Earlier this year, we were awarded the prestigious title of Kent Charity of the Year. Our CEO Deborah Cartwright-Crossley explains the vital work we do that lies behind this recognition and examines the commitment and complexities of our service as we continue to strive every day to end violence and abuse against women and children.
The British Crime Survey has been transformed into a ready reckoner tool so that we are able to analyse how many women and girls might be experiencing domestic and sexual violence in regions of the UK.
At the moment, Kent has a population of 1.5 million and the ready reckoner tells us that what that means is that it is likely that 101,985 women and girls aged 16 to 59 has been a victim of domestic abuse in the past year.
It also tells us that 51,777 women and girls aged 16 to 59 had been a victim of sexual assault in the past year and alongside this 126,461 women and girls aged 16 to 59 have
Of course, these are predicted figures, but they are based on the British Crime Survey and actual crime reporting so we can say that these are potentially the figures that we might be confronted with in the County.
Oasis has been awarded Kent Charity of the Year in 2019 because of the work that we do to keep women and children safe. We are so grateful for that recognition because the work we do is very difficult and the staff team's commitment and dedication to it is phenomenal and can be seen through the sheer volume of help that they give.
We are not a large organisation. We are not awash with funding for the work that we do. Our staff team are dedicated to providing as much support as they possibly can with the resources available.
Domestic abuse is an insidious issue and it cuts across many of the difficulties that families and people experience in their lives generally. It can lead to all sorts of negative consequences.
Trauma will affect children in a range of ways they may go on to be highly successful and driven individuals but they may also struggle with the toxic stress that they have grown up with, for example, they may carry such difficult feelings of fear and anxiety that they refuse to attend school – often because they want to take care that Mum is not hurt or worse in their absence.
Their experiences may lead to mental health problems, to substance misuse and to difficulties in their own interpersonal relationships.
We like to be clear that children do not witness domestic abuse they experience it and that is a really important difference. It is difficult for mothers to hear that their children have been harmed, because mothers are doing the best they can and we don't ever want a mother to feel that she has harmed her children, when what she's been doing is trying to keep them safe and to manage a family dynamic that she didn't sign up for.
Our group working programme, Phoenix, includes a session about children. This is a tough week for mothers. They have to confront the harm that their children have experienced. But if we can move from denial, a classic defence against anxiety, into a self-compassionate understanding the whole family has a better chance of recovery.
We must help mothers to acknowledge in order to help them to parent their children through the issue. One child, who completed a programme with us and his Mum said, ‘“This helped me develop a better relationship with my mum and made me feel happy most of the time. Hopefully for years to come.”
Last year we worked with 799 adults which involved us providing one to one support for every single one of them over a period between 3 months up to a year.
56 of them lived in our refuges and we attended 127 separate drop in services so that people could come along and confidentially seek advice. Those people are not counted in that number of 799 by the way.
We also delivered many groups to educate people about domestic abuse and to support their recovery from it. We worked with 827 children and young people and in 28 cases their parents.
Sometimes it is hard to understand how women become entrenched in an abusive relationship. People say, ‘Why does she put up with it? Me, I would just leave’ but that is a simplification too far. It is not easy to split up a straightforward marriage. Life is complicated, and human relationships are complex.
My response to this statement is, ‘Why does he insist on harming the people he is supposed to love? Why does it always become the mother’s fault, her responsibility?’. And we know through our work that, if you have children, you do not just get to walk away you must then participate in contact arrangements, arrangements that can and are very often used as a route for ongoing abuse.
Women’s Aid have their ongoing Child First campaign and their first report looked at Nineteen Child Homicides – all homicides that occurred as a result of contact arrangements not paying due heed to the issue of ongoing abuse and violence. It is a daily reality for us that ‘If you dare to leave me, I will take the ultimate action’.
Oasis offers refuge for families who have no choice but to flee their homes, we also offer community outreach to keep people safe at home. Our work extends from the moment of crisis to the time of recovery, often a time of great hope and joy, when a family is able to start to look forwards, to stop looking over their shoulder.
The landscape is hard for women needing to break free, to start again, to manage the stress of constant abuse and still parent or work or otherwise function.
The world of work is especially tough because of course stress takes it impact on your work performance. We try to work with businesses to support them with a policy that can help their staff – to transform DV related performance management to compassionate management – to allow a psychological contract in the workplace that enables people to seek help, because your professional competence may be the last place where you know who you are, and to lose that is to be lost.
Coming into refuge means leaving everything you own. Those on low incomes have limited options. We have resettled women in homes with nothing. No bed, no cooker, nothing but the clothes and toys they have accumulated in refuge. We now have a special donations fund that is spent on these women, helping them to purchase the basics, the welfare fund. There is no other help with this.
Those with children have to get them into school, buy uniforms, navigate a new community. All at a time when your self-esteem and confidence are floored. When your space for mental action has been so significantly reduced that making the most basic decisions can be a struggle. We teach women to think again. To decide, to take action. And that is also why she doesn’t just leave. He has intentionally put her in a position where thinking about dinner is a struggle, leaving? Starting again? Being independent? That is a mountain. It is an overwhelming decision to make.
I am so proud to work at such a remarkable and committed organisation. We have incredibly low staff turnover and absence, because we enact the values of the organisation each and every day – we are committed, compassionate and collaborative. I love working there because I know my teams do.
At a lunch last week someone asked me what I think of the people that exploit the system – who take state resources without the need. I said, ‘I think that there are people who exploit loopholes at all levels of this society, but what I worry about with the poor and vulnerable, is that focussing on the tip of the iceberg, means we fail to look beneath the surface at the iceberg itself – at all of those families who aren’t as lucky as me, who really do need our compassion. When we focus on the takers perhaps it is the perfect excuse not to acknowledge what society should be doing for those in need.
Striving towards safety for all women and children is the right thing for us to do.