Requests for beds in our refuge have surged and our phone counselling service has seen a 100% rise in demand since lockdown. One week in June, we had 37 referrals for just two bed spaces and we were forced to turn women away.This grant from Rosa is paying for a full-time worker at our newly opened refuge. It means the women we support will be able to access our counselling service, immigration and welfare benefits advice, and resettlement support.
We’ve also had lots of women approaching us who have an insecure immigration status or No Recourse to Public Funds. This is a huge, huge increase for us. In a way, it’s a positive thing because it shows the Domestic Violence Concession is helping women to leave abusive relationships. Before, women would be more likely to stay in those relationships until they received their immigration status.
There has always been this level of need for BME refuges. Over the last five years, changes to government funding and local authorities’ priorities have led to many of them being swallowed up by larger generic organisations. Specialist services are disappearing at a time when they’ve never been more needed.
Many of the women we support are struggling with social isolation. Most initially struggled to get in touch using technology because they’re on low incomes and don’t have access to laptops. At the start of the pandemic, it was a challenge to put our support online and ensure it reached the women it needed to.
I never thought it’d be possible to run a small women’s refuge from home, but we’ve managed it. Our outreach worker started organising socially distanced activities with smaller groups. Twice a week, she’d meet two to five of our service users for lunch and a walk around the park, which gave them some much-needed respite and the opportunity to see someone after weeks of isolation.
Our staff are also available out of hours for women who haven’t left their abuser and can only make contact in the evening or weekends. But our workers need time to support their own mental health and wellbeing, too. While our priority has been to support our service users, we have to make sure we’re there for our own team.
For Kiran Support Services, like many BME refuges and services, the worry is now long-term sustainability. Funding has been forthcoming during the crisis but as people are starting to recognise the need to support smaller BME-led organisations. The pandemic has put a lot of pressure on the ‘by and for’ sector. We’re now worried about the funding climate in six months to 12 months’ time, because demand will remain the same, but we don’t know what the funding climate will be like.
As well as sustainable long-term funding to the sector, what we really need is practical support. As a small refuge, we don’t have that back-office help in areas such as IT, book-keeping, and broader policy work. That’s why we look to organisations like Imkaan who research and campaign for policy change that centres on the needs of women of colour. Small organisations need the support and solidarity of funders and larger organisations to survive and thrive.
Kiran Support Services provides safe, temporary accommodation across two refuges in the London Borough of Waltham Forest to Asian women and their children experiencing domestic violence and abuse.
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