Women’s refuge support worker role - any advice/experience?

[Rach247]

I’m thinking of applying for a support worker role in a domestic abuse refuge. I have no experience in this line of work but it doesn’t seem essential from the job advert.

Does anyone have any experience or advice about the role, what it’s like, whether it’s rewarding, and whether I would even be considered with no background in the sector?

Thank you!

I did this a number of years ago, experience with vulnerable people was necessary in my role. I had plenty of experience with children with disabilities so used that. It was in a refuge, a very mixed role, a lot of the support was indirect, such as cleaning/preparing the room for a woman arriving, taking deliveries from food banks and putting it in designated cupboards, general cleaning and organising to make life smoother for the women. Outside the refuge there was taking women to appointments, helping them access benefits, taking them for shopping once they just entered the refuge. Then there was the emotional support side of things. It was very rewarding and interesting but traumatic and sad at times too,

It's an emotionally taxing role, not everyone is cut out for it. It's far more than what the poster above described too, you'll be working with women to help write their support plans, safety plans and do risk assessment. A background or training in adult protection is helpful and also trauma informed practice. You'll support women with their self esteem and confidence and to understand the patterns of abuse.

It can be very rewarding but equally you need high resilience and professional boundaries. For example how would you feel to have supported a women for months, helped her work towards safety only for her to return to her abuser?

I'm assuming it's with women's aid? Be prepared to talk about your feminist values at interview. Support should always be women-led too,.so talk about empowerment and recovery.

When I was there you couldn't do any risk assessment/STAR work with a woman until you had been there for some time, especially if you had no previous experience. That's a good thing IMO, as could easily get traumatized quite quickly. I had assumed I'd only be doing work directly with women, so was a bit taken back at how much cleaning/organising I was doing, but all new people were at the 'bottom' of the rung until they had been trained to carry out assessments and you need your own training/induction too.

Thanks so much for this insight, really helpful.

I don’t have any professional caring experience, do you think that would be a problem?

It really depends on the applicant pool and how desperate they are, recruitment is tough ATM so that could work in your favour. They may be willing to train you up or they may want an experienced worked who can hit the ground running pretty quickly.

I'd be looking for someone with the right attitude and values, but experience or working with vulnerable people would be really helpful, some training in safeguarding, case note recording, confidentiality etc would be really useful. A gendered understanding of domestic abuse and VAWG. Do plenty of research before the interview!

What does the job spec say? Do you meet the criteria and do you have any transferable skills? If you can't meet the essential/desirable criteria I wouldn't bother applying.