Q1. the Grants Programme Is Described in Annex E . Should This Programme Continue After
Submission to London Councils Consultation /
Sept 2015
Q1. The grants programme is described in [Annex E]. Should this programme continue after March 2017?
Yes
Q2. The grants programme principles are described in [Annex E]. Please give any comments on these?
The support that vulnerable LGBT survivors have received through London Councils funding is vital. For example, Galop leads the only coordinated community response to domestic abuse for LGBT people in London, the Domestic Abuse Partnership (DAP). The DAP brings together five specialist LGBT organisations which put clients at the heart of service development to ensure rapid response to emerging community needs. The DAP service is acknowledged internationally as being a model of best practice. To end this groundbreaking project would have an enormous impact on our service users and London’s sizable and diverse LGBT communities, many of whom are in desperate situations and would simply have nowhere else to go for help.
Evidence of need
Indicators include:
• In the last two years the DAP delivered above contracted targets by 9%, with 1100 LGBT survivors of domestic abuse and violence (DVA) contacting at least one organisation for advice and support around DVA.
• Demand for our specialist services far exceeds capacity.
• There is no other pan-London LGBT DVA partnership.
• The DAP provides a unique pan-London service to LGBT survivors serving the different elements of their support, advice and advocacy needs, which could not be replicated on a local level in a cost effective manner.
• Most individual boroughs are unable to fund specialist LGBT provision.
• Survivors often need services outside of their immediate area/borough.
• Local services often do not meet LGBT needs, for example, local IDVA provision may only work with female survivors and not gay, bisexual or trans* men.
• Recent independent research (Safer Lives http://www.safelives.org.uk/file/lgbt-practice-briefing-idvas-finalpdf) has shown the lack of specialist and appropriate services for LGBT survivors. The evidence includes:
1. Only 1.3% survivors accessing IDVA services were lesbian, gay or bisexual. None were trans*.
2. Only 0.7% of MARAC cases were LGBT (2012-13), despite high levels of domestic abuse risk within LGBT communities.
3. LGBT people experienced higher levels of sexual abuse & harassment.
4. LGBT survivors of DVA are reluctant to approach mainstream or other specialist VAWG services. There are additional barriers of trust and confidence leading to fears of not being taken seriously or understood.
5. A possible reluctance was noted among IDVAs undertaking risk assessments with LGBT people to discuss issues relating to sexual violence, due to their own discomfort or lack of knowledge.
Mobility for safety:
Survivors of domestic abuse often have to flee their home and move to another borough for their safety. It is well established that survivors of domestic abuse are at the greatest risk at the time that they leave an abusive situation.
By providing pan-London services, domestic abuse organisations including Galop are able to ensure that survivors in this situation receive continuity of care and appropriate risk management at the point they are most vulnerable. When different organisations provide services in different boroughs, survivors who move outside of their borough are at risk of falling through the cracks.
The relationship of trust built with a specialist worker enables clients to move borough confident in the knowledge that that there is a skilled and professional organisation which can provide ongoing support wherever they are in London.
It also means that there are specialist workers responsible for ensuring MARAC referral are made where appropriate. It is the worst possible time for a survivor to have to find new support from organisations when they move, simply because the organisation that has been supporting them no longer operates in their borough.
Pan-London:
Galop provides services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* people whose needs are not being met by mainstream organisations. LGBT people face particular problems related to their sexual orientation and gender identity, including hate crime and domestic abuse. LGBT communities are not restricted to one locality, but live throughout London. However a lack of statistics and robust evidence on a local level mean that important issues for our community can often be overlooked or not prioritised.
This is compounded by the fact that the size of the LGBT community in individual boroughs may not be big enough to justify the expense of an LGBT focused service which is also specialist (for example tackling hate crime, domestic abuse, homelessness or mental health, rather than just a generic support organisation).
