Women's Aid (England) loses funding for National Helpline

[stumbledin]

Have just seen this on a facebook thread.

Women's Aid is the National Federation of women's refuges and has been providing this service seen they set it up in 1987!

Although they (were forced) to share it with Refuge in 2003, Refuge is just a member group.

I wonder what is behind this, particularly as it seems it isn't that long ago that Refuge was investigated by the Charity Commission.

www.womensaid.org.uk/update-regarding-the-national-domestic-violence-helpline/

(I very much doubt it has anything to do with trans issues, but much more to do with who has more political clout. Or that the Government like other funders think the corporate style is more worthy than those silly grass roots feminist organisations that hand on to autonomous working.)

The also lost the helpline they ran in The north of Ireland
It was a disgrace

Who got the funding?

I thought May said she wanted to help women escape domestic violence? Was this yet another lie?

Welcome to austerity Britain where the vulnerable get shafted.

Are there going to be any other services providing the same kind of support?

No, but maybe more police forces will give battered women rubbish knives to protect them.

This is outrageous. Do MN still get behind campaigns? Will there be nothing to replace it?!

Much better to pull a few thousand from this than make corporations close a few tax loopholes. God forbid we should do that. After all, how many of the cabinet benefit from woman’s aid? And how many from corporate tax loopholes?

By all means, let's have virtue-signalling, eye-catching logos in business windows, on apps, and all sorts of products - but let's not have any large business sponsorship of deeply unattractive areas like domestic violence.

After all, DV victims aren't brave and stunning - they're socially isolated, desperate and battered - who wants that association.

Now I've got that off my chest, I'd like to see the justification for this. Is this expected to be a self-supporting organisation? Is this related to the back and forth regarding whether housing benefit for women in refuges still covers specialist support services (I know Joe Halewood covered this but I lost track)?

Where was the funding coming from? Govt or business? The GOvernment keeps going on about all the support there Is for DV services. Surely the helpline is crucial as a first point of contact? We shouldn't have to crowd fund for this, but maybe we should, actually.

By all means, let's have virtue-signalling, eye-catching logos in business windows, on apps, and all sorts of products - but let's not have any large business sponsorship of deeply unattractive areas like domestic violence.

Yes. Let's have yoghurts and sandwiches and branded kink floats. Let's have half a million quid for anti-safeguarding orgs.

Who gives a shit about the women? Nobody.

The pulling of funding might not have a direct link to the rise of trans rights. But the rise of trans rights, which many believe is part of the general rise of MRA, which in turn is tied in with the rise of totalitarian thinking globally, is all linked in with a single concept. That of putting women firmly back in their box. Withdrawing this funding goes hand in hand with universal credit, prosecutions for "false" sexual assault claims, the erosion of sex as a protected characteristic, twisting the concept of all women's shortlists (designed to increase representation of natal women by natal women) to favour male bodied people, the normalisation of violent porn, a teflon coated, pussy grabbing president and a prime ministerial candidate who can't keep his dick in his pants being lorded as a national treasure......these are all pieces of the same fucked up jigsaw.

Women's Aid seems to be without a CEO at the moment, since Katie Ghose stepped down in February.

It's very frustraing as these are desperately needed services and the organisations need to be properly funded to do their work, work which I am sure saves money in the long term.

Wait, what?
So all those threads in 'Relationships' were women ask "is this abuse?" Or disclose abuse on a thread, they're often advised to "Call Women's Aid".

So there's no helpline now? The helpline is closing? Or is it going to be funded 100% by donations now? WTF is going on? My aunt called women's aid after years and years of being trapped by her awful husband (my uncle).

Remind me. Who is getting the tampon tax money?

The helpline will be run exclusively by Refuge going forward.

It used to be run in partnership.

The funding will go to Refuge to run the helpline. The helpline will still exist but without the involvement of WA.

Refuge have been letting in male bodies.

Horley was investigated for bullying behaviour amongst other

She is one of the highest paid in the industry, from what I've read in the charity news

This is a win for bullies

When I tried to phone a couple of years back, I couldn't get through for hours. I've seen others post similar stories. This funding is really, really needed

So desperately sorry that WA's vast expertise is now going to be sidelined. Both WA and Refuge should have been given additional funding to run the Helpline given the increasing demand. Women's services come way down on government priorities.

It feels like there’s a hell of a lot more to this story

What's the story with refuge I wonder? Bearing in mind the access to men in refuge

Will the helpline have to offer to men as well, and have male workers now? Is that maybe the deal?

From what I understand, it went out to tender and Refuge have won the funding. Why it wasn't a joint bid or why they won rather than WA is not clear.

FOI

Refuge is pleased to announce the Home Office has awarded Refuge a grant of £1.2 million to run the National Domestic Violence Helpline from November 2019 to March 2022. The existing helpline contract run in partnership with Women’s Aid has been extended to 31 October. Find further details and the Home Office press release here.

From the refuge.org site

Refuge will most probably be open to employing men.

You can imagine how I feel about this sort of thing, as someone who had a homebirth with a midwife as I don't think men should be in obstetrics and gynecology, let alone in services for traumatized women