Daphne 2003
Say No To Violence: Final Report
Daphne project: 2002-038
Daphne Programme – Year 2002
Final Report
Project Nr.: 2002-038-WYC
Title: Say No To Violence
Start Date: 1st January 2003 End Date: 31st December 2003
Co-ordinating Organisation’s name: London Borough of Haringey
Contact person: Khim Dew
Name: Khim Dew
Address: Equalities and Diversity Unit, Chief Executive’s Service, 3rd Floor, Wood Green Library, 187 – 197A, High Road, London
Postal code: N22 6XD City: London
Country: UK
Tel. N°.: 020 8489 2573 Fax Nr.: 020 8489 2575
e-mail:
Partner Organisations’ names and countries:
· London Borough of Haringey UK. Project Leader
· London Borough of Croydon UK
· NIA UK
· Ambulatorio DH di medicina dei viaggi, del turismo e delle migrazioni. Italy
· AUSL Bologna Città Italy
1. Aim Of the Project
To improve the coordination between agencies who deal with domestic violence
Domestic Violence in London
· 1 in 4 incidents of reported violent crime in London involve domestic violence· Domestic violence results in 47 murders each year in London
· 17% of homelessness dealt with by Councils across London are the result of domestic violence
· 100,000 women seek medical help each year for injuries caused by domestic violence
· The costs of domestic violence are approximately €403,000,000 in London per annum
· In London there is an average of 1 domestic violence murder every 8 days
· Metropolitan Police attend about 177 domestic violence incidents every 24 hours
· On 28th September 2000, over a 24 hour period the UK police received 1300 domestic violence calls
Child Cruelty In the UK
· Each week at least one child will die as the result of an adult’s cruelty.· A quarter of all recorded rape victims are children.
· Most abuse is committed by someone the child knows and trusts.
· The abuse is often known about or suspected by an another adult who could have done something to prevent it.
· Three-quarters of sexually abused children do not tell anyone at the time. Around a third are not able to tell anyone about the experience later.
· More than 30,000 children are on child protection registers because they are at risk of abuse.
· Each week over 600 children are added to the child protection registers.
· Recent NSPCC research involving 2,869 young adults revealed that 1 in 10 of them had suffered serious abuse or neglect during childhood.
· Each week at least 450,000 children are bullied at school.
· The current cost of child abuse to statutory and voluntary organisations is £1 billion a year. Most of this is spent dealing with the aftermath of abuse rather than its prevention.
About The Partners
Partner / Type of OrganisationLondon Borough of Haringey / Local authority / Lead partner.
* London Borough of Croydon / Local authority / Recognised as an exemplar service provider
NIA / NGO / Provide a range of services including refuges and training. Also does contract work for Haringey
Ambulatorio DH di medicina dei viaggi, del turismo e delle migrazioni. / University Hospital / Day hospital with many patients from hard to reach groups. The hospital would like to do more than just bandage wounds and send women back to more abuse.
AUSL Bologna Città / National Health Service administrative body for the province of Bologna / The AUSL commissions a range of services and is keen to address inequalities in health which it can’t do on its own.
Croydon submitted its report on 30th March after the Final Report has been completed. It is attached as a supporting document.
About The Partners’ Cities – Basic Demographics
NIA is based in Hackney but it is an NGO which is completely independent from the borough council.
Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey is situated in north London. The Borough covers 11.5 square miles and includes three principal centres - Tottenham, Wood Green and Muswell Hill. The Borough is predominantly residential and houses approximately 223,000 people. The population is ethnically and culturally diverse with nearly half the residents from black and ethnic minority communities and over 200 different community languages spoken. Overall the unemployment level is 8.2 per cent compared with a London average of 7 per cent.
Greater London
Croydon
Croydon is an outer London borough located to the south of central London. It has the largest population of all London boroughs with a population of 338,100 in over 135,000 households. 23% of the population are from ethnic communities.
/ Croydon / Hackney / Haringey / London / UK /Population / 330,587 / 202,824 / 216,507 / 7,172,091 / 58,789,194
One person households / 33.1% / 40.5% / 35.9% / 34.7% / 30.2%
Married / cohabiting couple households / 39.8% / 28.2% / 32.4% / 36.6% / 44.7%
Lone parent households with dependent children / 9.1% / 10.0% / 9.8% / 7.6% / 6.5%
Bologna
Bologna AUSL is one of Italy’s largest National Health Service management bodies. It serves a population of 805,000 in 50 local authority areas. It is a newly created organisation which has evolved following a series of reorganisations. The new AUSL has a strong focus on governance. Many of its powers are held by the Provincial Conference which comprises representatives from the AUSL, provincial council and the 50 Local authorities. As well as addressing inequalities in health the AUSL wants to deal with the key determinants of health, both of these need partnership working which is just being developed at the top level, but more work needs to be done at the local level.
Palermo
Palermo is the capital of Sicily and the 5th largest city in Italy with a population of 652,000. The province has a population of 1.2 million. There is considerable unemployment and deprivation in Palermo which is constantly added to by migration from Africa and eastern Europe.