However by not providing this service, the borough fails to meet the real and specific needs of this group of residents. It is therefore more effective to provide these services on a pan-London basis, which creates a critical mass of need to justify a service which then benefits individual residents in all boroughs.
These pan-London LGBT services, such as Galop, allow residents to access a service in which they have confidence. Many LGBT people express a preference to access LGBT focused services. This can be because they worry about having to out themselves to generic services, or may have had bad experiences in the past. These clients’ issues are often inextricably linked to the sexual orientation and/or their gender identity, and solutions may also be limited because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Partnerships and compliance:
The funding that the DAP partnership receives from the London Councils Grants Programme is essential for delivery of a joined-up, coordinated service, enabling vulnerable LGBT survivors of domestic violence to quickly and easily access specialised support and advocacy around safety, criminal justice, housing and counselling. This close working also prevents duplication of work, enabling partners to best allocate resources efficiently. The success and effectiveness of our partnership working is reflected in The Domestic Abuse Partnership client feedback and consistently Green RAG ratings, scoring in the top 90 percentile.
Galop has an excellent track record as a lead partner on a variety of projects, most recently receiving the Campaign of the Year award on a project involving 35 hate crime organizations. Partner organisations value working with Galop, for example, we were names Partner of the Year by the Albert Kennedy Trust, and were also recently nominated by Naz for the same award. Stonewall Housing's advice services have been awarded the Advice Quality Standard and they have developed these services to incorporate floating support as well as partnerships with other providers. London Youth Gateway was nominated for an Andy Ludlow Award which recognised the unique partnership that it created. Stonewall Housing was also a key voluntary sector stakeholder in the North West London Integrated Pioneer.
Equality
The partnership actively seek to engage with hard to reach communities across all equality strands and indications of our success in this area include:
Disability: 27% of DAP clients report a disability; mental health difficulties are particularly high. Research, including the Safer Lives report above, found that LGBT DVA survivors were more likely to have complex needs around mental health and substance misuse.
Faith: Galop’s work to tackle forced marriage, ‘honour’ based violence, ‘corrective rape’ and ‘conversation therapy’ has been acknowledge for our successful interventions on behalf of clients at risk of these issues, for example by the Forced Marriage Unit.
Sexual orientation: LGBT specific services are crucial, as has been demonstrated by the continued high demand for the LGBT Domestic Abuse Partnership. Research by Safer Lives (2014) showed that few LGBT survivors accessed help from IDVA services, with only 1.3% of survivors accessing other domestic abuse services identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual, and none as trans*.
Gender identity: For trans* women experiencing domestic abuse there are significant barriers to accessing mainstream services. Research has found trans* people are more at risk of domestic abuse in both prevalence and level of severity, even than LGB people (for example see Count Me In Too 2007). The track record of specialist services such as Galop in serving this group is evidenced by the positive outcomes and high levels of service user satisfaction.
Sex: Specialist LGBT domestic abuse services provide a vital resource for women’s organisations tackling violence and abuse, providing key learning opportunities on serving the needs of lesbian, bisexual and trans* women. There is little or no service provision for gay, bisexual and trans* male survivors of domestic abuse outside of the DAP service despite evidence of high levels of need.
Age: The DAP includes specialist preventative work with young people to foster healthy relationships among young people and innovative work to serve the needs of LGBT youth experiencing domestic abuse from family and partners.
Race: Around 50% of DAP cases were non- White British and reflect London’s diverse LGBT population. Galop has developed strong working relationships with voluntary and community organisations serving London’s LGBT BAME communities. For example, this is evidenced by Galop’s recent nomination for the NAZ Project’s award for partner of the year.
Our unique services deliver added value to other organisations across London in a variety of ways including:
1. Our support to local authorities, criminal justice agencies and mainstream services by the provision of specialist training on equality issues.
2. Galop and partners provide specialist knowledge and regularly feed into consultations that benefit vulnerable LGBT Londoners including: Local Borough Joint Strategic Needs Assessments, Health and Wellbeing Boards, CPS and MOPAC consultations and most recently the Women and Equalities Select Committee Inquiry on Trans* Equality.
