Commission calls for more victims to come forward In its first month of private hearings in Sydney, the royal commission into child sexual abuse has referred four matters to police and been warned that child sexual abuse continues in Australian institutions. The commission has issued formal notices to 10 different religious, educational, recreational and government bodies requiring them to provide it with documents. One such notice yielded 100,000 documents. With private sessions expanding to Brisbane this week, and later to other cities, the commission plans to shake off its "bland" legalistic image with promotions on radio and other media to encourage more survivors to come forward, commission chief executive Janette Dines said. But gathering records will be a "big problem" because some of the cases it has been told of date back as far as the 1920s, and many institutions had no record-keeping requirements in earlier times, Ms Dines said. About 5000 people have called or written to the commission since it was announced in November. It has received 2200 phone calls since April. There have been 56 private hearings in Sydney at which many people have told their stories of abuse for the first time. The private hearings will inform decisions about the focus and locations of public hearings planned for late in the year at which evidence will be tested. But commissioners have guaranteed no one appearing at a private session will be compelled to give public evidence. Ms Dines said royal commissions traditionally presented a "bland" face to the public but this one needed to break the mould as the people it was meant to serve are "such a different set of stakeholders." To ensure everyone who had something to say had the opportunity to do so, it would try different ways of reaching out. "A lot of the survivor groups are saying that their members listen to radio, particularly late-night radio, so they are things we are really happy to test," she said. Ms Dines said the commission has in place a program to minimise the risk of "vicarious trauma" for its 74 staff that includes six commissioners led by Justice Peter McLellan. Vicarious trauma is a name for the psychological impact people may experience through first-hand exposure to survivor's accounts of trauma. Research suggests symptoms are similar to those of direct trauma exposure including social withdrawal, anger, physical illnesses and sleeplessness. There is evidence the risk is higher when children and sexual abuse are involved. The program involves screening to determine whether "there is anything in particular about [a staff member] that might make them more at risk," limiting private session hearings to four a day and four days a week, training sessions on symptoms and looking out for themselves and colleagues, a help line, and regular check-in sessions with a counsellor or psychologist. Ms Dines said the commission was contacting people who wanted a private hearing "as quickly as we can" but providing an accurate time-frame was difficult. There needed to be about 50 people ready to tell their stories at a given location for the commission to set up hearings there. The federal budget set aside $434 million for the commission.