Cheshire East Domestic Abuse Partnership Newsletter - Winter 2011

Introduction

This newsletter comes as we pass the shortest day of winter and head for spring – hurrah! We hope you will have or have had a peaceful Christmas and thank you for all the brilliant work in developing improved services for families affected by domestic abuse. There’s much to celebrate and to plan for 2012 and it’s just about all achieved in partnership.

Please contact us for more information: email Judith Gibson or email Karen Huntingdon .

The ABCD of domestic abuse

Our newly commissioned services, Arch and Barnardo’s, together with longstanding partner Crewe Women’s Aid and the Domestic Abuse Family Safety Unit have been working together to improve local services. Alongside key partners Adullam and the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre (RASASC) they have:

Launched their services
Provided recovery programmes
Run activities for White Ribbon Day
Planned a Single Point of Contact April 12
Engaged in consultation with service users
Developed a media campaign to raise awareness about provision for men

Publicity

The Green CEDAP ‘concertina’ card is now out of date. While the Single Point of Contact is in development please use the Temporary Contact Number Information Leaflet (PDF, 51KB) for your teams and clients. We will produce a wide range of publicity for April.

Prevention - Children and Young People's Programmes

Crewe Women’s Aid has been commissioned by the Council to co-ordinate community delivery of CYP group work programmes. These are:

JIGSAW – therapeutic work on the effects of DA
ACORNS – change programme for younger children
CHANGING PLACES – change programme for young people

We are keen to promote referrals into these groups which are available across the whole of Cheshire East. Contact Michelle on 01270 250391 or refer to the Children's Intervention Services referral form (MS Word, 569KB).

A Route to Safety - Domestic Abuse Support for Men

January 25th and 26th in Macc and Crewe Football Clubs sees the launch of new publicity for men. All commissioned services provide support for men in heterosexual and homosexual relationships and we want to get that message out there loud and clear. If you’ve not already booked in for the event please complete the Booking form for 'A Route to Safety' (MS Word, 66KB) and even if you can’t make it we’ll make sure you get the new publicity. Contact Karen at the end of January to get your supply.

Services for Minority Communities

Referrals to MARAC for minority groups have increased 400% which is a terrific achievement. This is partly due to the availability of our Polish IDVA who has had 27 clients in the past year. Our focus now needs to be on people in homosexual relationships who are underrepresented in access to services. If you have ideas about how we can better serve this community please let us know.

'Leading Lights'

The IDVA team based in the Domestic Abuse Family Safety Unit have been awarded Leading Lights Status by CAADA. This represents a great deal of hard work in establishing and evidencing national standards of good practice. Congratulations to them!

Specialist Court Work - Macclesfield

By Valentine’s Day we hope to have begun a specialist court service at Macc to complement the SDVC at Crewe. This involves training magistrates, proactive support from IDVAs and clustering cases so that the whole experience is as positive for domestic abuse victims as it can be.

Key Dates

Thurs Jan 5 - DAFSU/MARAC Steering Group
Wed Jan 11 - Strategic Management Group
Mon Jan 23 - CEDAP Training Sub
Wed Jan 25 - Men’s services launch Macc
Thurs Jan 26 - Men’s services launch Crewe
Wed Feb 1 - Level 1 Training
Feb 13 & 15 - Training the trainer
Mon Feb 27 - Spec Services & CYP subs
Wed Feb 29 - Level 2 Training

If you need more information please contact Karen or the lead for the activity.