Short Description

The Department for Women provides information to the NSW community through the Women's Information and Referral Service (WIRS), the Women's Gateway and it publications. The Freecall telephone referral service provides information about organisations and services on a wide range of issues affecting women.

More Details

Some of the publications are available on the web site. If they are not there or access to the Internet is not an option, they can be ordered by phone or email.

The Women's Information and Referral Service (WIRS)
WIRS is a first port of call for those seeking current and accurate information and referrals to services and organisations for women and their families in NSW and border areas. The WIRS database contains around 4000 services.

Callers approach WIRS about a wide range of issues including health, violence against women and children, legal questions, child care, housing, health, work, education and training.

WIRS provides free, culturally sensitive and confidential services that can be delivered in the following languages: Spanish, French, Greek, Tagalog, Malay, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian and Hungarian. We also have an officer who can communicate in Croatian. Aboriginal callers can access our Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders officers. Multilingual services provided by external professional interpreters are also available on request.

WIRS also answers requests for information and referrals sent by ordinary mail and email.

WIRS advertises in all major telephone directories, including those published in community languages such as Chinese and Arabic. It also maintains contact and regularly exchanges information with service providers and community organisations.

The women's gateway
The Department for Women has been involved in the establishment of the women's gateway, a project developed in conjunction with the Office of Information Technology and Social Change On line and launched by the Minister for Women in March 2001.

The women's gateway complements the information services provided by WIRS, making the services available 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, to those who have internet access.