Nedap legacy projects annual report oct 2015

The NEDAP Legacy Projects Annual Report 2015 Introduction In September 2014 the North East Domestic Abuse Project (NEDAP) closed. The project had run for three years as a development project building capacity within existing services and agencies across the North East to better respond to domestic vioelnce and abuse (DVA) in relationships where at least one partner is lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or trans (LGB and/or T).

Whilst NEDAP was unable to secure matched funding, the Northern Rock Foundation gave permission for the Steering Group (see Appendix A ) in partnership with Victim Support, the host of NEDAP, to set up and fund legacy projects. This report provides an account from each of the Legacy Projects on their achievments in the first year of legacy funding. These reports show that the Legacy Projects are working and providing some continuity in the work begun by NEDAP.

The Legacy Projects There are five legacy projects and 5 organisations involved with the delivery of each: Training: Derwentside Domestic Abuse Service (DDAS), MESMAC NE and SHINE, Hartgables and Next Steps NEDAP website: MESMAC NE NEDAP Regional Forum: DDAS The Selfies Project: Projects Galore Best Practice Guidance for working with trans women and men (See Appendix A for contact details of all NEDAP Legacy Projects)

Training DDAS: Mel Metcalf: DDAS delivered a full day training event for 32 participants at Finchale College. The event was promoted to Durham and Darlington services and was attended by a range of frontline agencies including NHS, various Safeguarding teams, Cestria, Durham County Council Commissioners, Durham and Darlington Police, Harbour and others. The Police and Crime Commissioner opened the event and Drs Frenk and Lawson from Durham University were guest speakers. The event

was covered by ITV news and televised the same night supporting DDAS and NEDAP to raise awareness of the issue of same sex DVA in Durham and Darlington and the North east in general. Further training events were scheduled in September but due to organisational change within DDAS, these were cancelled.

(See Appendix B for feedback on Training) Training, raising awareness and improving responses - added value DDAS has supported the Durham Pride celebration of diversity for two years and provided signposting through the event with other organisations for the LGBT community to access appropriate agencies with stalls providing advice and raising awareness of the support available. DDAS received a donation from Durham Pride in 2015 to continue work around raising awareness and improving responses specifically focussed on same sex domestic abuse continuing the work of the NEDAP aims. One of the trustees from DDAS received the cheque on stage demonstrating the commitment to this work. The ‘Love is Never Abusive’ campaign initiated by Durham Police Domestic Violence Unit and endorsed by NEDAP was the main focus on both of these events with posters displayed prominently around venues. LGBT hate crime was also highlighted with posters on hate crime reporting and information from the Crimestoppers ‘report it’ campaign prominently displayed.

Hart Gables: Sarah Lewis: 1 training session has been delivered to relevant organisations/professionals in Teesside. The next session is due to take place on 9th December 2015 in partnership with the Room4Change Project who have already completed the NEDAP Train the Trainer course. We aim to deliver two more sessions in 2016 to ensure completion of the project having delivered 4 awareness raising sessions between 2014 and 2016.

The first session delivered in February this year was at our Middlesbrough office.

Twelve delegates booked on to the session but only 7 delegates attended from agencies including: Safe in Tees Valley, Cleveland Police, Durham Police, Depaul UK, Durham University.

We have learned from this experience and for our next session we will ensure attendance by better contact with delegates on the run up to the sessions, ensuring confirmation.

When looking at the training I decided to adapt it by including the Love Should Never Be Abusive films to appeal to different learning styles, e.g. observing domestic abuse scenarios in LGBT relationships. I also included the discussion topics that came with the resources in the training which allowed the delegates to talk about their observations of the scenarios. I used this time as an informal assessment to see whether or not delegates had learned about different types of domestic abuse in LGBT relationships. From the discussion content of the delegates it was absolutely certain that they had learned something from the awareness training and we will definitely be including the films in the next training sessions which we deliver.

Feedback illustrated that delegates found the films the most useful content throughout the training.

The next session will be delivered in December. We have hired a room in Hartlepool to ensure that we reach a different area of Teesside. Several people have already shown interest in the training and we have no doubt that this session will be as successful as the last with an increase in delegates. We hope to reach 10 – 12 delegates representing various agencies.

