APPENDIX 21
Memorandum submitted by Imkaan
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This submission by Imkaan is based on
the experiences of 25 BAMER[74]
refuges and outreach services obtained through self-completion
questionnaires, telephone interviews and regional meetings; and
on telephone interviews conducted with seven Local Authorities.
1. Support for "victims",
including finance and refuge services
— The Quality Assessment Framework
is seen as a generic model, and the Value For Money comparisons
and benchmarking are viewed as biased towards economies of scale,
which neither understand nor include the additional costs of providing
specialist services, leading to unfair comparisons.
— Funding for specialist services
is under threat, as the national nature of refuge provision is
unrecognised under LAA. Given the high support, including mental
health needs of many BAMER women, the lack of funds for therapeutic,
outreach, children and young people's services and for women with
No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) is of particular concern.
— Groups are extremely concerned
about the diversion of funds from refuge services under LAA and
the impact of LAA targets on future BAMER provision.
— The trends towards decommissioning,
mergers and partnership bids are disproportionately threatening
BAMER services.
2. Multi-agency approaches,
and barriers to effective operation
— Some concerns are lack of
BAMER presence in MARACs; issues about capacity of smaller specialist
groups and lack of inclusive approaches towards them; the inapplicability
of generic models of risk assessments to BAMER women; the exit-centred
focus of MARACs which does not reflect the realities of many South
Asian women.
— The independence and effectiveness
of IDVAs in meeting specialist needs is questioned as is the diversion
of funding to IDVAs with its impact on BAMER women facing domestic
violence.
— The applicability of generic
models, eg sanctuary schemes to BAMER women living within the
community is problematic.
INTRODUCTION
Imkaan is a national second-tier body
that represents the needs of BAMER refuges and outreach services.
This paper examines the effects of Supporting People Policies
and recent multi-agency approaches. It is based on the experiences
of 25 BAMER services (refuges and outreach) obtained through self-completion
questionnaires, telephone interviews and regional meetings; and
on telephone interviews conducted with 7 Local Authorities.
1. Support for "victims",
including finance and refuge services
Supporting People Policies raise a number
of concerns for specialist services:
1.1 Quality Assessment Framework (QAF) and Value
For Money (VFM) comparisons and benchmarking
The QAF is seen as a "one size fits
all" tool which does not accurately reflect specialist support
provided by BAMER services. Quality is assessed in VFM terms which
favour large mainstream providers that are better able to demonstrate
economies of scale but do not necessarily provide better quality
services.[75]
The additional costs of providing specialist services are neither
understood nor included, leading to unfair comparisons:
"Our referrals come with higher support
needs, including practical daily living skills taken for granted
by users of generic refuges."
"The SP service review ... could not understand
why our approach—in interpreting or advocacy—might
be different for women who may not have an understanding of the
way the currency works, how to use public transport or have a
sense of entitlement".
1.2 Funding for specialist services
To avoid being traced by their family
and members of their community, BAMER women need refuge spaces
located at a distance from their family home. Non-recognition
of this national nature of refuge provision under LAA, which focuses
on local priorities, is creating particular concern for specialist
refuges:
"Our LA argue that we hold more bed-spaces
than the number of South Asian women here. But our women don't
come from here—it would just not be safe".
The levels of violence experienced by
BAMER women are not matched by resources to meet their needs.
— Therapeutic interventions
are not funded by SP despite the high support needs of many BAMER
women. Providing specialist mental health services in a safe and
empowering environment helps women to move towards independence
and provide cost-effective services that enable women to sustain
their tenancies and avoid having to use other DV services in the
future.
"If we get a 17 year old, that itself makes
it a high support case—living away from home for the first
time, benefits take longer to process, housing is non-existent,
and there are often mental health needs, issues around self harming.
Most women we work with are completely ostracised from the community.
Their needs are just not acknowledged... our work with high support
clients is completely disregarded as SP deems us as housing low
to medium risk.
SP cut the funds for both our verbal and non-verbal
therapy services, which helped women who were too traumatised
to access other services. Now some women are on GP waiting lists,
but it takes weeks, even months. Women who have attended such
sessions have come back to us and said, "They did not understand
what I was trying to say.".
— Outreach services are lifelines
for the many women and children trapped in abusive relationships
and prevented from going out of their homes and are crucial in
enabling women to find the strength to leave,i but are seldom
funded by SP. Where specialist outreach services have secured
SP funding (as in one case in the North West) they have developed
and expanded services effectively.
— Children and young people's
services are not funded by SP despite evidence on the impact of
domestic violence on them. For BAMER children, staying in a refuge
often means complete isolation from their family and other positive
social networks. Support for children is crucial not only for
their own well-being, but also to enable the mother to sustain
her exit from the abusive relationship.
