevant care records
  • Answer any letters from The National Redress Scheme i.e. S24 requests for information, asking you to provide more information in your application
  • Engage with the Knowmore Legal Service if legal advice is required to support your application
  • Lodge your completed application
  • Provide you with ongoing support after lodging your application.

Support after lodging an application:

After your application is lodged, we offer monthly counselling support until you receive an outcome.

Your Redress Therapeutic Caseworker will support you through the outcome process, including:

  • Understanding and considering the outcome
  • Accepting the offer
  • Requesting a review of the decision
  • Declining the offer and, if you are considering civil litigation, assisting with referral to legal services.

If your application is approved, your caseworker can also support you to access:

  • Counselling and psychological care services
  • A Direct Personal Response such as an apology.

The Blue Knot Redress Support Service team can support you right through your application.

You can contact us 5 days a week, 9am – 5pm AEST/AEDT.

Blue Knot helped me put together my redress application. It’s a great chance for any survivor/victim to start speaking with the right people, with people who understand. When you can call Blue Knot, they believe you, even if you ‘umm and ahh’ your way through. Now I really look forward to my regular calls with my Blue Knot redress counsellor.
-Tony, Survivor, one of Blue Knot’s redress clients