We estimate that by the end of the project we should have reached 37 – 43 delegates.

Usefulness of NEDAP Film: As my overall report suggested I am very enthusiastic about the inclusion of the NEDAP films in the training.

From my experience, I have been a participant of the NEDAP train the trainer training and I have also delivered the training. My opinion is that, with the NEDAP films included the training is much more thought provoking and helps participants understand LGBT Domestic Abuse and Violence a lot more clearly than without. It also inspires conversation between delegates. I feel that the second half of the training could be used to watch the NEDAP films and concentrate on the discussion points. I think this is a great way to informally assess delegates on what they have learned about LGBT Domestic Abuse and Violence in an interactive way.

When asking participants what they found most useful in the training here is their feedback; “Films showing real cases, it’s difficult to understand that when reading it from paper” “The films, brilliant way of visually learning” “The films were informative and impacting” “I learned the most from the films, I was able to see what LGBT DV actually looks like

MESMAC North East: Janet Owen Works to contribute to the NEDAP legacy alongside the specific funded training: 1. As well as our own funding to deliver training within the NEDAP legacy remits for South of Tyne (South Tyneside/Sunderland/Gateshead) and North of Tyne (North Tyneside – excluding Newcastle which benefits from training delivered as part of Safe Communities and Northumberland which benefits from NEDAP legacy training delivered by Next Steps Consultancy) 2. Due to lack of available co trainers for Northumberland we agreed to co facilitate training organised by Next Steps in order to share the experience and learning of another trained trainer 3. To add value to the NEDAP legacy funding for training we accepted a small commission from Gateshead Domestic Abuse Coordinator, Mandy Huston to deliver 2 training sessions specifically for Gateshead based workers at the end of 2014 - 15. This allowed us to pilot and hone the NEDAP training

delivery which we eventually ran as our combined Gateshead/South of Tyne training in South Shields on 16th March 2015 Our own MESMAC/SHINE training deliveries for NEDAP In order to deliver our own legacy training sessions we utilised a co-worker, Samantha Pattinson, from SHINE (Sexual Health In Newcastle) who’s background is in DVA work – Samantha was the DVA specialist at training and Janet Owen was MESMAC’s LGBT specialist, both contributing their own knowledge and experience.

Training delivered on 16th March 2015 at South Shields Town Hall 18 attendees Learning points from training courses incorporating items from Evaluation Forms We found that people are very intimidated by the subject matter and feel it is too specialist for them to be involved in so for example the early Gateshead MBC funded delivery attracted very few participants – we ran it anyway in order to see what the reception for the material was.

We found we had to specify who the training would be of interest to as previously we have found that lots of workers who do not have a specific LGBT remit within their role would assume the training had no relevance to them at all – so we incorporated the following phrase in the publicity: “This training is of interest to: Any worker in any sector who currently or in the future may support LGBT service users who have experienced abusive relationships” Because of issues with organisations attempting to book all spaces on courses in the past, which really skews the dynamic within a training group – we limited training to 2 places per organisation. There were still issues with Police personnel saying they were from different localities within the area so should be allowed to attend even though there were more than 2 of them. The same issue was true of the Probation Service which has now split into 2 separate organisations with several field offices in each geographic area – and they wanted more than 2 places…understandable with very large organisations though having lots of criminal justice specialists on a multi agency training course does dominate the group discussion somewhat.

We found that we had to really make a point of advertising the training as “ Includes a recap of very basic LGBT issues as a starting point the majority of the content focuses of DVA in LGBT relationships” and “We recommend that participants also seek out LGBT Issues Awareness training and DVA general training if these are gap areas in working knowledge”.

We learned from the early deliveries that people would often try to hijack the training schedule in order to ask questions about generic LGBT issues (and not in relation to DVA) and in both sessions we lost a significant amount of time by dealing with “standard questions” – we learned to make overt statements about “we’ll move you on if we get side tracked from the main issues” – which proved essential in the first NEDAP delivery for South of Tyne.

