If anyone has worked for a domestic violence charity..

[Jasmine787]

I’m hoping to start volunteering with a domestic violence charity in my area, mostly admin in their offices. I was wondering if there are any qualifications or training courses that are useful to gain more knowledge and to broaden my understanding. I had a quick look on the internet but there seems to be so much info, particularly on social care, and I have no experience at all in this area. One day in the future I would really like to work/volunteer directly with women who have suffered from domestic violence. Thank you so much.

Ex DV worker here. I would say read up on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the Freedom Programme. That's a good starting point.

I would also say that unfortunately, unless you're going to self fund training and qualifications, you might find it hard to come by opportunities in the charity.

I know the charity I worked for had barely enough funding for training for the staff, let alone volunteers. We had the LA contract for the county so were hardly a grassroots charity but refuges and DV work costs a lot of money which doesn't leave much for anything else.

Good luck. And look after yourself. Even if you're not doing frontline work you're going to hear things you probably never thought you would.

Thank you so much. I would definitely pay for any training myself. Out of interest, what kind of background do most DV workers have? Did you always know you wanted to do that? I’m interested in how people end up working with domestic violence victims and in refuges.

Training costs a fortune and in my experience isn't always as useful as the trainer thinks it is

For me personally, I'd experienced DV myself and went into a role as a DV support worker for children who had witnessed and experienced DV. I worked in refuge and within the community, usually seeing children within school hours.

We also ran group sessions over several days during the holidays.

A lot of DV workers go into it because they've experienced it themselves and want to ensure it doesn't happen/continue to happen to other people.

Oh and my background before was marketing and communications. So not an obvious career move.

But I'd been communications manager for a youth charity and had started to pitch in with the frontline work. After maternity leave I wanted a change and the job fitted the bill.

I'm in business and I would love to be able to help DV charities one day (when I'm retired probably!) but it's quite a mind shift for the people that run these and they do know best. But then maybe they don't as they are not 'successful' as such. I would love to help them with

• spreading the message the DV affects men (taxpayers) and children so that everyone sees that this isn't just a women's issue. Hard hitting ads focusing on just the women in those situations allow everyone else to close their ears and eyes.
• placing the message among men and boys that dv is completely unacceptable - especially among cultures where it's currently tolerated. Making it uncool and making men who ACT against it into hero's (unpalatable to many but a practical way to get buy in).
• setting up ways to get donations of un needed but clean clothing, bedding, toys etc. I've got 2 goose down duvets and endless amounts of clothing and would want it to go to women who have fled with nothing. It doesn't appear possible to do that currently. They only want money. But then so does everyone.

• getting psychotherapists trained for free in EMDR and the payback is one pro bono dv client a week. Offering a way for EMDR therapists to spend a day every week in a refuge (they could have 5 appointments) and making it worth their while by raising their profile so they then get more paying clients.

And volunteers. People want to help but are told 'we don't need you just give us money'. Maybe that's true but it doesn't work.

It's such a broken system currently. Dedicated women trying their best but without the nouse to even keep the TWAW activists out. No support from business or government. No way for women to help other women apart from with money. Anyway that's my rant over.

@MarriedtoDaveGrohl I don't disagree with you.

To give some insight into some of your points, the refuges I worked in were all converted houses, bar one. So as you can imagine packing 4, 5, 6 etc families into one house meant space was at a premium. Unfortunately this means we can't accept a lot of donations of clothes, bedding and what have you because we simply don't have the to store it.

This is generally why money is preferred because it allows the charity to buy what they need, when they need it rather than having say a bag of size 8 women's clothes and clothes for teenage boys when you might not have any families in that could make use of that for months.

We used to accept as much as we could, let our residents take what they needed, and then pass the rest on to local charity shops. It was the best way we could find to use donations without having to store it.

Regarding volunteers, in my experience it's really hard to find volunteers suitable for this kind of work.

We've had a few and they seem to fall into one of two categories. Either they're dealing with a lot of their own issues and just aren't suitable to be working with clients. The nature of the work also means we couldn't let them loose on paperwork either.

Or, they very much want to help but seem to have a very naive and idealistic view of refuge. They expect refuges to be one big happy family and all the families to be quiet, compliant and suitably grateful for their help.

The last one I worked with was horrified to hear the women swearing and acting aggressively. I think she imagined they would all be meek, mild, "battered women".

Anyone who has done this job will tell you that's very far from the truth

However, this is just my experience. I'm sure there are many fantastic volunteers out there.

