battered women

In reviewing the life of Anne Summers, one of the members of Women's Liberation in Sydney, Australia, journalist Anna Reynolds states that Elsie (which Summers helped establish from a formerly-abandoned house in 1974) was the first battered women's shelter in Australia.

In 1974, members of the Women's Liberation Movement in Melbourne established the Halfway House, a shelter for battered women and their children.

How can I verify whether Elsie was indeed Australia's first battered women's shelter or whether Halfway House (or another shelter) was already in existence by the time Summers and her fellow Women Libbers opened Elsie?

Several months ago, a friend attended a training around domestic violence and sexual assault. She recently told me that one of the presenters had said that the rates of women killing their abusive spouses/partners dropped dramatically with the establishment of battered women's shelters in the United States. She said that the presenter did not state where he got this information. Where would i find studies/reports confirming (or disproving) this statement?