Victim Focus - accreditation.

[PlutoRavesWithStars]

Victim Focus staff keep saying their courses are accredited, including Train the Trainer. Does anyone know which organisation has done the accreditations? It seems a little strange that it isn't mentioned on their website as different professional bodies have different recognitions for what people can state is an Advanced CPD course.

Here is Jessica claiming that Sally Ann isn't in the book, and implying that she's crazy. She told this to all her staff and anyone who'd listen.

(Here's a link to it on twitter in case it's hard to see the pics) www.twitter.com/sallyann98745/status/1577344528008331271

And here's her wife, Jaimi joining in.

But that's plainly all lies. Here's her publisher admitting that Sally Ann IS in the book, but that they don't accept that she's identifiable.

So the stuff Jess and Jaimi were saying is blatant, outrageous lies.

If Jess really believed in being trauma informed, she'd removed Sally Ann's section from the book as requested. Why wouldn't she? Wouldn't you if you'd published something about a survivor and they said they didn't give permission and it was hurting them so see their personal story being used for financial gain?

All Jess had to do was say "oh shit, sorry Sally Ann, I didn't realise you didn't want me to use your story. I'm sorry. I'll take it out of the next edition". Any normal person with a tiny bit of humanity would, surely, instead of going on the attack in the way she's done.

But she won't say sorry or make amends as she doesn't believe in what she preaches, not one bit, and - ridiculously, but typical for a narc - Jess sees herself as the victim in all this

She cannot prove written consent though, as SA didn't consent, and JTs publisher has now publicly stated that they didn't need consent as they had changed people's names.

SA isn't the only one to have been identified seemingly.

Agree 100%.

Oh and , Hi Jessica - hope you are having a nice evening!

No she can't prove consent.

So instead she's changed her story, and she's pretending that she never said that Sally Ann wasn't in the book. Instead she's saying that she did have consent all along. She shared the screenshot of Sally Ann consenting on Twitter, then deleted it when too many people said WTF?!

But as far as she's concerned, she's proved her "innocence". That the evidence she produced actually proved that she was lying her arse off is irrelevant, apparently.

Ah, and the police part was BS too I seem to recall.

She did send the police to Sally Ann's and Rachel Williams. She was still claiming Sally Ann wasn't in the book and that she was obsessed with Jess and harassing her.

I wish it was a lie that she'd sent the police - worse than lying about it is actually sending the police in an attempt to - I believe - intimidate her critics into silence, especially when they're survivors and especially when Sally Ann is scared of the police, a fact that SA says Jess would have known.

And most especially when Jess knew full well that Sally Ann was telling the truth about being in the book, as she later admitted. What else could it have been other than an attempt to use the police to intimidate them?

But in typical Jess fashion, she lied and exaggerated. She told VF staff and others that the police were going to arrest both Sally Ann and Rachel and seize all their devices. This wasn't true. She said the police had given her the choice of warning them this time, or charging them, and she'd chosen to charge them. I very much doubt that was true.

She said she was worried that Sally Ann was going to kill herself after being arrested and that Rachel's career would be ruined, but that she had "no choice" because she was protecting her family (and dogs).

She said that the thing she was most worried about was that she was the one that was going to end up looking bad. (The level of narcissism in that is off the scale - she'd just said she thought Sally And would end up dead, and Rachel Williams with her career in tatters, but people thinking badly of her was worse than death or losing your career.

Transcript of Jessica talking about this attached and here: www.twitter.com/sallyann98745/status/1566911065488859137

The police did not arrest SA or Rachel, it was bollocks, but Jess let people assume they did. They did go to Sally Ann's house but she wasn't there. They had a chat with the person who was there, and never returned.

With the police thing, I meant that I understood it as they didn't find Sally-Ann to be harassing JT?

Who is Rachel?

No, not at all. They didn't even speak to her. That was Jess's reframing of the narrative.

@PlutoRavesWithStars Rachel William’s is a DV survivor who was shot and beaten for years and her son eventually took his own life. She’s written a book and does talks on surviving violent relationships and Dr JT seems determined to destroy her. Have a look on Tattle Life or at Rachel Williams’ Twitter page, it’s chilling.

