Crossroads DERBYSHIRE (Formerly High Peak Women’s Aid) ISSUE 1-SUMMER 2015 W e l c o m e … Crossroads Derbyshire to the first edition of our How to contact us: Crossroads DERBYSHIRE Newsletter We welcome any comments, including details P O Box 22 of how you can get involved and provide your Glossop ideas on how we can improve our services, Derbyshire have your say and make things happen. SK13 8AE Tel: 01457 856675 Fax: 01457 855199 Email: [email protected] www.crossroadsderbyshire.org Registered Charity No: 1134679 DONATIONS Crossroads Derbyshire would like to express sincere thanks to all individuals, groups and organisations for your donations and continued support over the last six months. We really appreciate your support and generosity. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A DONATION PLEASE GO TO: www.justgiving.comhighpeakwomen or www.crossroadsderbyshire.org 1 ISSUE 1 - SUMMER 2015 REBRAND One of our biggest pieces of news is our re-brand and our newsletter is an ideal opportunity to tell you about it. At the end of last year, after consultation with service users, stakeholders and our supporters in the community, we agreed that we needed to change the name and brand of the organisation. We have done this for several reasons. We felt that the name no longer reflects our area of work as we now are operating services in the North Dales. The name also does not reflect the work that we do with children and young people and it is often a barrier to men who wish to access our service. With a grant from the Lottery’s Awards for All, we have now changed our name and our logo and we also have a brand new website which is much easier to navigate. We retain the name of High Peak Women’s Aid for the company. We would like to thank local marketing agency Fig Creative for creating our new brand and website. PLEASE VISIT OUR NEW WEBSITE AT: www.crossroadsderbyshire.org 2 ISSUE 1 - SUMMER 2015 REPORT BY THE SERVICES MANAGER Welcome to Crossroads Derbyshire’s first newsletter. In terms of change and achievements this has probably been the most successful period in a long time and there is a lot to tell you. Firstly I have to thank everyone for the continued support of Crossroads - we have had some amazing donations in the last 9 months. Kaye’s parachute jump and Andrew Bingham’s sponsored walk raised thousands of pounds for the organisation when we really needed it; but there have also been lots of other donations and fundraising events which have helped us to achieve so much in our outreach service, our children’s service and our services for girls and young women. We must also thank our regular donors who give money each month through standing order; this is a really good way to support Crossroads Derbyshire because it is regular income that we can count on. Despite still beginning the year with a shortfall, we have managed to sustain all of our services and they have all achieved their targets over the year. We were delighted to receive a further three years continuation funding from Children In Need for our children’s outreach programme which has become extremely popular and has had some very positive outcomes for children and young people. Our children’s team has seen some changes, two of our valued team members moved on to other opportunities but we have now recruited two new members who bring new skills to the team particularly for those children with additional needs. We have also said goodbye to our Senior Outreach Worker who has worked with the organisation almost since its very beginnings. We were all sad to see Sue go and cannot thank her enough for her dedication and commitment over the years. We also said goodbye to our Volunteer Coordinator, Viv has helped us to build up a team of volunteers over the last four years and she also was instrumental in the development of our new services for young women. We now welcome a new Senior Outreach Worker and Volunteer Co-ordinator who have lots of new ideas for developing both the Outreach Service and our Volunteer base. We are very lucky to have the continued support of Derbyshire’s Police Crime Commissioner Alan Charles. His support of domestic abuse services and in particular, improved services for victims has enabled to submit applications to the Police Crime Commissioners fund. We were successful in the first bid, to secure funding for our Senior Accommodation Worker at the Harmony Project and this funding has now been extended to March 2016. We were also invited to submit an application to the Commissioners Capacity and Capability fund and have been awarded £38,000 to recruit a Business and Development Officer for 12 months, to assist us in putting a fundraising strategy in place to make the organisation more sustainable; and to help us to make sure the organisation is ready to tender in the forthcoming commissioning process. The funding also includes £6700 to enable our staff team to undertake CAADA training and additional ISVA training to support victims where sexual violence has been a part of the abuse. 3 ISSUE 1 - SUMMER 2015 In November, we launched our new brand, Crossroads Derbyshire-Domestic Abuse Services. This was the end product of a year of hard work with local business Fig Creative, which involved staff, trustees, service users and the community. We are really pleased with our new ‘look’ and hopefully the website is much clearer and easier to access for those who want to learn more about what we do. Despite our fears it seems that everyone has recognised and accepted our new name and has been really supportive in ensuring that we are still prominent within our community. December and January have been particularly busy for us. In December we embarked on the Women’s Aid accredited National Standards which involved submitting 233 pieces of evidence in order to achieve the accreditation. This was a real team effort and all the staff worked together to ensure that everything was completed for submission in January. We were delighted to be told in April that we were successful and we are now an accredited service. In mid-December the government announced funding to secure refuge provision. The £10,000,000 funding announcement was welcomed by all refuges that had lost funding as we had in 2012 and we were invited to bid in partnership with our local authority. High Peak Borough Council were keen to support our young women’s refuge provision and agreed to work on a bid with us. This was a huge piece of work which had to be submitted within 28 days so there was not much space for Christmas! We submitted a bid for £100,000 and were absolutely thrilled to be awarded the funding which will secure the Harmony Project for the next 12 months. At the same time, we were also packing our old office up to make way for pastures new. We moved on 7th January into a new office environment which has been really positive for all of us and really improves our service delivery and provision and has also saved slightly on cost. We were lucky enough to be awarded £7,000 from the Cloth Workers Foundation to financially support the move and this has helped to provide much needed computers, furniture and a secure alarm system for the premises. Despite all our efforts, we still have a deficit in some areas this year and so there is more fundraising to be done and we welcome support from the community to help us to achieve this. So as we embark on another year, we now know that our services will go out to tender in July and so we have to work hard to ensure that we can prove to Commissioners that we are the best people to continue to provide innovative services that are responsive to the needs of our service users. We have excellent working relationships with other providers and with local agencies that enhance our service delivery and we hope that this round of commissioning ensures excellent future provision for all victims of domestic abuse. 4 ISSUE 1 - SUMMER 2015 High Peak Women’s Aid Current Services Our main purpose is to keep adults (both male and female victims) children and young people, safe from domestic abuse Our services enable those affected, to be able to address and manage their risks and engage in structured and progressive activities that support healthy relationships; facilitate informed life choices and improve confidence and physical and emotional wellbeing. Our core services include: • Harmony Project :-24 hour staffed accommodation for young women 16 years to 24 years who are homeless because of risks associated with domestic abuse and sexual violence. [email protected] • WAGS ( Women and Girls Safe) Intensive group work and one to one support, for girls and young women in the community who are experiencing teenage relationship abuse, sexual exploitation, forced marriage. • Outreach support for both women and men, enabling them to manage safety and risk in their own home where appropriate, supporting with legal and housing issues and referrals made to other relevant agencies when needed. • Children’s Service - Specialist support for children and young people affected by domestic abuse; offering prevention and recovery work for 0 -19 years, parenting support and signposting and introduction into other targeted and universal services. • Counselling Service delivered by qualified volunteers-improving the emotional wellbeing of those affected by domestic abuse.