THE HAVEN WOLVERHAMPTON
Volunteer Service Newsletter NOVEMBER 2017 MARCH 2018
- 3rd Edition -
Dear readers, We’re excited to announce we have been successful in our application to Erasmus+ to host a new cohort of European volunteers for 2018-19. We will be welcoming the 12 volunteers, referred to us by partner organisations from across Europe, in March. They will support The Haven’s work with women and children affected by domestic abuse, from delivering activities in refuge, to supporting our immigration and benefits project, to helping raise vital funds for Haven services. This sadly means we are saying goodbye to our current cohort at the end of February. Some are going home, others to roles in the UK, and some to new adventures entirely. We wish this wonderful group of committed, friendly, motivated volunteers all the best as they go on their way. Take a look at their latest events and activities, enjoy! The Newsletter Team
In this issue... Events Check the latest events run by our volunteers Keep reading in pages 2 and 3 Achievements Helpline Awards 2017 Keep reading in page 3 Corporates Keep reading in page 4 and 5 Training All the training provided at the moment in The Haven Keep reading in page 5 Christmas at The Haven Read all the activities and events done during Christmas! Keep reading in page 6 and 7 Case Study
Keep reading in page 8
Editorial: Seda Nur Türker Flavia D’Alessandro Valentina Lia Noemi Amideo Marina Rey Elena Pawlak Sonya Strauss Victor Garcia Javier Rodriguez Sheila Rodriguez Graphic Designer and Illustrator: Sheila Rodriguez Management: Marta Rios The opinions expressed in this magazine are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of The Haven Wolverhampton
Events Firewalk
10th November 2017
On Friday 10th of November a team of brave ‘souls’ trekked down to The Round Oak Inn to take part in our Fire Walk to raise incredible amounts to support the women and children at The Haven! It was an absolutely amazing event, thank you UK Fire Walk for running the event so effortlessly, Roberts Photography for kindly photographing another event for us, Jason Forrest our PA and the amazing Fizzogs for taking part and making everyone laugh with their hilarious performance. Thanks to all of those that participated, the great crowd that came to support and our wonderful volunteers for making sure everything ran so smoothly! We raised a fantastic £3,205.26 to help support the women and children at The Haven, thank you ever so much to everyone involved!
Children in need
17th November 2017
On November, we hosted a Pudsey themed arts & crafts session for the children in refuge! We are so impressed with the final designs that we had to share them with you! We also hosted a bake sale to raise funds for The Haven. We are lucky enough to have received funding from Children In Need to deliver children’s services and activities in our refuges. Our Pudsey craft session was run by our children’s therapeutic workers who are trained in range of therapies such as play and creative therapy. This aims to support children and young people in a non-intrusive way to resolve internal conflict, through a range of child friendly and play-based activities in a safe space.
Activities at Nationwide Wolverhampton
24th November 2017
Nationwide Wolverhampton opened up their new branch on Saturday 25th November and The Haven Wolverhampton were invited to help to celebrate and raise funds and awareness for the women and children we support. The team of volunteers from The Haven spent the day face painting members of the public, transforming them from absolutely everything from animals to superheroes!! The Haven were so excited to be part of this family fun day along with a number of other local businesses and charities. Thank you ever so much to Nationwide Wolverhampton for inviting us along and the talented volunteers for transforming members of the public into their favourite animals and super heroes!!
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Events 16 days of Activism - Rock a Nail Transfer From 25th November to 10th December The Haven was involved in The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign. We had many help to raise awareness by Rocking A Nail Transfer! Our supporters wore a nail transfer to represent the 1 in 4 women affected by domestic abuse. We would also like to thank you Angela Morgan and the team at Wolverhampton University for raising awareness of 16 Days of Activism and the vital services that we provide here at The Haven Wolverhampton.