Rachel Williams is a survivor of an absolutely horrific attack by her ex husband. He shot and stabbed her and she survived, against the odds. She now speaks out about DV.

She stood up for Sally Ann publicly, and Jessica got into a narc rage at her. She told people close to her that she saw Rachel as a perpetrator and herself as the victim in this scenario.

Rachel Williams has further been dragged into all this as some of the VictimFocus staff said some awful things about both Sally Ann and Rachel on the staff WhatsApp group, egged on by Jessica, and one of the team created a meme of Jessica and Rachel as if in a rap battle (from 8 mile). The ethos in this chat had been created by Jessica, who had invested a LOT of time in telling staff lies about Sally Ann and positioning both Sally And and Rachel as crazy and/or aggressors who had it in for Jess and VictimFocus, and that Jess needed protecting from this crazy, apparently unfounded attack.

When some of the staff suggested that this was less than professional and that Jessica should practice what she preached and demonstrating how to be trauma informed, and not encourage the staff to have a go at survivors it all went to shit. None of the staff who raised the concerns still work there. And Jess has lied to those who remain about why the staff left or were sacked.

All of us had the best interests of the organisation at heart and - at first - thought Jess would listen as we thought she wanted the organisation to be trauma informed. Instead, she either made it impossible for us to work there or sacked us.

She's lied her arse off to staff who are still there about why we left and the issues we had. She's made the remaining staff feel we had something against them, when we didn't. We were trying to get the organisation to reflect on being trauma informed. (VF sells books on self reflection. FFS!)

And then when Jess's mask slipped and we saw the real her, we were horrified. They will be too, one day, when they see her for who she really is. They're a smart bunch of women on the whole, Jess won't be able to keep her lies up convincingly forever.

In my experience, it's very, very difficult to go against someone who is paying for a roof over your head. Or who deploys the same abusive behaviour your partner or family once did. Or all of the above.

For those women who still work for Jess, and who might be reading this thread, know this - I have a lot of time and compassion for you. More than Jess has! My ego and self worth isn't bound up in your "obedience". You are allowed to question, to think for yourself. Don't let this time at VF define you.

I've no idea what's going on here, but I do have a question:

Why would Jess need to steal someone's story? Sadly VAWG is widespread in our society; therefore nobody writing about it should have to resort to deceitful means to find such accounts?

Well yes, why indeed? Jessica could have very easily asked Sally Ann to fill out a consent form. But she didn't.

Lots of survivors get in contact with Jessica and tell her their stories, as do other professionals, as she makes herself so available on social media, and Sally Ann isn't the only person whose story Jessica published without permission.

Basically, what seems to have gone on here is that Jessica has quite happily used other women's stories without seeming consent. She changed their names, so in journalistic terms, this arguably isn't illegal if they're not identifiable, and that's the line the publisher is taking.

But it's not ethical, nor is it informed consent. And when Jess markets herself on the basis of being an ethical champion of survivors, that's a problem as it's clear she doesn't care about the principles she writes about.

And then when she was caught doing it she tried to make the women whose stories she stole look like crazy, deluded nutcases. Classic DARVO.

Why does she do it? I don't know, I can't see inside her head. A lot of what she does doesn't make logical sense, the same as many abusive people.

Jessica often says the reason abusive people behave the way they do, is simply because they can. Maybe that's all there is to it. She usually gets away with it, and she doesn't give a fuck, so she does it because she can.

I don't know, why do you think she does it?

Sally Ann isn't the only one, she's just the one who has refused to back down in the face of quite considerable intimidation from Jess, her wife and other flying monkeys - sending the police to her door when Jess knew all along Sally Ann's was telling the truth about her story being in the book was a particular low.

And the thing is, it could have been an honest mistake. Jess did have permission to put Sally Ann's story in a blog, perhaps she thought the book would be ok.

She may have not realised that when Rosie shared her professional opinions with her over dinner at a restaurant, she didn't want them published.

