Savana

1
Savana

• Sticking to Our Knitting a metaphor for womens
  craft in running a rape crisis service

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Speakers

• Louise Rogers
• Chair of the Trustees
• Tricia Read
• Chief Officer

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Stoke-on-Trent figures

• Of women aged 16-59
• 0.4 said they had been raped in the preceding
  year (280)
• 0.9 said they had been subject to some form of
  sexual victimisation (including rape) (630)
• 4.9 said they had been raped since age 16,
  (3,420)
• 9.7 said they had experienced some form of
  sexual victimisation since age 16 (6,790)
• Less than two-thirds (60) of female rape victims
  were prepared to self-classify their experience
  as rape and less than three-quarters (70) of
  women who self-classified themselves as having
  been the victim of attempted rape also
  self-classified this incident as a crime.

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Reporting rape

• We believe that somewhere between 80-90 do not
  report rape to the police
• Why?

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National picture

• The first rape crisis centre was set up in
  Bradford in 1981
• It is difficult to know how many services were
  set up in the 1980s because many of those have
  since closed
• The North Staffordshire service was among the
  first 20 to be set up

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Where it all began1986

• Set up following work by NACRO who had done a
  pilot project in Chell Heath, Stoke-on-Trent, to
  raise the aspirations of women and encourage them
  back into education and employment.
• The workers quickly found themselves overwhelmed
  listening to womens stories of sexual abuse and
  violence.

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The 1980s

• Amendments to the Equal Pay Act and the Sex
  Discrimination Act established the principal of
  equal pay for work of equal value and allowed
  women to retire at the same age as men. Yet at
  the same time, many women began to question
  whether there was a "glass ceiling as women
  failed to get to the top

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The 1980s contd

• Local partnership working if there was any in its
  infancy and focused on health and social care
  issues
• Sexual violence was not a priority for any one
  agency or any group of agencies
• Most agencies locally argued that sexual violence
  was someone elses responsibility

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1980s knitting pattern
We only knitted the hat!
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Savana 1986 -1989

• 1986 North Staffs Rape Crisis Service inception
• 1989 The service became an independent,
  autonomous organisation and a registered charity.
  Employed full time manager and had one
  volunteer. 
• 1989 Stoke on Trent City Council provided
  premises in Hanley for peppercorn rent office
  and two counselling rooms.

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The 1990s

• The Children Act 1989 gave every child the right
  to protection from abuse and exploitation and the
  right to inquiries to safeguard their welfare.
  Its central tenet was that children are usually
  best looked after within their family. The act
  came into force in England and Wales in 1991

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The 1990s

• 1990 Community Care Act signalled a significant
  change focusing on client need rather than
  service need and heralding the era of
  commissioning and internal markets
• The world wide web was created in 1989 and
  released in 1992

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1996

• Carnal Knowledge Rape on Trial (Sue Lees)
  "documents the way women are encouraged to report
  rape, and are often intimidated by their
  assailants, only to be stereotyped as sexually
  provocative and blamed by the judiciary and the
  press". .. "the British criminal justice system
  is systematically allowing rapists to go free,
  and how more and more rapists are getting away
  with it."

14
1997

• Labour Government in power with large majority
  including many women MPs
• The use of the term social exclusion
• Could talk about poverty
• Neighbourhood approaches

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1998

• The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 established the
  formation of statutory Crime and Disorder
  Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs). Essentially this
  legislation enshrined in law the idea that crime
  reduction is not the responsibility of just one
  agency, such as the police, but is a partnership
  responsibility.

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Savana 1996

• Name changed to Rape Crisis (North Staffs and
  South Cheshire) to more accurately reflect the
  area served by the organisation and a new
  constitution was adopted.
• National Lottery Charities Board funding to
  develop the service Deputy Manager appointed.
  15 20 volunteers.
• Training course validated by CENTRA

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Savana 1997-1999

• 1997 Skills/training audit
• 1998 Moved to new premises three counselling
  rooms plus office
• 1999 National Lottery Charities Board funding
  for a Development Project to look at the barriers
  that stop particular groups of women from
  accessing our service

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The 2003

• 2003 Women's Mental Health Into the
  Mainstream
• Key messages about the need to listen to and
  involve women in planning and delivering
  services.
• Urged to take extra measures to tackle
  long-standing issues such as the impact of
  violence and abuse on women's mental health.
• Understanding the needs of women - requires
  cultural change.

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2003 - 2005

• 2003 Sexual Offences Act widened the definition
  of rape
• 2004 Home Office Victims Fund
• 2005 A Gap or a Chasm? Attrition in reported
  rape cases. Research carried out by Liz Kelly,
  Jo Lovett and Linda Regan and published by the
  Home Office

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Savana 2000-2001

• 2000 Constitution was updated to comply with
  Charity Commission guidelines.
• 2000 Conference Sexual Violence Addressing
  the needs of women survivors summary report
  sent to local and national delegates.
• 2001 Evaluation of service carried out by
  Staffordshire University

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Savana 2002

• Name change following consultation with our
  membership, clients and other agencies. The new
  name, Womens Rape and Sexual Violence Service
  (WR SVS) more fully reflects the work we cover.
  
• Achieved the standard for Investors in People
  (IIP) (Nov 2002)

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Savana 2003-2004

• 2003 Community Fund Grant working with Asian
  Communities to raise awareness of issues of
  sexual and domestic violence. Training officer
  to develop training packages
• 2004 Extended premises to include counselling
  suite and training/meeting room 

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Savana 2005-2007

• 2005 Investors in People retained the
  standard 
• 2006 Away-day to examine core values and
  principles
• 2007 Attained British Association for
  Counselling Psychotherapy (BACP) service
  accreditation.

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2007-2008

• 2007 Gender Equality Duty
• 2007 Sexual Violence and Abuse Action Plans
• 2008 Violent Crime Action Plan
• 2008 PSA 23 focusing on violent crime rather
  than volume crime as was the case with previous
  PSA1

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Savana 2007-2008

• 2007 Name change to Savana
• 2007 New Chief Officer
• 2008 Reduction in the size of the organisation
  first ever redundancies
• 2008 First real funding from any health
  organisation

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Savana 2008

• One chief officer
• One development officer support services
  includes providing ISVA service
• One development officer training services
• One administrative officer

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Savana 2008 contd

• 22 counselling volunteers minimum level of
  training certificate our in-house training
• Three volunteer supervisors
• Nine board members

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Principles and Values

• Feminist?
• Women-centred?
• Being women-only?
• Focusing on sexual violence?
• Working with volunteers?
• Co-operative or hierarchical structure?

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Current issues

• Funding
• Partnerships
• Quality
• Income generation
• Research
• Recognising what people need to know providing
  basic information

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What are we knitting now?
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• and we are still knitting that bobble hat .

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only now it looks like this
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Thank you for listening

• and
• we look forward to some
• interesting debate