— Lack of provision for women
with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) continues to be of major
concern.
Between April 2005 and April 2007, our research
indicates that 537 women and children were unable to access emergency
housing and support from 12 services including refuges and Social
Services.
Local Authorities remain inconsistent
in how they apply statutory criteria, which remains very much
a "post-code lottery".
One LA stated, "We offer to take the child
into care and they just melt away." Another stated, "We
work vigorously against providing support to families with NRPF,
we only pay when subject to a judicial review...".
Where recorded, data from 6 BAMER refuges
indicates that of those women not accommodated, 47 had children.
Many women are being turned away and have no option but to "disappear',
return to the perpetrator or be deported to face further violence
from family and associates.
1.3 Impact of Local Area Agreement (LAA)
targets on BAMER services
— The diversion of funds from
refuge services under LAA is particularly concerning.
— Women seldom directly disclose
the abuse unless seeking to leave. It is within the context of
long term work such as prevention, awareness raising and empowerment
carried out by specialist services that many women are able to
discuss their experiences and name it as domestic violence. However,
funding for these services is being withdrawn across the country.
1.4 The trend towards mergers
as part of cost-cutting exercises is having a disproportionate
impact on BAMER services. SP teams prefer to contract with large
mainstream charities to deliver BAMER services rather than continuing
funding arrangements with smaller agencies that evidence a long
history and expertise in working with BAMER women, even where
these organisations performed well in SP terms.
"We were doing so well and were told we
were good value for money, we won't be decommissioned. But then
we had this email sent to another refuge—it didn't even
come to us directly—that they (LA) will definitely be tendering.
In six months! How much time does that leave us to get the expertise?
There has been one four-hour workshop on tendering—that's
just not enough."
Key concerns include:
— Lack of consultation during
the merger process;
— Lack of appropriate representation
in the decision-making structures of the parent organisation;
— Lack of commitment from the
parent organisation in ensuring that the specialist BAMER service
is maintained and developed including fewer numbers of specialist
staff, and reductions in provision for interpreting and advocacy;
— Lack of understanding of the
specific needs of BAMER women and children, leading to undue pressure
on individual frontline staff to educate senior managers and the
organisation as a whole on BAMER needs; and
— Remodelling refuges to a generic
service or one with fewer spaces for BAMER women and children.
A specialist refuge, offering basic counselling,
telephone support, interpreting and advocacy, confidence-building
workshops and worked with women who had NRPF. After being taken
over by a large, mainstream Housing Association, reductions were
made in the South Asian staff team and in advocacy services. The
new generic risk assessment model does not take account of BAMER
women's needs and specialist support requirements. Women with
NRPF are no longer accepted. The number of cases that have moved
on successfully from the project has decreased.
1.5 Partnership bids
Under LAA, specialist services are also
concerned at being asked to bid with generic services:
— They fear that is merger "through
the back door";
— The decision-making structures
in any partnership may not adequately represent BAMER women, whose
concerns may no longer be seen as a priority; and
— Where there is a power differential
between a larger and a smaller organisation, often a specialist
service, the partnership can be far from empowering.
"In a recent partnership bid, a mainstream
women's refuge was a lead agency and we all agreed that we would
all get a certain number of staff from it. When it came through,
the generic refuge wanted to employ all the staff and they wanted
us to refer any South Asian women that came to us to the generic
worker. We would have no control of or say in how the services
were delivered, what support was available—it was hardly
a partnership."
2. Multi-agency approaches, and what
barriers exist to their effective operation
LAA herald the end of ring-fencing of
SP funds for domestic violence frontline housing and support services.
2.1 MARACs
— A lack of BAMER presence in
MARACs. Only one of the BAMER services we spoke to participated
in a MARAC where a South Asian woman's case was discussed.
"We have suggested that we get informed
of any cases regarding South Asian women, but have never been
called. Either there have been none in the last 10 months when
more than 9% of the population here are of South Asian origin
or they are dealing with them through generic services. If there
have been no cases, then they also have to ask why."
— Capacity is an issue that
prevents smaller organisations from contributing effectively to
the MARAC process.
"We cannot spare staff from frontline work.
They said it could take all day, so I thought if there is a case
that is relevant to us, we could go. But they never tell you which
cases are going to be discussed."
— The applicability of generic
models of risk assessments to BAMER women is also a matter of
concern. Given that models of risk assessment in domestic violence
have been developed with a narrow focus on partner or ex-partner
violence, the effectiveness of this model for BAMER women remains
untested.
"We are supporting a number of high risk
women, but they would not come out high risk within MARACs. It's
to do with lack of understanding... because the form does not
reflect the realities of South Asian women."