Achievements Helpline Awards 2017 - Helplines Partnership Kully started as a volunteer at The Haven Wolverhampton in 2009 she secured a permanent position with Helpline team now she has been awarded the National Helpline Employee of the Year award, what this demonstrates is hard work, dedication & commitment where volunteering can lead up to. Kully is the senior Helpline Information Officer for the Haven, The National Helpline Awards event was held in London in November. The Haven Wolverhampton are passionate and dedicated to abolish violence against women and girls not only in Wolverhampton but nationally, the helpline receives referrals from across all of the UK, Scotland, Wales & Ireland. The Helpline will continue to support women, families who have been subjected to domestic abuse & homelessness. Seda Nur Tuker - European Volunteer at The Haven, put pen to paper to describe why the Helpline was worthy of an award. “I have been working with Kully for about 3 months now and she fascinated me from day one. She is super-fast, extremely focused, very organized and unimaginably empathetic and friendly. The way she is handling the 24hr helpline of The Haven and all the other work she has to do like gathering data, doing referrals, organising staff, etc. is fantastic. Honestly, I cannot understand how she finishes a huge amount of work just within 9 hours. On the phone, when talking to women who need help, agencies or people, in general, asking for advice, Kully is extremely helpful, kind, understanding and friendly. She has the answer to every enquiry and never forgets about anybody who called and needed help or advice. Especially the way in which she speaks to women who suffered from violence amazes me. She talks in a way where you feel comfortable from the minute you hear her voice and she is really empathetic. She understands the situation of the one in need and does everything to help as much as she can and to the best that she can. What makes Kully special is that she is motivated throughout the day and throughout the huge amount of work during the day. She stays focused and does everything most painstakingly. The help The Haven Wolverhampton offers would not have the same quality without Kully on the helpline. If there is someone who deserves an award for her outstanding work, it is definitely and undeniably Kully.�
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Corporates We would like to thank Jaguar Land Rover volunteers for helping us out at our bag pack at Morrisons Willenhall and also for supporting us tyding up, organising and sorting out donations in our Christmas Grotto at The Haven Wolverhampton
Also, thank you so much Berriman Eaton for tidying up the gardens at one of our refuge’s. You worked tirelessly to make the garden look beautiful and we couldn’t be more grateful for your help!!
And last but not least, a massive thank you to Wolverhampton College students that spent three days doing maintenance work at a refuge in the city run by The Haven. The team repainted walls, put up shelves and carried out other ‘odd-jobs’ at the premises as part of the citywide Orange Wolverhampton campaign, linked to the United Nations’ international 16 days of action to end violence against women and girls. “It has been a wonderful initiative to help young people gain an insight into the reality of domestic violence and make a positive impact in their community by putting their skills into practice. The students have been absolutely fantastic and we are extremely grateful to everyone involved – it is thanks to the support of organisations like these that we can continue running vital services for women and children and make the stay in our hostels much easier.”
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Corporates SODA On Monday 15th January three beauty proffesionals Sam, Kate and Georgie from SODA - Survivors of Domestic Abuse came along one of our refuges to pamper our ladies and also to bring some donations as part of their Bag of Life Project. They want to support survivors of domestic abuse encouraging them to know that there is always “Light at the end of the tunnel”, for this they offered a makeup session for our ladies and hair cuts for both them and their children, giving them that feel good factor, maybe something that they didn’t have before. Our women looked amazing and had a relaxing moment to treat and look over themselves, the project helped them to strenghten their self-esteem, reminding them to love themselves. We would like to thank SODA for giving us this opportunity and help us in our constant fight to support women who struggled with domestic abuse.
TEC H VS ABUSE PROJECT The Haven has been awarded one of 10 grants from Comic Relief as part of its ‘Tech vs Abuse’ funding. We are running a one year project looking at how we can better use digital technology to help women realise they are facing abuse, and reduce barriers to help them access support. Working with digital partner Neon Tribe we have consulted with women, staff and volunteers and are now in the development phase of a website. The site will utilise stories and illustrations to help women understand the situation they are in and encourage them to seek support sooner. More details coming soon!
