It was great that one of our facilitators Karen S could attend this important event about raising awareness of domestic violence and how we can help, as she has recently run a series of workshops just for women. We are hoping to bring back more sessions in the new year in partnership with BLG Mind for Lewisham residents.
If you cannot reach services, we have counselling sessions available for those who cannot afford the normal routes, see more here.
Feedback from the conference...
The main themes that came up at the conference were:-
Being heard - This kept coming up, as in 'victims' / survivors saying that they didn't feel heard especially in criminal justice situations - in court, by the police and even by some of the institutions put in place to help them.
Reach - Subhaluxmi Mukherji, DAC office talked about the Commissioner Nicole Jacobs, her passion, role and remit. They believe that no one should be hard to reach and are looking at different and best ways to open access to all services. The other thing that came up were those who were deemed not in need because of financial status etc.
Accessing training - most of the feedback from the workshop sessions were about training on how to spot or to start the conversations with some at risk of abuse or in the midst of an abusive relationship or situation. How to recognise and not to appear to be intrusive! Or to scare the individual away.
Intersectionality - how to remove the barriers to achieve this - Counsellor Campbell used the Equality, Equity and Justice mime to enforce the message about her role/remit to remove the obstacles and to provide services where individual experiences with regards to race, gender, culture etc are taken into account/consideration.
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