Agenda item

Your Sanctuary Domestic Abuse Outreach Service

To receive a presentation on the work of the Your Sanctuary Domestic Abuse Outreach Service.

Minutes:

FiammaPather, Chief Executive, gave a presentation in respect of the Your Sanctuary Domestic Abuse Service.

 

Your Sanctuary was a Woking based organisation that provides a range of services to adults and children who were either experiencing or were at risk of domestic abuse. 

 

The service, originally set up in 1977, provided community based outreach services to women in the Woking, Runnymede and Surrey Heath local authority areas and to men from across Surrey who experienced domestic abuse.  Referrals to the service were received from a wide range of agencies including: the police, health providers, children’s services and children’s centres as well as an increasing number of self-referrals.  The outreach programme provided group workshops to adults to help them come to terms with and move on from their experiences and a dedicated children’s outreach worker provided one to one support to the children of adults referred to the service.

 

Your Sanctuary operated two refuges in north-west Surrey accommodating women and their children from outside the local area.  There were reciprocal arrangements with refuges located outside Surrey to ensure that vulnerable women that approached Your Sanctuary were able to be accommodated safely outside their local area. 

 

A telephone helpline provided advice to anyone anywhere within Surrey 24 hours a day, seven days a week with trained staff and volunteers providing assistance and advice not only to those experiencing domestic abuse but also to people concerned about someone else and professionals seeking advice or wanting to make referrals.

 

The organisation received funding from Surrey County Council, Woking Borough Council, Runnymede Borough Council, Surrey Community Foundation and BBC Children In Need.  Surrey Heath Borough Council did not provide the organisation with direct core funding however funding was provided through the Safer Surrey Heath Partnership to help meet the costs of advertising and promoting the annual National Domestic Abuse Awareness Week campaign.

 

It was reported that in 2016/17 Surrey Police recorded 7,719 incidents of domestic abuse across Surrey with 545 of these incidents taking place in the Surrey Heath area. However national research has found that a person will have experienced an average of 35 assaults before they contacted the police for the first time.   Females were the victims of domestic abuse in 70% of the cases reported and 36% of the victims were aged between 18 and 29 years old.

 

In 69% of reported cases the victim’s ethnicity was categorised as being white however it was stressed that research had found that there were a range of factors that could deter black and minority ethnic groups from reporting domestic abuse including language barriers, cultural and socio-economic factors and concerns about immigration status so this figure could not be considered a true reflection of the situation on the ground.  Similarly, research had found that male victims, and particularly those in gay relationships, were less likely to report incidents of domestic abuse and when they were reported incidents were often miscategorised because they were sometimes seen as just being ‘two men having a fight’.

 

Key areas of work for Your Sanctuary over the coming year included:

 

·         Being a pilot area for the Women’s Aid National Project Change that Lasts.  A programme that used a strengths-based, needs-led approach to support domestic abuse survivors and their children to help them build resilience and independence.

·         Participating in a Transforming Women’s Justice pilot project which aimed to stop the ‘revolving door’ of low level re-offending by women and get them out of the criminal justice system by offering women who admitted their offences appropriate support to tackle the behaviour which led them to offend.

·         Providing input into Surrey Police training on domestic abuse.

·         Working towards the joint commissioning of domestic abuse services.

 

 Arising from Members’ questions and comments the following points were noted:

 

·         Using social media to deliver campaigns was a new area for Your Sanctuary and expertise would be brought in from partners if it was decided to make more of the medium.

·         Domestic Abuse Champions provided support and guidance to their colleagues however experience had found that their success very much depended on the support that the champions themselves received from their managers.

·         It was an aspiration to have peer mentors in Surrey however they required ongoing support and this could only be delivered through the employment of paid staff.

·         Mediation started from the assumption that all parties were equal. Consequently mediation was never considered as an option when domestic abuse was present in a relationship as the parties involved were not equal.

·         Although levels of domestic abuse were rising year on year the rise was not considered to be significant and the rise was attributed in the main to a greater awareness and understanding of domestic abuse and a decrease in tolerance levels towards accepting domestic abuse.

·         The cases that were being dealt with by Your Sanctuary staff and volunteers were increasingly becoming more and more complex as statutory services reduced the levels of support that they provided to non-critical cases.

 

It was agreed that a small working group would be set up to explore ways in which the Council might help Your Sanctuary take forward and develop their work.   

 

The Committee thanked Fiamma Pather for her informative presentation.

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