Police officer comments when we were summarising course content – “I’m an LGBT liaison officer and I’ve dealt with loads of DVA and same sex couples – its always after a night out and alcohol is always the reason” – we had made the point that alcohol is never a reason but often given as an excuse – the comment seemed to be a deliberate attempt to downplay our training materials – we reinforced the nationwide issue with less than 1% of all MARAC reports nationally being from LGB relationships with none at all being from Trans people in order to reinforce the learning we wanted trainees to take away with them.

Probation officer comment – We do see lots of cases of same sex DV coming through our service Additional comments – Being LGBT in society today is only an issue because training like this keeps it an issue - it’s a myth that there’s a problem Within the training someone made a point of saying that in all DV relationships the fault lies with the victim for staying.

We had alluded to statistics and signposted to where they could be found for people who wanted to look them up in one session – feedback from someone at the end of this session was that “using statistics and research to make your point instead of just coming out with random statements would have been better”.

Evaluation forms reported a number of times that our training was “not inclusive of DVA perpetrated against female victims by male perpetrators” – though it was clear from the outset that our training only covers DVA in LGBT relationships – so we then had to overtly state why this was at the start of each day. We found that some people had been sent on our training by managers or colleagues without being told what the aim of the training was.

Generally people liked the scenarios work – and liked to hear personal experiences as they felt it made the issues real for them – overall use of the Love Should Never Be Abusive films was very successful – and provided a hub around which other aspects of training material could work.

Usefulness of the Love should Never Be Abusive film The films have become a hub around which the rest of the training material can be used Very favourably received by training participants – people felt they were down to earth and realistic Sound quality sometimes as issue – struggle to get the sound loud enough no matter what sound system you’re using Essential to have copy of the NEDAP films available on disc as most venues don’t have wifi access to get you into the film link In some training we used a couple of film clips in others – The Safe Newcastle – we have rejigged the training schedule to incorporate all 4 films. We have most commonly used the “He’s been good to you” scenario to highlight learning around the MARAC system and to complete a MARAC RIC form – what we found was that the scenario always check listed as slightly short of a MARAC RIC on the available information in the actual film – so in order to maximise usefulness for our needs we worked with Joanne Douglas at Safe Newcastle in order to add a written back story of “What happened in Blackpool” to add extra information to the MARAC RIC which prompted a referral to MARQAC based on workers being able to override the scoring system if they felt that the risk was significant enough even though it had not scored highly – this had allowed for much discussion about the MARAC system being flexible enough to take into account that the questions on the RIC sometimes do not give an equal opportunity for each respondent.

Organisations who have participated in our NEDAP deliveries: Northumbria Probation Service and Northumbria Community Rehabilitation Service – (Several workers) Northumbria Police – (several officers) Oasis/Aquila Housing Places For People (Women’s Aid South Tyneside) Gateshead Council Safeguarding Adults David Gray Solicitors Women’s Health In South Tyneside Mental Health Matters (See Appendix C for feedback on the Training)

Next Steps: Rae Farmer: Next Steps initially decided to work in partnership with MESMAC NE to review the existing training package and learn from lessons when the training had been previously delivered.

The review and alterations took some time as it was clear from learner and trainer feedback that the content needed to be changed to ensure maximum efficiency and learner experience.

Both workers also liaised with other organisations who were given the Legacy training work to work towards standardisation and continuity.

The geographical location of the training venues were very important with us wanting to ensure that delivery was disseminated throughout Northumberland. We were keen to ensure venues were accessible for workers as many workers in Northumberland have to travel some distance to access training/support.

Training session organised on 5th March and 16th April 2015 had to be cancelled due to poor numbers.

The third session organised on July 20th 2015 had sufficient numbers to run. The day was a great success, with verbal feedback being fantastic both on content and delivery. Unfortunately, evaluation completion was not as positive.

Next Steps - learning for life continues to work in partnership with MESMAC to deliver training throughout Northumberland with the next date agreed for early 2016.

Lessons learnt so far: FREE training is certainly not a given for learner attendance Venue location is crucial for attendance New training content has proven to be effective and powerful with feedback evidencing initial aims.

