Shaping Our Lives: A Refuge for All Project and Findings Report

Date

2019

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

A Refuge for All

Abstract

A Refuge for All is a project led by disabled women with experience of violence and abuse. An advisory group of disabled women have reviewed the progress of the project at regular intervals. This Findings Report and the Best Practice Toolkit provide a user-led approach to improving access for disabled women for service providers who want to achieve a high standard of service delivery for disabled women...This project began by disabled survivors reviewing the findings of research conducted in 2008 ‘Making the Links: Disabled Women and Domestic Violence’ report published by Women’s Aid. Disabled women with lived experience of violence and abuse discussed what had changed in the last 10 years from their own experiences of trying to access support. In general, little had changed and in some instances the situation was deemed to have become worse. In particular, disabled women said that because of service cuts they had often not been able to get local support, had to wait for more than six months for a first counselling service, had been turned away because of their impairment or health conditions and had not been able to access a service because the distance and/or cost of travel was prohibitive. Similarly to findings from 10 years ago, disabled women still raised a lack of accessible information, inaccessible refuge and service buildings, lack of knowledge and understanding of the issues for disabled women by professionals, a need for disability equality training for service staff, and greater awareness and support for disabled women experiencing carer abuse as priority issues. A Refuge for All implemented a number of audits and interventions at two pilot sites. The pilot services provided a range of refuge and outreach services. The focus of this project was to investigate how refuge services could work more inclusively with disabled women. However, the interventions have been helpful to other areas of the service, particularly the disability equality training for all staff and the guidance given to make materials and communications more inclusive.The pre- and post-training analysis reveals that staff felt much more confident to work with disabled women after taking part in training. With this newly acquired knowledge and confidence, plus the access and system audits, both pilot services have been able to implement immediate low or no cost adjustments...The conclusions and recommendations in this report summarise the findings of disabled women with lived experience of violence and abuse. There is much to do to ensure disabled women, who experience disproportionate levels of violence and abuse, are able to equally access services with non-disabled women. Some of what needs doing requires considerable investment in accessible buildings for refuge and support services, but there is also a lot that can be done through the commitment of services to implementing the actions detailed in this report and the best practice toolkit. (Author Text)

Description

Report

Keywords

Process Evaluation, Victim Services, Victim Assistance, Victim Needs, Unmet Needs, Disabilities, Impairment, Disabled, Violence Against Women, Accessibility, Victim Input, Victim Satisfaction, Service Providers, Housing, Shelters, Outreach, Public Awareness, Consequences, Harms, Training for Service Providers, Organizational Planning, Partnerships, Staff, Violent Victimization, Physical Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Health Conditions, Reasonable Adjustments, Accessibility Services, Promotional Materials, Barriers to Service, Gaps in Service, Gaps in Knowledge, Inclusion, Networking, Accommodations

Citation

Meakin, Becki. (2019). Shaping Our Lives: A Refuge for All Project and Findings Report. A Refuge for All, 34 pgs.

DOI