Simply publishing their stories wouldn't make her a bad person, necessarily. It would have made her a crap researcher as it would show she didn't understand consent, but her position could have been redeemable at that point.

It's how she's reacted since that gives us all insight into what a deeply flawed and unpleasant person she is, under the facade.

Anyone who was actually victim-focused and trauma informed would have held their hands up, apologised, and gone along with Sally Ann's request to delete the blog and remove her story from future editions.

But instead of doing that she lied about Sally Ann and Rosie. She smeared Sally Ann, made her out to be crazy and used the police to intimidate her. She encouraged her followers and employees to "defend" her against Sally Ann and sacked women in her organisation who suggested this wasn't an ethical way for the organisation to carry on.

It's been a huge own goal as it's wrecked her organisation - with about half the staff having left in the last 6 months - and her reputation is trashed.

Why did she do it? I think the answer lies in understanding how narcissists operate, especially when feeling under attack, rather than looking for any kind of logical explanation.

Jess still thinks she's the victim in all this. She is nowhere near apologising to Sally Ann for the despicable way she's treated her.

I've just caught up on the thread.

I've been direct quoted "anonymously" in a newspaper (totally different issue and not sensitive) with something I believed was off the record discussion with the journalist, having previously had an on the record discussion. That was 20 years ago and I still remember going stone cold when I saw my private words in a pull quote. It was nameless but I was one of the only people in the country it could have been. And I was identified.

I cannot believe what Sally Ann has gone through - the police being sent to her?! WTAF? It's SO easy to apologise, say it was a misunderstanding and say next editions won't have her in it. Simply no need to lie and definitely no need to cause a trauma survivor further suffering. I would be broken and unable to fight back if I'd been included in that way. So much trauma is caused by control being removed from you, that to give a trauma survivor the feeling that you've removed control from them - even if you don't intend to or don't think you are - is abhorrent.

It's all so, so unnecessary. It's hard to find any explanation for it and I want to, I don't want to think of JT as abusing abused women. She's achieved some great things and her direct, no waffle way of sharing her messages on SM is great. Women who have been psychologically abused often need clear, strong, unequivocal messaging. JT does that brilliantly. I know they're not all her original ideas, but she communicates them well, which itself is important. But I just cannot see why, when claiming to be trauma-informed and advocating (rightly) for so many others to be, what reason she could have for treating trauma survivors so poorly, when it's so easy to just apologise. The only conclusion is what posters are saying, which is she's not who she's presenting herself as - or possibly too, who she likes to believe she is.

There's another horrific post from Sally Ann with an update from the BPS.

This is not how consent works, how can they as a professional body not recognise that? Then they try to silence her.

I really feel many more of us need to start writing to the BPS and raising these concerns (unsure how many people have so far).

Oh, and JT has done a thread on MOCRA - apparently all funds were donated to Rape Crisis (I wonder if that included all the interest?)

Well I don't really understand that decision, tbh. People donated (and let's be honest, it was probably mostly survivors who donated what little they could spare) to MOCRA, for the specific service they claimed they were setting up. Not Rape Crisis, laudable a donation destination it is, of course.

Is there small print somewhere that says they could move the money for whatever reason they wanted to, whenever they wanted to? Or was it earmarked for this and should people have been refunded so they could donate directly to Rape Crisis themselves, if they wanted to?

It seems shakey ground, ethically speaking, to metaphorically rattle the donation tin for one thing, do nothing with the money received, then announce it on twitter a year or so later that you've actually moved the money elsewhere, insert heart emoji here.

I'd be curious to hear what the other trustees of MOCRA think.

I would not have donated if I had known it was going to Rape Crisis. They've excluded me from their services on several occasions (both in England, and in Scotland) due to one of my symptoms being Dissociation.

Let's hope none of those women who are pregnant via rape suffer from Dissociation, but statistically most of them will sadly.

Also, rape crisis isn't a female safe space anymore either I believe - it's open to men as well now, including many support groups.

I didn't know that, and I'm sorry to hear it.

Unfortunately I don't think you'll get any answers or explanations from JT other than what little she's tweeted.