NEDAP Website: MESMAC: Jeannie Fraser The website which developed over the lifetime of NEDAP has proved to be a valuable resource for practitioners. A great place to put research findings/ best practice information/ campaign and event information and news updates - raising awareness and improving responses to same sex domestic abuse in the region.

The NEDAP website was housed within Victim Support’s main website. Prior to the end of the project VS undertook a revamp of their website and a percentage of the NEDAP material was lost from the site.

Development of new site MESMAC met with staff from Newcastle City Council IT department regarding hosting this resource however it was felt that the restrictions placed on the Local Authority and its Firewall requirements would make hosting and developing the site unmanageable. The decision was to establish an independent site outside the council managed by MESMAC staff. We also considered the possibility of the site being housed as it was with Victim Support ie part of the MESMAC site but with a stand-alone domain name for easy access, but concluded it would be better on its own. An added complication arose as Victim Support had not closed down the old outdated NEDAP site but following the forum meeting Johanna Parks has been in contact to advise this has now been done.

As an interim measure Steve Greenwood (MESMAC) uploaded the information from NEDAP Victim Support site onto the MESMAC site (and continued adding to and updating this) so the information has been captured.

Given the loss of information mentioned above we have now received further archive documents form Mary Hull, Johanna Parks (VS), Catherine Donovan and Janet Owen, which we are in the process of checking and sorting prior to adding them to the new site.

The bulk of the current NEDAP resources are focused on adult practitioners and have value for adult survivors, the style of the new site has been designed with adults in mind. This does not prevent anyone of any age accessing it but it is not designed for young people, particularly anyone under 16.

We are currently working with Steve Pardue from Differentia to recreate the site with a slightly revised domain name NEDAAP and basic information is available on the site at: www.nedaap.com The site will continue to have a northeast regional focus and any reports or other documents you have that you would like added to the site – please send to jeannie.fraser@newcastle.gov.uk If you have any information on events or activities please send to stephen.greenwood@newcastle.gov.uk Alongside the website we are also looking at creating a phone app that provides the opportunity for people to think about their relationships in the context of healthy/ unhealthy behaviour. A positive addition, although there is still lots of work still to do.

NEDAP Regional Forum Facilitation: DDAS has maintained an up to date email distribution list of forum members to ensure full participation at Forum meetings. Membership of the forum has risen over the last year to just over 80 organisations and agencies.

DDAS has circulated minutes from meetings to ensure good practice is recognised and shared in raising awareness and improving responses for DVA to the LGBT community in the region. facilitated forum meetings in December 14 at Sunderland, March 15 at Durham, July 15 at Newcastle and September 15 at Durham. facilitated a review of the terms of reference for the forum and has begun work on a good practice briefing for agencies around responding appropriately to LGBT DVA.

The Selfies Project : Projects Galore: Richard Bliss Supporting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender young people to celebrate friendship; understand what is OK and what is not OK in relationships; and recognise and act on domestic/intimate partner violence and abuse.

Projects Galore is a community arts company. Our projects are led by professional artists, but our work is always guided by participants. Our work is responsive, and we like to work with groups who are often excluded from mainstream arts activity. We want to create long-term changes to the lives of participants in our projects. We hope that our work inspires and delights participants, audiences, artists, and funders, as well as contributing to changes in policy whenever this is appropriate. We are one of the few arts organisations in the region with a strong aspiration to support lesbians, gay men and transgender people.

Through the Selfies Project we have worked with: The young people who meet at GADD in Darlington T and Coffee in Newcastle West End Women and Girls young Lesbian Group Under one Roof, the LGBT youth group run by Trinity Youth in Bedlington Run a residential weekend with 7 young people as part of work to train them as peer educators in DVA Working with the young people in these groups we have completed education sessions looking at, and discussing domestic violence and abuse in LGBT relationships and talking about the value of friendship.

The groups have worked with: Richard Bliss, who has been Project Manager and has run awareness raising sessions Musician and sound artist Nicky Rushton to create a song about friendship with the young people.

Applied Comics Etc. to create a comic based anthology on the themes of DVA and friendship Shaun Taylor (Sunderland University Intern) to create a short film at Northern Pride to launch a Youtube channel.

