A counselling project is transforming the lives of women and girls who have experienced domestic and/or sexual violence, a new study has found.
Ascent Advice and Counselling project brings together 18聽specialist counselling and advice services聽across London聽and users have spoken about how it has 鈥渃hanged鈥� and 鈥渟aved鈥� their lives.
Its work is highlighted in a new report by the Child and Women Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University.
The university has examined four years鈥� work of the project 鈥� from 2017 to 2021 鈥� and found it has supported more than 30,000 women and provided more than 52,000 one-to-one counselling sessions, which were delivered by our members.
Counselling changes lives
The report found women feel Ascent Advice and Counselling鈥檚 support had had a significant impact on their life.
One of the key findings was that聽it was important for users to have access to a women-only service where the workers were from a similar cultural background and/or spoke their mother tongue.
Michelle, who was supported by the project and interviewed for the evaluation, said: 鈥淭he most helpful thing was that she (my counsellor) had the same ethnicity as me.
鈥淪he was the same kind of background as me in terms of culturally, so there was some stuff I didn鈥檛 need to explain, and it just made it so much easier.
鈥淪he was iconic. That woman has left an impact on my life that I will never forget. She had such a profound effect on my life.鈥�
Pearl, another service user, said: 鈥淭hey鈥檝e really helped my life, and therapy was exactly what I needed, and it鈥檚 like I鈥檝e basically put all my problems in a box, and wrapped it up and put a ribbon round it and gave it to the therapist and said 鈥榯hank you鈥� and walked away.鈥�
Transformative
One anonymous user said: 鈥淐ounselling was really transformative and helped me get a handle on my own life. Over the course of my sessions, I went from a very difficult place to being able to look after myself and process my experiences.鈥�
Another added: 鈥淚 will be forever grateful to every single caseworker I have had. They helped steer me through the most difficult period of my life, and enabled me to access services I would not have been able to on my own.鈥�
The partnership聽combines聽the skills and knowledge of 18聽specialist counselling and advice services聽across London聽to provide聽a range of support from one-to-one counselling to group work, legal advice,聽training聽and no聽recourse聽to public funds assistance.聽聽
Jeremy Bacon, our Third Sector Lead, said 鈥淭his report highlights the importance of the role of community-based organisations in ensuring that women and girls have access to the support they need.
鈥淭he evaluation includes valuable insights from the partner organisations about the benefits and challenges of working in partnership and, critically, the need for services to be adequately funded.
Removing barriers
鈥淚nvolvement of trusted organisations working with woman and girls from BAME communities is another important aspect of this project report.
鈥淩emoving barriers to counselling for people from marginalised and racialised communities remains a significant challenge.鈥�
Jane聽Jutsum is director of , a leading specialist Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) charity, with more than 45 years鈥� experience working with survivors of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). Solace is also a 香港六合彩精准资料 organisational member.
Jane said: 鈥淭he partnership has been such a success.聽Although the聽focus聽of the project is to support women and girls聽experiencing聽violence,聽the combination of organisations involved has allowed us to support聽women with complex issues and multiple聽disadvantages, because聽of聽the partners鈥� specific knowledge with聽issues聽such as housing, disability.
鈥淚t鈥檚 also enabled us all to聽provide bespoke support for聽minoritised聽women.鈥�
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