The Ambulatorio DH di medicina dei viaggi, del turismo e delle migrazioni is part of the Dipartimento Di Medicina Clinica E Delle Patologie Emergenti of the Medical School of the University of Palermo. The day hospital is linked to the Poliambulatorio Santa Chiara per Cittadini Extracomunitari which is run by an NGO.
NIA
NIA is an NGO based in Hackney. Its mission is to
· To contribute towards the eradication of violence against women and children
· To empower women and their children to live free from fear of violence
· To provide safe supportive housing for women and children
· To provide information, advice and advocacy for women and children
in the community
NIA is very user-focused and the management committee includes service users. It has 28 full and part time staff (including the Director and in-house solicitor) and 11 volunteers. NIA manages 4 refuges and provides support for women for 6 months after they leave a refuge.
Women 2 Women
We are a group of women who have been living in NIA refuges after having had to leave our homes because of domestic violence. We have set up a volunteering project to offer support to new residents in the refuge so that we can use our experiences to help other women who have been through domestic violence. Coming into a refuge is very scary because you have to leave your normal life behind and live in an area you don’t know to live with people you don’t know. When you come into a refuge you are often lonely. You are worried about how living in a refuge will affect your kids and you have to deal with the fact that you have lost everything.Women 2 Women aim to help women feel more confident and let them know they are not on their own. We aim to help women deal with the guilt that they might be feeling and let them know that they have not done anything wrong. We will encourage women to carry on living in the refuge and help them to recover their self-esteem and rebuild their lives. We will support women and use our experiences to give them hope for their future.
NIA are a very experienced organisation and provided much of the training for the project.
NIA have produced a video made by children which is an extremely useful teaching resource. The video is in the form of an Oprah Winfrey show. Details of how to obtain a copy of the video are attached.
A Child’s Story“When I First Came to Women’s Aid” By A Resident Child (11years)
When I heard that we were coming to Women’s Aid, I didn’t know what it would be like. When I arrived at Women’s Aid it was different from what I thought it would be like. A person opened the door to us that night. The woman was very polite to us and she asked us if we wanted a drink. My sister and me said yes please, but my mum said no thank you.
The woman and her daughter and my mum are very good friends. After a couple of days I was feeling upset, my mum explained why we could not go home and I started to understand more. Me my sister and my mum are very happy now.
Why The Project Was Needed
In the UK domestic violence has been an important part of the community safety agenda for some time. This was achieved only after many years of struggle by women’s groups starting from the first refuge set up by Erin Pizzey in 1971 to a famous TV documentary about the Thames Valley Police Service in 1982 which changed the way that crimes of violence against women were perceived and dealt with.
Both Croydon and Haringey had external reviews of their services for victims of domestic violence. Croydon’s was carried out in 2000 and it was found that while there were weaknesses, the service was clearly improving. The weaknesses related to the lack of coordination between the various agencies. There was lack of clarity in roles and varying levels of commitment and training.
Haringey’s external review also took place during 2000 but with less positive outcomes. The following weaknesses were identified:-
· Service users experience a varied response or service dependent on which agency is contacted;
· The quality of the information provided to service users depends on the agency contacted. Not all agencies have access to the same information and cannot therefore offer choice;
· Information given by these agencies was not accurate and staff were not using the information published by the Council.
As a result of the review Haringey:-
· Appointed a domestic violence coordinator
· Set up the Domestic Violence Joint Commissioning Group which includes partners from the police, health, and NGOs.
· Set up a domestic violence advice and support centre (Hearthstone)
Haringey also sought to identify good practice in other areas and to work with partners to develop good practice. NIA had recently taken over the management of a women’s refuge in Haringey and were able to provide a range of new services for victims of domestic violence. Haringey identified Croydon as a source of good practice in London.
Haringey also built on its links with the health service in Bologna and the University hospital in Palermo. Both Bologna and Palermo already had examples of good practice but these were narrowly focused within their own service areas and some NGO’s. While the problem in Haringey was a lack of coordination in the partnership, the problem in the Italian cities was a lack of important partners, i.e. the police and the city councils.
The project then was developed with partners from northern and southern Europe who had different organisational cultures, legislative context, and political priorities. The main similarity between the countries was the situation of the victims. If this could be so similar then surely the solutions should be the same. The project was therefore aimed primarily at capacity building for the agencies (the target groups), especially the NGO’s.
The main problem this project addressed was the lack of coordination between agencies who deal with domestic violence, especially in the light of greatly changing circumstances which include:
· Increases in social exclusion
· Increased migration
· Re-structuring of statutory agencies
This means that victims are passed from agency to agency and even the good agencies under-achieve as there is no added value from other agencies. Agencies lack confidence in each other so the victims lack confidence in the agencies.
This project was also very concerned about other specific issues:-
· A general failure to reach hard to reach groups such as the homeless, prostitutes, asylum seekers, refugees and ethnic minorities. Issues of culture and religion are also major problems (e.g. female circumcision).
· Under reporting of incidents – alienation from many agencies for cultural and language reasons as well as fear of repercussions from the perpetrators and/or the authorities.
· Lack of skills, knowledge, training and capacity to overcome these problems - Agencies do not have the training or knowledge to work with these groups. There are NGOs who are under resourced/developed who could provide valuable help to victims but there are no mechanisms for supporting them on a sustainable basis.