Refuge to merge with relationship charity

[IwantToRetire]

Refuge, the UK’s largest specialist domestic abuse charity, and relationship education charity LMK (Let Me Know) are joining together as one organisation to drive long-term change in the prevention space.

Commencing on 19 October, the strategic merger of Refuge and LMK represents a significant opportunity to scale LMK’s outstanding relationship education programme to help young people build healthy relationships for life, while expanding Refuge’s comprehensive range of specialist support services.

The union is built on the shared commitment of both organisations to prevent relationship abuse and create a safer future for young people. It will accelerate the strategic ambitions of Refuge and LMK, maintaining both charities’ organisational identities and existing relationships with external stakeholders and partners.

A core feature of the integration is the expansion of LMK’s 10 Signs education workshops outside of London, allowing the trailblazing programme to reach more young people than ever before and provide them with a gateway into Refuge’s extensive support networks. This, in turn, will strengthen Refuge’s portfolio of services – including emergency accommodation, community-based services, and the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline – and bolster its ongoing commitment to transforming societal understanding of domestic abuse.

Refuge and LMK will continue to provide their full range of services, while supporting all colleagues to carry on their vital work towards creating a world where domestic abuse is not tolerated. No job losses are anticipated: under the proposed terms of the merger, all 14 LMK colleagues will transfer to Refuge, joining its c.460 strong workforce.

Full article https://refuge.org.uk/news/refuge-and-let-me-know-announce-merger-to-deliver-domestic-abuse-prevention/

I very much hope it brings real change and helps people.

Yet again, no transphobia no engagement. Feminists care about these issues (I'm eager to hear about it because I'm a childhood DV survivor) but it's not giving any opportunity to hate on trans people.

Never mind. While I'm off to do further reading (because I know someone who may need such help), I'm sure someone will create a thread on Hunter S's personal decision to have bottom surgery. Then the place can go wild making malicious comments about her genitals. Yay feminism!

Why are you talking about transphobia?

Or genitals?

What on earth is TPA banging on about?

I hadn't heard of Let Me Know, but if the focus is on prevention, that sounds positive.

Its just part of the continual mud slinging to create antogonism and make every thread meaningless.

I think the problem is, is that Refuge has never really been part of a feminist approach to VAW, and wasn't given membership of Women's Aid Federation because of its founders believe that women who experience DV somehow encouraged it.

I would be more interest to know the politics and theory of Let Me Know.

Seems very strange to make a big announcement that a large corporate body ie Refuge has taken over a tiny organisation.

Unless for them it represent yet another asset stream to apply for funding.

It doesn't appear to be a women's organisation ie with a focus on women and girls.

Which of course it that is what they were set up to do that's fine. But why would a women's support service go into partnership with them?

https://lmkletmeknow.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/LMK-Strategy-Summary-2024-2027.pdf

Quote:

While the joint announcement paints this as a harmonious meeting of minds, the industry data reveals it was an act of survival for the smaller outfit. 1, 2]

• The Scale Inbalance: Refuge is a £32 million corporate giant with roughly 460 employees. LMK (Let Me Know) was a tiny operation with an annual income of just £647,000 and a mere 14 staff members. 1, 2]
• The Growth Failure: A spokesperson later quietly admitted to sector journalists that LMK’s business model had failed. They had been entirely unable to grow their income or scale their program under their 2024–2027 strategy. In short, LMK was running out of steam financially, and their leadership engineered a soft landing by embedding themselves into Refuge’s payroll. LMK's Chief Executive, Deirdre Kehoe, immediately secured a high-ranking position as a Programme Director inside Refuge. 1, 2]

I don't know much about it, but maybe the education side of things doesn't need to have a specific focus on women and girls, lots of boys experience abuse and unhealthy domestic relationships so maybe just relationships as a whole

God the stat's in the linked document about tech abuse are really grim. I remember doing an assignment a few years back in a Cyber security subject for Uni (mature age student) and it was about - more or less - early Cyber crime. My conclusion was that because the tech world back then was so male dominated the internet itself was "designed" or at least things were designed in as it grew, to identify and catch white collar crimes like financial crimes and data theft etc, but that the social implications for women and children were ignored or minimised because women didn't have input into the underlying structures, models, protocols etc. Classic and devastating example of where womens input might have prevented some of the worst stuff we see today. I sometimes think that if I could be a dictator for a day I'd force full identification in every internet action anyone ever does.

