News & Blog

The background

The Drive Partnership has commissioned H.O.P.E Training & Consultancy & its consortium members to design a workforce development and leadership programme to build capacity and confidence amongst professionals from racialised communities working with those causing harm in intimate and family relationships. The goal is to increase the ethnic, racial and cultural diversity of the VAWG (Violence Against Women and Girls) sector workforce, specifically those working with those who harm, to make the sector more representative of the communities we serve.

Research carried out by University of Suffolk and H.O.P.E Training and Consultancy explored family and intimate relationship harm within racialised communities with a focus on those causing harm.

The research identified that one of the key barriers to providing effective and accessible responses to perpetrators from minoritised communities is the workforce being unrepresentative of the communities it serves.

Following on from this research, Drive carried out focus groups with practitioners from racialised communities working in the VAWG sector to explore next steps. These pointed to the need for the development of a workforce development and leadership programme.

Following an open tender process, Drive commissioned H.O.P.E to take this forward, supported by the following consortium members: Natasha Broomfield-Reid – Diverse Matters; Sarah Wigley – Sarah Wigley Associates; Jodie Das – CRAFT Training & Development; Imran Manzoor- Pegasus Therapeutic Services Ltd & Breaking the Silence and Annie Gibbs – Amour Destiné.

We’d love your ideas for the programme!

H.O.P.E & its Consortium members are consulting on what a programme should look like, and wish to gather a number of different perspectives, both within the domestic abuse sector and other voluntary and statutory sectors. They hope to hear from:

• People from racialised communities who are working in the DA / perpetrator sector
• Leaders from the DA sector, particularly those delivering perpetrator programmes
• People from racialised communities working in statutory and voluntary/community organisations

When does this work start?

Consultation groups as well as one-to-ones will be offered throughout October – December 2021. Please click button below for focus groups and times (all via zoom).

We will be running groups for:

Workforce & Leadership Development: sector leaders -This session is to explore the views and insights of sector leaders providing DA services

Workforce & Leadership Development: practitioners from racialised communities- This session is for practitioners from racialised communities either working in the DA sector, or other sectors working with families experiencing DA such as children’s services, probation, police, mental health.

Please note those attending from the below groups will be paid for their time for attending as per DRIVE paid contributions policy. Those excluded from payment are below. If you attend and contribute you will be paid an hourly rate. Please contact H.O.P.E for more information on this and where to submit invoice after event. For focus groups we are limiting 2 per organisation per focus group.

• Experts by experience, self-employed independent consultants/practitioners and local ‘grass roots’ organisations / small charities

• Academics who are acting in an independent consultant capacity when/if work falls outside of the remit and scope of their institutional role.

Exclusions

• Contributions from larger, well-funded organisations – such as national charities or statutory organisations – where input and collaboration is part of the contributor’s professional role or the purpose of the organisation.

If you would like a 121 interview with a consortium member please email admin@hopetraining.co.uk and they will arrange this.

If you require any additional assistance to ensure you participate fully please let us know by emailing admin@hopetraining.co.uk.

Find the focus group times here

How to find out more

Further details about H.O.P.E can be found here including the option to join our mailing list. To find out more about the project:

H.O.P.E project lead is Meena Kumari, Director & Founder: admin@hopetraining.co.uk 
Drive Partnership lead is Rachel Ozanne, Head of National Systems Change: Rachel.Ozanne@respect.uk.net 

Original content and more information about H.O.P.E Training & Consultancy can be found here.