Michael Lockheart to create a mock radio phone in – Doctor Becka’s Love Clinic, where the callers rang in to comment and help a young man in an abusive relationship Phyllis Christopher to create a series of cinemagraphs (moving photographs) on the theme of friendship.

Tom Roy to run activities at Northern Pride. Tom will be running the Peer Education elements of the project until February 2016.

61 young people have taken part in workshops, and we have concentrated on maintaining quality relationships with the young people, working with them on a weekly basis for a minimum of 8 weeks. Some young people have participated in more than one aspect of the project, for example 7 of the young people from Under One Roof took part in both the drama project and in the weekend residential. Dr Eleanor Formby of Sheffield Hallam University has been appointed to evaluate the project and she and Professor Catherine Donovan of Sunderland University (Chair of Projects Galore) have created a questionnaire that is completed when the young people start the project and it will be completed at the end stages. The form has recently been reviewed following feedback from the young people involved in the project. This kind of pilot work is extremely useful in creating better future projects.

To date we have; Run 51 sessions with four different LGBT youth groups, these have ranged from 2 hour workshops through to full day activities Developed a broad curriculum for workshops, including the use of the NEDAP funded films “Love should never be abusive” Set up the LGBTSELFIES.ORG website with basic information for young people about where they can get help if they are experiencing DVA Taken part in activities at Northern Pride in the Youth Zone Supported our Peer Educators to collect 90 questionnaires at Northern Pride about young people’s experience of DVA 28 young people have completed the block pyramid game. The blocks give us a good idea of what young people look for in a relationship and how they prioritise different aspects of a relationship.

Created a documentary film about friendship and relationships available on Youtube at https://youtu.be/Sn6hgnm8qe8 Completed 1 focus group led by Dr Eleanor Formby of Sheffield Hallam University.

We have secured additional funding for the project from Big Lottery to develop the peer education and mentoring aspects of the project, from the Northumberland Police and Crime Commissioner and most recently a small grant from Comic Relief to support our work at Newcastle Pride.

Northern Pride was a great success for us. We had a stall in the youth zone which was staffed by Richard Bliss and Tom Roy. Both Richard and Tom have attended the LGBT DVA training funded by NEDAP. (See Appendix D for feedback on the Selfies Project)

Between October 2015 and February 2016 Projects Galore will: Set up two full days of training on DVA for the Peer Educators Develop a new Young LGBT Creatives Group where young people who are already making work (music, drama, photography etc.) will be given the opportunity to create a piece of work on the theme of friendship and helping friends in trouble.

A photography project on the theme of friendship with Phyllis Christopher working with Under one Roof in Bedlington Another round of activities with West End Women and Girls Young Lesbian Group. The group is meeting for the first time this week after a summer break so have not yet decided which artist they would like to work with, although I have suggested a music project

Best Practice Guidance for working with trans women and men: Next Steps: Rae Farmer Initial Steps of project What was required to deliver the outcome of the project, this included: Looking at ways of gathering feedback and information Researching previous work in this area by other organisations Developing a strategy Our first dilemma: After some planning we identified some serious safeguarding and therefore serious ethical issues in progressing the project, i.e. what would we do if individuals made a disclosure of abuse and/or were vulnerable and required support or assistance, as part of the research?

At this stage it was decided to build a partnership with Gay Advice Darlington, to act as a support organisation for any of the project respondents who might require additional support or advice about domestic abuse and violence.

Our next step: Looking at a suitable way of gathering information and feedback. We decided that the best way to gather feedback and information was through the use of an online survey. The survey would allow us to gather a range of measurable information such as; The age of respondents Whether respondents work was the delivery of domestic violence/abuse (DV/A) or LGBT support services

Gender of respondents, including those who identified as M to F or F to M (transgender) The geographical area where respondents live Whether respondents have experienced DV/A Whether respondents who have experienced DV/A have sought any support What kind of support was sought by victims of DV/A The experiences of respondents and their interaction with DV/A support services and other services were also measured. We included a wide range of ‘support’: Friends and family, DV/A Support Services, LGBT Support Groups, Police, Healthcare Professionals.