Q3a How important is it to fund pan-London services relating to homelessness through this grants scheme beyond March 2017? Please consider this in relation to need across London, current provision and services that boroughs already provide?
Very Important
Q3b If you think that it is very important, important or quite important and given that there is existing provision, should the funding continue to focus on the following?
Early intervention and prevention: Yes
More LGBT people have approached Stonewall Housing advice services than ever before and they come from every London borough. Last year 80% of people who called Stonewall Housing for advice were out of work and there was an increase of 63% in the number of people calling for advice about debt and not being able to afford their accommodation. This number is expected to rise further as various welfare reforms are introduced. To meet this need the organisation has secured extra funding to be able to issue over £1,500 worth of hardship grants in the past year and we are now referral agents for Terrence Higgins Trust and Buttle's Anchor Fund for young people living with HIV as well as foodbanks from across the city.
Nearly 2/3 of people who contact Stonewall Housing for advice state that their housing problem is directly related to their sexual orientation or gender identity and many LGBT people do not approach mainstream advice services for fear that they may face homophobia, biphobia or transphobia or that the workers may not understand their full situation. Without Stonewall Housing’s advice they may not have access to safe accommodation and their physical and mental health would deteriorate as they remained homeless or in substandard accommodation with constant fear of abuse or violence.
If London Councils fails to continue to fund organisations that work with specific groups then this will reduce Stonewall Housing’s capacity to continue to offer the range of extra benefits that it offers to every local authority and their LGBT residents:
- developing innovative new services, such as the LGBT Domestic Abuse Forum, funded through the Oak Foundation, which gives a range of providers opportunities to share best practice in meeting the diverse needs of LGBT people which is now also based on additional advocacy and support offered to those experiencing domestic abuse.
- attracting other funding from local authorities for specific local projects to engage better with LGBT communities by implementing local financial management workshops, filming LGBT communities’ views about living and socialising in a particular borough and encouraging LGBT people to register to vote during the election.
- speaking up for the concerns of LGBT people about their housing issues on local forums, the Mayor of London’s Housing Forum, the national Equality Board of the Homes and Communities Agency and through the London Voluntary Service Council and London Voluntary Sector Forum, which Bob Green chairs.
-supporting innovative research, such as Finding Safe Spaces, which was funded through the Homelessness Transition Fund, to compare services for LGBT rough sleepers in London, Brighton and Manchester. It found that LGBT rough sleepers were not being served by mainstream rough sleeping services.
-working in partnership with a range of private, public and third sector agencies to improve services to LGBT people and help organisations meet their duties under the Equality Act, Care Act and Social Value Act: through the provision of training, consultancy and resources, such as the Chartered Institute of Housing’s Good Practice Guide for providing services to LGBT people.
-Working in partnership with other charities to develop new schemes such as a new initiative developing new housing services and a stronger network of services for LGBT people across the city with local authorities and St Mungo's and other providers.
Youth homelessness Yes
London Councils grants programme support the London Youth Gate (LYG) with is a partnership between the New Horizons Youth Centre, Alone in London, De Paul Trust and Stonewall Housing. This consortium has the sole London Councils commission. Stonewall Housing’s role within this relationship is to not only provide direct service (information, advice, advocacy and support) but to commission services from our existing partnership LGBT Jigsaw. This partnership was set up in 2008 to help LGBT young people who were homeless or having trouble at home. By working with other LGBT specific agencies such as PACE of mental health support, Galop of community safety and domestic abuse, the Albert Kennedy Trust for emergency accommodation and information and advice. Thanks to the London Councils funding LGBT young people in London has specific safety net. An inclusive safe space where they can be who they are. Stonewall Housing is proud that we are able to continue to deliver these service in partnership with the LYG thanks to funding from London Councils.