Women’s domestic abuse charity loses funding

[SaddenedByThis]

Aibu to be really upset by this?

Sorry, I know it’s a Sun link but I came across this on Facebook and I’m appalled.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/14129416/domestic-abuse-charity-gender-neutral/

Women’s Aid boss Nicki Norman, said: 'We are at serious risk of losing our network of refuges run by women for women'.

That's shocking. The war on women continues. Awful.

@BenoneBeauty

That's shocking. The war on women continues. Awful.

I know I can’t believe this is actually happening

A war on women also impacts children. Women unable to access support in DV situations are less able to protect themselves and their children, But inclusivity is apparently selective. I believe that is either a paradox or an oxymoron. Not sure which. All wrong, anyway.

It’s appalling. I’m sick of how regressive and damaging the woke “progressives” actually are. It’s a men’s rights movement.

It talks of a petition, is there a link, we need to make noise.

@maddening

It talks of a petition, is there a link, we need to make noise.

I’m trying to find out as much info as I can. If I find a link for the petition, I’ll post it here.

I agree with you, we need to make some noise. This is just the start, I fear.

@Wearywithteens

Yep this is just the start. This is what GC feminists have been saying... the loss of spaces, services and privacies that biological women, and particularly vulnerable women, rely on for their health, safety and well-being. But no one seems to give a shit about biological females and their safety these days.

All that seems to take priority is a women-hating, vile, fantastical dogma that no politician seems to have the gumption to take on. Surreal times.

Agree with everything you’ve said. It’s terrifying

This seems to be the way now for commissioning of all sorts of services provided by third sector organisations the length and breadth of the UK. Local authorities appear to be more and more inclined to seek provision of multiple, similar services from one singular provider, which, while not necessarily resulting in a reduction of provision, is seeing a lot of the more niche and specialist organisations going to the wall as their former contracts are taken over by other, often larger providers at the point of re-tendering.

It's happened to couple of the local providers where I am. We are fortunate, in that despite being a relatively small organisation ourselves, we've kept our contracts through retendering, but the flip side of it is that we've now taken on the work that was previously the remit of an even smaller charity, which has since disappeared through lack of funding and the loss of their purpose.

We could expand by 10% to take on their role, but they couldn't realistically expand by 90% to do ours, so while it's sad and unfortunate, one of us had to go thanks to the Local Authority's determination to have all provision 'under one roof'.

Brighton
It’s always fucking Brighton

Well that’s shut isn’t it

I support WA via direct debit

This is disgusting

Petition link here

www.change.org/p/brighton-hove-city-council-rise-up-bring-our-women-s-refuge-home

I'm utterly disgusted that this is happening and no one seems to have the power to stop it.
The TR lobbying is so powerful and our government bodies seem to pander to it it seems hopeless.
Women haven't come this far in the race for equality to see it go down the drain in this way.
The more and more I research GC feminism, the more I'm with it 100%.

This is disgusting. Im sick of it.
Why don't trans women campaign for their own refuges if there is such a need.
Theres loads of money sloshing around for lgbt causes.
Because its not about them having, its about women not being allowed to have anything that doesnt include men.
Lord Hunt spoke about this in the house of Lord's today.
Where are those women and their children supposed to go now?

Why don't trans women campaign for their own refuges if there is such a need.

The local authority would have been commissioning specialist services for trans people and hetero men from somewhere prior to this. There's a requirement for it that didn't just appear with this retendering. It's impossible to say for certain without a lot more information on exactly how the commissioners have come to this decision, but my interpretation of the article is that they wanted a provider that could provide all of these services that were, presumably, being provided by at least two, and quite possibly three or more individual organisations prior to now, but the outcome is that all of the required services are now to be supplied by two organisations, and it's the previous holder of the contract for women only services that has lost out.

Make of that what you will.

Where are those women and their children supposed to go now?

To whichever of Victim Support or Stonewater now has the contract for provision for women previously held by Rise.

So new charities will have to be open to all and everyone? Even if this stops women going there to be safe? So you ring up desperate for a refuge place. They have to let you know (well probable don’t tell you till you arrive) that men will be there too. If you don’t like it you can go back to your abuser. Progress indeed...