We also asked respondents to rank the following based on importance for DV/A support services in encouraging transgender victims of abuse to seek support and assistance; Known links to trans issues Links to LGBT Support Services Having embedded clear equality and diversity policies and following them!

Recommendation from other trans individuals having used a service Finally, we asked for some open feedback and comments from respondents; What do you think DV/A support services could do to improve inclusion and diversity to provide support for transgender victims of abuse?

Would you like to make any other comments about the delivery of specialist DV/A support services?

Our online survey was designed not only to gather quantitative data, but also qualitative information. We knew, due to the specific issue we were researching that we may not have a large number of respondents. We also gave our respondents the option of taking part in a Focus Group which would be facilitated later in the year.

Our survey is still currently open, however has already yielded some important points and data: Respondents ages range from 18 to 74 42% of respondents work in the support services, either directly with DV/A victim/survivors, LGBT or other services such as healthcare and police Our largest group of respondents were females, followed by M-F transgender, with a small number of males and F-M transgender respondents The majority of respondents live within the North East

Over 80% of respondents had suffered DV/A at least once in a previous relationship However, nearly a third of respondents when asked if they sought any kind of support said “wanted to but didn’t know who or where to go to” None of our respondents sought support from either DV/A support services or LGBT support groups, over a third of respondents sought help from family and friends The three most important issues in encouraging transgender victims to access DV/A support services were; •

DV/A services having embedded clear equality and diversity policies and procedures

•

Known links to trans issues

•

(jointly) ‘Links to LGBT Support Services’ and ‘Knowing other trans individuals who have accessed services

Our survey continues to remain open, so please do share it. Our survey has already been circulated to a wide range of individuals who expressed an interest and organisations including; universities, LGBT support groups, trade unions and their own LGBT activists, TUC Equalities Network and known IDVA’s within the country.

We will also be reviewing previous work carried out in this area, for example Barriers faced by LGBT people in accessing domestic abuse, stalking and harassment, and sexual violence services (2014 Welsh Government) and Transgender People’s Experiences of Domestic Abuse (2010 Scottish Transgender Alliance).

Where do we go now?

•

September 2015 – Report progress to NEDAP

•

October/November 2015 – Survey closes open group discussions with any participants

•

December/January 2015/16 – Review of other research

•

February 2016 – Initial draft of Best Practice Guide for consultation with stakeholders

•

March/April 2016 – Best Practice Guide published

Appendix A: Contact Details for NEDAP Steering Group and Legacy Projects Steering Group Jon Cunningham: Stockton Probation Office: Jon.Cunningham@dtv.probation.gsi.gov.uk, Tel : 01642 606 111

Catherine Donovan: University of Sunderland: Catherine.donovan@sunderland.ac.uk, Tel: 0191 515 3218

Jeannie Fraser and Janet Owen at MESMAC NE: http://www.mesmacnortheast.com/ Tel: 0191 233 1333 (or 0191 277 2055). Contact Janet Owen on janet.owen@newcastle.gov.uk. Contact Jeannie Fraser on Jeannie.fraser@newcastle.gov.uk.

Emma Roebuck at Gay Advice Darlington/Durham: http://gayadvicedarlington.co.uk/, Tel: 01325 355 551, cjw@gayadvicedarlington.co.uk

NEDAP Legacy Projects: Contact Details DDAS: Tel: 019137823000, derwentsidedvs@yahoo.co.uk. Currently Mel Metcalfe no longer works at DDAS but he can be contacted at Durham Pride: melmetcalf@durhamprideuk.org.

HARTGABLES: http://www.hartgables.org.uk/. Tel 01429 236790. For Training contact Sarah Lewis at Sarah Lewis sarah.lewis@hartgables.org.uk.

MESMAC North EAST: http://www.mesmacnortheast.com/ Tel: 0191 233 1333 (or 0191 277 2055. For training contact Janet Owen on janet.owen@newcastle.gov.uk. For NEDAAP website contact Jeannie Fraser on Jeannie.fraser@newcastle.gov.uk.

Next Steps – learning for life: Director/Owner: Ms Rae Farmer Mobile: 07535 505 105 www.nextsteps-learningforlife.com Facebook: @nextsteps, Twitter Account:@nextsteps76

Projects Galore: http://www.projectsgalore.co.uk/projects/the-selfies-project.

