Review of the Women’s Centre 2024 -2025
We have certainly had a busy year at the Centre with referrals continuing to be high. Inclusion has remained one of the priorities for the service. The role of the Community Worker gives a different perspective to the work, some clients/ agencies have highlighted the importance of having links to workers locally, from this we have set up work in Felixstowe delivering both 1-2-1 appointments and the Freedom Programme. We have continued to adapt our service to meet the needs of the clients to offer an inclusive service that best supports those that have, or are, experiencing domestic abuse. Within our Women’s Centre in Ipswich, we have an established team working with a lot of expertise and empathy.
Establishing focus groups for our clients has ensured we receive effective feedback about the services Lighthouse provides. We have two focus groups, one of which is at the end of the Neuro Diverse Freedom Programme. This has been invaluable in implementing adaptations to ensure that our clients learn and they really appreciate being included. We also have a Centre focus group, again this is invaluable, they have been actively involved in, for example, ensuring there are signs in the Centre to enable clients to find their way around. This practical input really does ensure that clients can feel very comfortable when visiting the Women’s Centre. We ensure that actions are acted upon or else explained as to why they can’t be put into action.
Our skilled Centre Triage team ensure that women are seen as quickly as possible dependent on their need, and that clients are welcomed into the service from the start. This is a key role in keeping women safe and for them to feel that they can come forward and tell us their story.
Assessing risk is a vital part of the Women’s Centre’s work. We use the Domestic Abuse Stalking and Harassment (DASH) tool to ascertain the level of risk and ensure that women get the help that they need to keep them safe, as well as exploring where Honour Based Violence may be an issue. We continue to put high risk referrals through to the MARAC conference; meetings are held for all areas of Suffolk. As part of the Advice role, we are continuing to look at how we can best develop the service moving forward, this can mean training for the team. For example, we have worked with Loving Me for transgender awareness based on some of the appointments we have had.
We continually look at gaps in the service, women that we have not been able to reach. We have run a campaign on older aged victims to support them to come forward, we have seen an increase in older women, often as a result of their families being more aware of what domestic abuse looks like.
We also have good links with the university who make referrals to us on a needs basis.
We continue to run Child Contact sessions, so women are able to receive the support that they require around this issue. It is important that we can give women the opportunity to explore this in detail and we are grateful as ever to be able to refer women for free legal advice.
Our therapeutic programmes are at the core of what we do. We run our programmes both online and face to face with the client, choosing which learning style suits them best. The Freedom Programme and Power to Change continue to be popular programmes. It is important that we keep reviewing the courses to ensure that we meet the needs of the clients.
We have recently introduced “The Voice”, this combines parts of both programmes and has been well received. The Neuro Diverse Freedom Programme is very well established now. It continues to be very popular with powerful feedback, for example, “without this course I would have dropped out, I would have found it too difficult to keep up”.
Escape the Trap for teenagers (boys and girls) continues to be popular and we are always keen to be able to deliver early intervention work.
Empower Me continues to be well attended, this has been more focused, and the women have really enjoyed completing crafts and some excellent artwork for the Centre walls. We have also had a range of speakers to deliver sessions including Education, your next step, Peri & Menopause, Financial Wellbeing and Cost of Living to name but a few.
Our Community Worker really has developed the role considerably, encouraging different groups to come forward is an important part of this work. The Community Worker, in coordination with other partner agencies, organised the Cultural Community Day in Christchurch Park. There were over 45 different agencies attending as well as fun activities. It was a huge success with a multi-cultural range of families attending, enjoying the activities and finding out more about services in their area.
The community role has really advanced knowledge of our service and therefore, ensured women and children have had the support that they need.
Our Families & Children’s Worker has been on maternity leave; however, it has been important that we have kept some of the children’s work going. Therefore, we have continued to deliver ReConnect Together, this is a weekly course which focuses on building relationships between mums and their children. It is based on activities, and we get positive feedback on just how much their relationships have improved during the course.
Multi agency working is key to the work we complete, both in making onward referrals for support and those agencies that directly provide information sessions for our clients. I would like to thank Birketts Solicitors, Suffolk Law Centre and Bates, Wells and Braithwaite for the legal sessions they have delivered for our clients this year as well as Suffolk Community Foundation for their financial support. It is important that we have hardship funds available, to both help clients in need and that we also have items to support them, for example, during the cost-of-living crisis we have received vouchers to help women through a difficult time.
It has certainly been a busy year, but we have supported a substantial number of women and children to feel safer, supported and help rebuild their lives. We continue to be innovative and ensure that we are able to support clients appropriate to their needs.