Trainings
These are the trainings available right now at The Haven. If you would like to attend, please contact Keshia Harper our trainer coordinator. Please, be aware that lunch is not provided. All trainings will take place at The Haven Hub, 18 Waterloo Road, WV14BL. Keshia.Harper@havenrefuge.org.uk February
March
April
15/02/2018 - Rape and Sexual Violence
01/03/2018 - Modern Slavery
18/04/2018 - Rape and Sexual Violence
22/02/2018 - Female Genital Mutilation
07/03/2018 - Domestic Abuse Awareness
19/04/2018 - Domestic violence
28/02/2018 - Understanding coercive
13/03/2018 - Stalking and Harassment
control
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29/03/2018 - Domestic violence perpetrator programme
perpetrator programme 25/04/2018 - Female genital mutilation 26/04/2018 - Domestic Abuse Awareness
Christmas at The Haven
Thanks to our wonderful supporters, volunteers and staff Christmas 2017 at The Haven was an absolutely magical one!! Throughout December The Haven were involved in the Winter Wonderland extravaganza at The Grand Station, our volunteers ran a raffle at each event throughout Christmas and The Grand Station donated a percentage of ticket prices to The Haven Wolverhampton. A huge Thank You is in order for The Grand Station who helped The Haven to raise a ‘’Grand’’ Total of £4,345.26!! Thanks to all of our wonderful supporters we receives SO many gifts for the women and children at Christmas time they have made such a difference to the festivities in refuge. Christmas can be a really difficult time for the women and children living in refuge, so we try to make it a little brighter by providing an all-round Christmas experience. For some, this is the first Christmas they have celebrated properly and we wouldn’t have been able to provide a wonderful Christmas experience without the help of our volunteers and supporters. You all helped to make it possible for the women and children we support to rebuild precious bonds over the festive period, and allowed them all to feel so special. A HUGE Haven Thank You to our Christmas Hero Matt Parkes who donated a huge collection of toys for the children that we support here at The Haven. His donation gets bigger and bigger every year and Christmas at The Haven just wouldn’t be the same without his help. We also want to Thank the team from Jaguar Land Rover and The Haven’s volunteers for organising, decorating and managing the Christmas grotto. It looked like a magical toy store, and it was absolutely fantastic.
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Christmas at The Haven
In refuge we did lots of activities and had lots of festive fun. It was a month full of thrilling moments, especially for the kids decorating the christmas tree or opening their presents. Some of our volunteers organised special christmas-themed activities in our refuges where our women and children made baubles, Christmas Trees from paper plates, snowflakes, finger print snowmen, cotton wool Santa’s, and many more arts&crafts and we wanted to show you some pictures of their amazing creations. Also they had a special cooking festive party were the women made a beautiful ginger bread house, and then they all wrote letters to Santa and made reindeer food ready for Sunday evening.
The Christmas night was a special moment in which all the women and children spent a moment together opening their presents. We couldn’t be more grateful for all the donations we had during the whole December that made possible for the women to choose gifts for their children and for themselves and celebrate a wonderful Christmas!!
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Naghma’s Case Study: Naghma came to The Haven Wolverhampton referred by Wolverhampton College to complete a placement as part of her final year level 5 Diploma in therapeutic counselling. She was an experienced student, able to speak three different languages (Urdu, Punjab and Hindi ) and with 16 years’ experience working for the Local Authority within the Children Centres Department as an early years practitioner outreach worker. During her time at The Haven, she has had the opportunity to work with women and children from different backgrounds, supporting their emotional well-being and helping them make a positive change in their lives and gain self-awareness.
“In a short period of time, Naghma has become a valuable member of The Haven Team thanks to her excellent professionalism, team work spirit and empathy towards our service users. The support provided to our clients, vulnerable women affected by domestic abuse and homelessness has been crucial. Counselling has given many women the opportunity to assess and reflect upon the difficult situation they are going through, express their feelings and work towards finding effective coping mechanisms to help deal with everyday life. Naghma has done a great work engaging and supporting the clients referred and her support has been key for the development of The Haven Counselling Service”. Marta Rios ( Volunteer Engagement Leat at The Haven) Naghma is now a qualified counsellor and registered member of B.A.C.P. She graduated on the 20th September 2017 and has secured a job as a freelance counsellor through The Haven with one of our partners Relate, a charity which offers counselling services for every type of relationship nationwide. They provide advice on marriage, LGBT issues, divorce and parenting. This has given Naghma a great opportunity to work also with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG clients) and build on her counselling skills. On her own words “My graduation was a very special day for me. With my family and friends for
support on the day, I realised that four years of study were worthwhile and the right path to take. Likewise, this experience at The Haven has enabled her to meet so many amazing people, support workers and agencies who work with women that have suffered domestic abuse and homelessness. I am very proud of being part of The Haven team and be able to encourage women and families to make positive changes in their lives” Naghma’s plans at the moment consist of continuing to support The Haven Counselling Service and in setting up her private counselling practice, as well as to continue with further education. Naghma is about to finish a course in meditation, which will come in useful in helping her clients to relax and learn to cultivate constructive thoughts. She wishes to extend a great big thank you to Marta Rios (Volunteer Engagement Lead at The Haven), who starting up the counselling service has opened up a different path in her life. Like Naghma, we have other 6 trainee and qualified counsellors who have been essential for the good running of the counselling service. We would like to thank Mandy, Pavlina, Cynthia, Marie and Tina for their hard work along the last two years and for their commitment to The Haven.
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