Or are they saying each charity has run 2/3 sorts of refugees for everyone to get funding?

Traumatised women and children need safe spaces where there are no biological males allowed. Why does that fact matter so little to the people who make these decisions. Why is it all about what men demand?

They have to let you know (well probable don’t tell you till you arrive) that men will be there too

This isn't how it works where I am. The same provider provides the service to both women and transpeople, but the refuges themselves are still very much 'women only' spaces, staffed by women, inhabited by exclusively women, and so on. Facilities for transwomen are still entirely separate an in a totally different location.

This misconception arose when provision for counselling for sexual assault and rape victims was recommissioned as well. People jumped to the conclusion that because the organisation offering counselling to women also had the tender for transpeople, that women would be sent to see transwoman counsellors, have to use the same building as trans victims and so on. It simply was not true. Victims are still matched with a counsellor on stated preference, and the counselling for and by trans people takes place on a specific, dedicated day. Trans and non trans victims are never in the building at the same time.

I don't know of a single organisation that would expect a female victim to be counselled by a transwoman. It would be egregiously bad practice to foist an unwelcome counsellor upon a service user without their express consent, and it's certainly not something any of the organisations I refer people on to would countenance.

Or are they saying each charity has run 2/3 sorts of refugees for everyone to get funding?

That's one possible interpretation, though in my experience the tendency now is for commissioners to issue their tender requirements with an 'ideally' caveat so to speak. So along the lines of 'will ideally be able to provide'.

I think the line about 'the tender was intentionally non-gendered' is quite significant, as it implies that the LA was intentionally looking to have provision for all requirements supplied by one single provisioner. The fact that they've still ended up with two provisioners, and yet the charity that 'primarily' provides for women-only services has lost out is a bit of a head-scratcher, especially since Rise apparently already has specialist LGBT provision and says they could have expanded to cater for men as well.

I wonder if it's because they only actually bid on the basis of providing the women-only service, and didn't actually bid for the other aspects of the tender.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX Thats interesting. My first thought on seeing that announcement was "why can't they continue to have the refuges supported by the domestic abuse charity but seperately liaise/sponser another charity/refuge for trans victims of DV". (Except obviously money). I don't think doing that would be exclusionary - since people from a trans or non-binary background are likely to have specific needs/issues so could beneit from a specialised service (just as other women fleeing DV who would prefer it to not include trans-women/former men). So everyone would win. The scenario you describe where you are sounds like this but all provided by one service provider. Do you think there is a problem more generally with consolidating (losing specialisation/persons with expertise in a specific area) or do you think it is more efficient overall?

@XDownwiththissortofthingX I suppose from what you have said it sounds like it is more a (potential) issue with the way the council tenders for things/how the process works in practice than a problem with trans-rights V (cis)womens rights.

The local authority would have been commissioning specialist services for trans people and hetero men from somewhere prior to this. There's a requirement for it that didn't just appear with this retendering

I don't think they were supplying refuges for men in most cases.

Google says 0.8% of refuge beds are for men, 20 in the country

I think most LAs just never provided support for mens refuges

Do you think there is a problem more generally with consolidating (losing specialisation/persons with expertise in a specific area) or do you think it is more efficient overall?

By far and away the primary concern here is what's best for the end user of the service, and to that end, no, I don't think that consolidation of services is necessarily a beneficial thing.

Sure, you'd think that larger organisations (larger is relative, we're still talking about some pretty tiny charities) would be better equipped to cope in certain respects, but you tend to find that niche organisations do what they do extremely well, because they've been founded because of specific need, guided and driven by people who have an in depth understanding of the complexities, and when you take away their reason for existence and hand it over to a different organisation, quite often a lot of that specialist understanding, knowledge, talent and ability is discarded or lost due to natural atrophy (people in their 50's with 20-30 years experience choosing retirement over TUPE etc).

As I mentioned, my place has been on the 'winning' side of this LA caper, but it's not really 'winning' because the sector has lost a very niche small charity as a result, and some of the service users are still struggling to adapt to the change and view it as a negative and retrograde step.

I don't think they were supplying refuges for men in most cases.

Yes, it'll vary by LA because it's not one of the provisions that is mandated by law.