Survivor Support Service Increasing Resilience

Survivors West Yorkshire (SWY) supports survivors of sexual violence-abuse (male and female) across West Yorkshire.

The GiveBradford Resilience Fund enabled them to maintain their key services and look at strategic planning for the years to come.

 

• Can you describe your organisation and the people/communities you support?

Survivors West Yorkshire offers male sexual violence survivors’ trauma-informed counselling via its Ben’s Place project (accessible across West Yorkshire). Bens Place delivers a specialist male and female staffed service from its current Bradford base – using best practice and innovative interventions to support male survivor growth and recovery.

We also advise supporters and professionals. We currently only deliver video counselling, plus a new ISVA service. Underpinning our service is an ethos of cooperation and collaboration -across sectors- to co-create collective impacts for all survivors of sexual violence across their lifespan.

 

• How have you been supported by GiveBradford and what has this funding enabled you to do? 

The funding received from GiveBradford allowed us to proactively engage with the challenging process of working towards obtaining a national male survivor service standard specifically designed for sexual violence services. It also allowed us to explore our strategic planning for the next 5 years.

 

• Can you give us an example of an individual and or group and how they have responded to this work?

Covid19 created increased isolation for male survivors. Whilst the grant was not directly aimed are frontline working, it allowed us to leap our thinking to the future, so we are well prepared to meet its diverse and complex challenges. The following feedback from one of our clients summing up the value of our work:

“It’s enabled me to take control of how I lead my life again, I am in charge of what thoughts and troubles I give time to. Nothing can make what happened to me disappear, but now I have turned it into something benign, nothing to fear.”

 

• What challenges and opportunities do you face as an organisation in the current climate?

All charities face constant battles to secure core and project funding. However, for male sexual violence services they face victim blaming obstacles within a society not supportive of sexual violence victims. Combined with a funding landscape which often pits male against female services in the struggle to secure funding from limited Government sexual violence funding – even after the increases of the last few years. Opportunities for us lie in our depth sexual violence interventions knowledge and creativity. It allows us to see beyond the current transition stages services will travel to become safe-effective trauma informed services. We are already looking beyond the current transformation horizon and thinking strategically and creatively about future service offerings.

 

• How is your organisation preparing for the future, and what kind of funding is needed?

We see increasing demand for specialist male survivor engagement training. Combined with increasing professionally creative and authentic cooperation – collaboration. Professional and creative working will be needed to meet increasing disclosure demands. We recently trialled radio adverts which were highly successful.

We would like to explore more public awareness advertising both using radio and TV. We also see the need for independent and legitimate co-production and voice representation “Nothing for male survivors without male survivors and nothing about male survivors without them”. We need funding to help create professional training resources and funding to allow us to help male survivors forge safe co-production and voice vehicles professionally and authentically. Gifting themselves constructive opportunities for real dialogue with the systems which make decisions about their needs.