Contact Richard Bliss on info@projectsgalore.co.uk, Tel: 0191 274 7569

Appendix B: Feedback on NEDAP Training Sessions across the Region DDAS: Feedback from training has been excellent, for example: DI from Durham Constabulary - ‘Cannot recommend this training enough – spoken to my Chief Inspector to get it rolled out to more police officers’ Cestria – ‘the best LGBT training I have had and works because it’s delivered by someone who is gay, works in a domestic abuse service and is a qualified IDVA’ Harbour – ‘One of the best training days I been too [sic]’ NHS – ‘this should be part of our training’

Hartgables: Delegate feedback was extremely positive. Delegates scored the relevance of content high, the clarity of presentation high and the relevance of their learning high. The trainers also scored high on knowledge, organisation and presentation skills. Overall the feedback rating for the training was high.

MESMAC NE Training evaluation form information for 16th March 2015 (of those attendees who completed evaluation) Please rate each session: DV in LGBT Relationships::myths, unique forms of abuse, power and control wheel 2 excellent, 9 good What Do We Know? Research and survivors stories 2 excellent, 8 good, 1 average Legal Rights and Options: the law, MARAC and other options/services 1 excellent, 7 good, 2 average Supporting Victims: case studies using Love Should Never Be Abusive film clips (Bi scenario, gay male scenario) 1 excellent, 9 good Would you recommend this course to a colleague?

7 attendees said yes, none said no What have you found most useful about the course. Why? Myths, unique forms of abuse Varying discussion with other professionals in groups Myths around LGBT relationships and how these can be abusive Awareness of other ‘Sexual groups’ and their unique needs/risks

Raise awareness of what is PC and not That it occurred Understanding of LGBT barriers, reinforce knowledge Reinforcing our role and best practice with clients who are victims of DVA within the LGBT community The nature of ‘control’ – they will find the things that hurt What have you found least useful about this course? Why? Most people declined to respond to this question but of those who did respond: Research Venue Not new knowledge How do you think we could improve the course?

Use a different venue Be a bit clearer about MARAC – what it is, who can refer, more clarity from legal aspect – what options are available in criminal law/family law Room layout not brilliant for bad backs Add survivor stories/case studies More concise Too much time spent on morning part around language of LGBT and general knowledge of this How will you change your working practice as a result of this training?

We are limited in our service (women only service) but rest assured we will do our best Increased awareness of issues I will suggest we make it more obvious that we are open to LGBT clients and are prepared to deal with sensitive issues Be more aware of the groups highlighted Be more sensitive to LGBT issues Awareness improved – confidence to ask more questions when dealing with lgbt COMMUNITIES Little more knowledge No Discuss at team meeting and look at our environment – what are we ssaying?

Do you have any other comments you would like to make?

Thank you for your open-ness Thank you Very difficult to hear – outside sound

Appendix C: initial headings on Victim Support Website Background info – Victim Support site Main headings initially:04.03.2011 Home Page – Welcome message. Brief about the project Domestic Abuse info - What is Domestic Abuse? Definitions. Myths and realities of LGBT Domestic Abuse Providing Support – Policies. Encouraging and handling disclosure. Is you service LGBT friendly? Victim or perpetrator – an introduction to screening tool. Dos and Don’ts. Why don’t they leave? Risk assessment and MARAC. Role of the IDVA. Signposts and resources – Service information. Research and stats. Useful links. Training resources.

Children and Young People – Specific issues. Resources. Useful links.

Appendix D: Feedback on the Selfies Project Feedback for the project from the young people has been excellent. Detailed analysis of the data is still being undertaken but comments include: “Taking part in the workshop has made me feel more enlightened on the forms of domestic violence and how it works.” (Questioning pansexual woman age 14) “I’d be more prepared to deal with relationship problems, and to advise on them” (Gay man aged 16) “I feel I should be more considerate about my relationship with my partner” (Gay man aged 16) “As a result of taking part today I can try and be more confident in small groups” (Lesbian aged 14) “Relationship is really up to you, you can have your own ideas and your own friends” (Lesbian 16)