@CleanQueen123 I can completely understand what you are saying. Women in refuges aren't all nice quiet ladies.. of course it's more complex than that. I'm surprised at your volunteers naivety and that they hadn't been better prepped.

And of course storing things in individual houses is impossible. The problem is that clothing is expensive and these women have often left with nothing. It's a logistics and IT problem as in no where to store it and no way of getting it where it's needed.

Managing the stock and making sure that someone who needs those items (and crucially likes them and has chosen them) takes resources and people. To set up a warehousing system specifically for that would be impossible - it would need to be piggybacked off an existing system as part of a free collaboration with someone like amazon - who are probably the best in the country at this.

Much easier to say just give us money. But the great British public is all tapped out. We often have a thousand hands being held out for money and it doesn't feel good (a crucial part of charity) so I think most people just give nothing. To anyone. Charities need to recognise that.

Or you go ultra local and get big yellow to give you a unit. There needs to be more of these 'proudly supporting' deals happening. Tax deductible for business though I think most will want some recognition. But I think big yellow is not a bad one. Secure, cctv, ubiquitous. Parking, clean, temperature controlled.

Charities are often great at doing what they do but not great at running themselves. Unfortunately.

I would say Volunteering as admin in a DV charity will open some doors for you. There’s also lots of online podcasts on the SafeLives website and they’ll have links to training there websites.
Just a few things to bear in mind, like above, don’t expect all meek mild ‘battered’ women, some are of course, but DV often doesn’t exist on its own and there are other issues like substance abuse, mental health, repeated DV rels which can be challenging to deal with.
I remember when I started, I expected to be dealing with DV, but very often was dealing with housing issues, bills people hadn’t paid etc.
Another thing is it’s low paid, for a lot of responsibility and stress (your files called to court, CP issues etc). You also hear awful things day in day out, sometimes involving children.

@CleanQueen123
Do you mind if I ask what you moved onto after working in DV?

@MarriedtoDaveGrohl you've hit the nail on the head with this:

"Charities are often great at doing what they do but not great at running themselves. Unfortunately."

I've worked for a few charities now and whilst all of then are fabulous at doing the thing they were set up to do, everything else is pretty shoddy.

I always used to feel awful having to decline physical donations but we just couldn't store it.

We also didn't advertise for volunteers so they were accepted on a case by case basis. We would try our best to be honest with them when they interviewed but some people have a very set idea of who they want to help and how they want to do it.

As @JunoMara said, DV goes hand in hand with a myriad of other issues. Thinking you're going to come in a few times a week and crochet with them to solve their life problems is only ever going to lead to disappointment.

I've moved on to HR now @JunoMara. It still gives me the "support" aspect I enjoy without the trauma, vicarious or otherwise, of hearing about the awful things people do to each other.

@CleanQueen123
Strangely I’ve also been looking at HR!
I like supporting people, but am fed up with the general feeling of terror from management who feel we have to do about 1000% over what our contract with the LA states, incase it gets pulled.
In most cases it’s not even what our SU’s want or need.
And of course the usual feeling of dread if a high risk chaotic case from MARAC lands in your lap with a high chance of it going all wrong.
How long did you last in the DV role?

@JunoMara HR seems to fit the bill quite nicely for me with balancing support with more of a business slant to it.

I lasted two years. I think I'd have continued on longer had the management and their support, or total lack of it, not been as it was.

What I used to struggle with was the lack of multi agency working. And women coming into refuge who really shouldn't have been there as a result.

The downplaying or total omission of the other issues clients were dealing with by other agencies, usually Social Services, just to get women into refuge was shocking.

And then they're happy to close the case and leave us to deal with severe mental health issues, substance misuse etc etc.

I don't think most people realise, including other agencies, that the majority of refuges are staffed Mon-Fri 9-5. They're not designed to take on people with high level support needs who aren't capable of living independently in a communal environment.

There are refuges that are specialist but they're few and far between.

What we desperately need is more of those. Not to just dump women anywhere with a vacancy and hope for the best.

The other one is LA housing departments deciding people have support needs relating to DV and putting them in refuge.

We had one particular case where the client themselves admitted it wasn't DV, just a one off family argument that led to them being homeless, but the homelessness team decided it was DV so into refuge they went.

They came with another female relative so that was two refuge places taken up for the best part of a year by two women who didn't need to be there. But once they're in the system, it's very hard to get them back out.

I don't think the general public has the first clue about what really goes on in the DV sector.