Our Story - Empowering Survivors
The Survivor Service - our story.
The Survivor Service was founded first and foremost on lived expertise with professional and academic knowledge, adding depth and enhancing our understanding of domestic family and sexual violence.
Our founder and CEO, Samantha Schulte, is a survivor of domestic, family, and sexual violence. Samantha's journey of surviving and navigating the systems and responses to domestic, family and sexual violence highlighted the benefits of lived expertise and survivor-centred supports and services.
Samantha was involved in a high-profile domestic violence-related Coronial Inquest in Queensland. It is not lost on her that most victims who become subject to such inquests have not survived. Yet she understands that her story of survival and navigating systems and responses as a victim-survivor is not exceptional; instead, they are the common everyday experiences of many victim-survivors.
Through her own experiences and in sharing space with other victim-survivors, Samantha benefited from and saw firsthand how the most meaningful and positive outcomes were consistently achieved when services were grounded in genuinely listening to, centring, and respecting victim-survivors.
Throughout her journey, Samantha has experienced and witnessed how survivor-led, trauma-informed, and survivor-informed approaches did more than just provide support—they empowered victims to reclaim autonomy, take control of their lives, and define healing on their own terms. These experiences made it undeniably clear: centring survivors isn’t just a value—it’s a pathway to real, lasting change.
The founding Directors, Tahlia Issacs, Nicole Prudames and Samantha Schulte's initial connection was based on shared values and a deep respect for one another’s lived experience and professional knowledge. From that initial connection, together they envisaged a domestic, family, and sexual violence service grounded in values that walks beside victim-survivors. A service built not on assumptions, but on insight. Not on power, but on empowerment.
The Survivor Service exists to advance the human rights of victim-survivors to live a life free from domestic,family and sexual violence. We believe that those with lived experience hold crucial knowledge about what works, what harms, and what heals. When lived experience is centred, not tokenised, it leads to safer responses, stronger services, and better outcomes.