— The exit-centred focus of
MARACs does not reflect the realities of many BAMER women who
may require long term, specialist support to leave the abusive
relationship.
"MARAC is based on the assumption that the
woman will move away from the violence straight away, that is
not necessarily going to happen. For a lot of our women, leaving
is not so easy—they have concerns about the extended family,
stigma and ostracism from the community and the availability of
services that can understand them. They need support, often over
months and years."
— One BAMER refuge reported
concerns about confidentiality where multiple agencies were involved.
— There is concern about how
women with NRPF fit into the MARAC model.
— Given the multiple barriers
to disclosure, several organisations questioned the applicability
to BAMER women of risk assessment models based on prior disclosure.
"Given that often partners or family members
are asked to interpret, can she disclose in the same way that
a white woman can, even if she wants to?"
— Even where women disclose
the abuse, MARACs do not necessarily reduce the risk for BAMER
women when individual agencies fail to act on their disclosures.
"One of our clients approached her GP with
stomach ache and disclosed the horrendous physical and sexual
abuse which had caused it. Later on, we found that there was no
mention of the abuse in her medical records, it only recorded
her symptoms. If that capacity and commitment is not there at
such services, how does their getting together make any difference?"
2.2 Independent Domestic Violence Advocates
(IDVAs)
A disproportionate number of BAMER women
are being left without an effective outreach service due to the
inability of IDVAs to provide an appropriate support to BAMER
women. Issues raised include:
— Concerns that generic nature
of IDVAs means that they will not have the skills and ability
to offer appropriate protection and representation that BAMER
services offer.
"There was a training course for IDVAs which
I attended, and the issues to do with South Asian women were not
touched at all."
— Given the high caseloads of
IDVAs, their ability to meet high support or longer term needs
of BAMER women was questioned.
— Extreme concern about the
diversion of funding to IDVAs and its impact on BAMER facing domestic
violence.
"The LA has just published a handbook on
domestic violence which includes contacts of other (generic) refuges
in the borough, but not us. Why not? It started with funding being
taken away from our advice centre—it's a move to divert
women away from us and towards IIDVAs. From their statistics on
referrals, South Asian women don't seem to be accessing their
services. Despite this, they are cutting us out, exposing South
Asian women to further violence because they have nowhere to go."
— The ability of IDVAs, who
are employed by the LA, to be truly independent is questioned,
particularly where representing a woman would involve challenging
statutory services, as for a woman with NRPF.
2.3 Sanctuary schemes
Some of the issues raised about Sanctuary
schemes include:
— Their applicability to BAMER
women living within the community, given the stigma associated
with disclosing abuse and help-seeking.
"We are supporting 32 women now, of whom
only two could benefit from the sanctuary scheme because of community
attitudes."
— Concerns about the diversion
of funding from refuge provision.
— If Sanctuary schemes are favoured
as the cheaper option for women facing domestic violence, many
women will be exposed to continuing danger. Groups reported that
re-housing women is becoming less of a priority among HAs and
LAs, leaving many women to live with constant fear.
"When the perpetrator found out about where
our client was living, the Housing Association came and put some
extra locks. He threw bricks at her house—they came and
put panels on the windows. She is petrified that he will come
and throw acid on her face (a common form of retaliatory violence
among some South Asian communities) or harm the kids... "
"MARACs, IDVAs, Sanctuary schemes, specialist
courts, perpetrator programmes, operate post-disclosure. Rape
within marriage, or not being given money may not always be named
by women as domestic violence, as financial abuse. If that understanding
is not there, that disclosure will not happen.
CONCLUSION
Across the country, specialist services
are concerned that their crucial role is not being recognised
or protected, to the detriment of BAMER and children facing domestic
violence. Funding cuts and a move towards non-housing based options
and generic services are leaving BAMER women and children with
less access to appropriate support which ultimately exposes them
to further violence and abuse.
Current approaches to civil and criminal
law need to be reconsidered in the light of the Human Rights Act.
Article 3 and 8 from ECHR impose positive obligations on the state
to protect all victims of domestic violence, our findings suggest
otherwise. The way in which LAAs have developed indicates that
the appropriateness of these services for BAMER women has not
been considered. We are critically aware that the failure by public
authorities (Police, CPS, LAs) to protect a woman known to be
in a violent relationship may result in a claim that justice and
rights to safety are being eroded and undermined. There must be
public accountability for a failure by public authorities to protect
BAMER women.
REFERENCE
i Thiara, R (2005) "The need for
specialist domestic violence services for Asian women and children".
London: Imkaan
1 Ocotber 2007
74 BAMER, "Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and
Refugee" Back
75
Dr R Thiara, Ms S Hussain, Supporting Some People, Imkaan (2005). Back
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