Support available for gay victims of domestic abuse
Three domestic violence charities have joined forces to help raise awareness of the support available to victims, including LGBT people.
The project is led by Broken Rainbow, a charity that supports LGBT victims of domestic violence.
They are working with Refuge and the Norwich-based Leeway Women’s Aid to raise awareness of the issues of domestic violence to corporate, private, statutory and third sectors in a bid to improve support for victims.
Rita Hirani, a consultant at Broken Rainbow, said:
“The project will employ a training and marketing consultant to work with the three partners to deliver a training pack on each charity’s work.
“Each charity will also be given the skills to deliver this training to other professionals working with victims to help improve the support they offer as well as training between the three charities themselves.
“This will enable all groups trained to signpost beneficiaries more effectively and have a better understanding of what support services each charity has to offer.
“In particular, it will promote the very specific needs of LGBT victims who can be doubly isolated by domestic violence if they have not ‘come out’ to families and friends, thus making it even harder for them to seek support.”
The charities, which all receive funding from the Nationwide Foundation, will receive an extra £50,000 to support the new project.
The project is supported by a Nationwide Foundation grant programme called the Investor Programme which offers funding to charities that focus on domestic violence, prisoners’ families or the rehabilitation of young offenders.
Lisa Parker, CEO of the Nationwide Foundation, said: “This is an excellent and innovative project and a true example of how rewarding and benefiting partnership working can be. When barriers are broken and the beneficiaries are put first positive change and support can be given to those who need it most.
“The project is one of a number that has followed two years of sharing ideas with domestic violence charities on how they could work together.
“Effective partnership working is not easy and needs sustained funding to encourage relationship building as well as to support the resultant projects.
“The Nationwide Foundation was prepared to invest in this work because of the untapped benefits that partnerships can achieve, such as this.”
The Nationwide Foundation is a registered charity that makes donations to other charities and is mainly funded by Nationwide Building Society.