Think there is some congruence in that it is focused on young people in domestic and relationship abuse - realistically it is not always just mothers in DV situations who are targeted but children too, and these in turn can find themselves in abusive friendships as a result of not having a healthy model at home. I know it was an issue for my DSis and I growing up and starting to date first BFs. Even decades later two of us are only now having therapy. I love the fact that this seems to be offering early intervention for younger and teen members of families with DV.

TPA is a one trick pony. Even on a thread with absolutely no references to trans people, TRAs or Gender Ideology, they just HAVE to find a way to shoehorn in a snipe about "transphobia" and how terrible we all are on this board

I saw a post on FB earlier about Hunter Schaeffer (sp?) having "bottom surgery" and I just scrolled past it because... who cares? I find it risible that these "news" accounts think anyone would or should be interested in such a thing. But I guess some people must be. Weirdos!

Reading some of their blub, LMK is as focused on those that are abusive as much as those who are abused.

It seems to be an education charity for young people, teaching them how to spot healthy and unhealthy relationships, identifying what's damaging and a red flag. Prevention rather than cure.

Prevention is good and equipping young people with the tools to recognise dangerous or off behaviours before getting to the pint they need refuge is good.

Agree, I can think of heaps of examples where recognition would be really valuable, as in, the ability to recognise an unhealthy relationship or even just an interaction in order to either self- reflect or challenge it while they are young and as they get older.

TPA is the parent of a "trans child" , as the username implies. They're on a crusade to prove the gender critical women of Mumsnet are just a bunch of harpies who "hate trans people" for reasons of old-fashioned ignorance and bigotry, and "aren't real feminists".

It's not hard to figure out why TPA needs so badly to believe this.

I can't even find the attempted gotchas annoying. It's just tragic.

I'd be interested to hear what Mumsnetters in the VAWG sector think of the merger.

I do agree that you can't target prevention measures solely at women. There needs to be a focus on stopping perpetrators before their behaviour can escalate too. I just wish this aspect of it wasn't treated as the responsibility of women's organisations. I don't like that funding which could be going towards helping women rebuild their lives after abuse may be redirected towards the men abusing them. Even if I understand the aim.

I think most women working in the VAWG sector on one level wont care what Refuge does. And it is obvious that this is just a clever way of a senior manager holding onto a well paid job, while the organisation they were part of running has gone belly up.

And of course, what must be so frustrating, is the over interest on MSM in Refuge at the expense of the many, many groups struggling to survive.

Let alone the notion that somehow the idea of talking to young people about abusive relationships is ground breaking.

As if no one else is doing anything.

So disrespectful to the sector as a whole, and such PR bullshit.

Fair point

Refuge aren't actually a women-only charity. The refuge accommodation is, but they already cover men with their community based services, and the policy work, e.g. on tech abuse, looks at prevention as well.

From a funding perspective, a lot of government funding is now in the prevention space, so it's probably a great idea for both of them to secure funding for more holistic programming. The whole sector is in financial crisis right now so think we'll see more mergers.

I work in criminal justice, but I operate a lot in partnerships at board level, a lot of commissions for DA victim services funding are now coming with an expectation for perpetrator work to address the problem, I would expect there is an element of buying the proprietary relationships work delivered by LMK to broaden refuge's portfolio.

Good points. I was being a bit cynical because of their corporate approach, but given that is what they have it makes sense!

Edited to add, I have never been sure that an organisation working with, support women who are survivors of male violence should be doing also working with perpetrators. The approach and client group are at odds (IMO)

I'm signed up to answer yougov surveys, and just a few days ago they had me do one about Refuge - what did I know about it, was I likely to donate to it, etc. Probably not a coincidence, but trying to provide input for image management alongside this?

Many moons ago I delivered perpetrator work, prior to that I worked with victims. The people running the programme and the victim workers were part of the same team and it was really important for risk information sharing, challenging the perp's version of events and even sharing intel to help keep the victim safe (we'd also work with police social care etc) no one was both a perp group facilitator and victim worker at the same time, I moved from one to the other but that was rare.

Interesting.

I suppose again I am thinking more in relation to Refuge having a public image as a support group, refuge, for women experiencing domestic violence.

And whilst some women seeking help might be in a position to think about how are violent men going to change, I suspect for others they would find even the idea of that being taken on by the group they are turning to to escape from male violence might find it alienating.

There was quite a lot of negative feedback when Rape Crisis England and Wales revamped their web site. And it seemed every page would have an image of a man on it.

Given that the vast majority of rape victims are women, it seemed quite counterproductive for those images to come up as your are trying to navigate your way through the website to find who and how you could contact.