Running head i

1111
2
Is Anyone Listening?
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 Domestic violence is in the public eye as never before, but how often are
4 abused women consulted or involved in the new services and policies? This
5 book investigates and reveals that the voices of survivors of domestic
6 violence are often simply not heard; silenced, the women themselves
7 become invisible.
8 Is Anyone Listening? draws on the experiences of other service user
9 movements to provide a strong conceptual framework for thinking about
20111 abused women’s participation in policy and service development. It
1 discusses empowerment issues and the women’s movement against gender
2 violence, exploring how far refuge organisations and other women’s move-
3 ment services have influenced statutory services and vice versa. It includes
4 many practical ideas for involving abused women in the improvement of
5111 both policy and practice, and gives examples of inspiring and innovatory
6 projects.
7 Based on a study carried out as part of the Economic and Social Research
8 Council’s Violence Research Programme, Is Anyone Listening? offers a
9 unique analysis of the sensitive and complex issues involved in developing
30111 service user participation within the domestic violence field. The insights
1 it provides will enable policy-makers, activists, students, practitioners
2 and women who have experienced domestic violence to move forward
3 together.
4
5 Gill Hague is Senior Research Fellow in the School for Policy Studies at
6 the University of Bristol and a founder and the joint Co-ordinator of the
7 Domestic Violence Research Group in the University. Audrey Mullender
8 is Professor of Social Work and Director of the Centre for the Study of
9 Safety and Wellbeing at the University of Warwick. Rosemary Aris,
40111 formerly a Research Fellow at the University of Warwick, is now Senior
1 Research and Evaluation Officer at NACRO.
2
3
44111
 Running head iii

1111
2 Is Anyone Listening?
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 Accountability and women
4 survivors of domestic violence
5
6
7
8
9
20111
1 Gill Hague, Audrey Mullender
2
3 and Rosemary Aris
4
5111
6
7
8
9
30111
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
40111
1
2
3
44111
First published 2003
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

© 2003 Gill Hague, Audrey Mullender and Rosemary Aris

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-38050-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-38668-X (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 0–415–25945–2 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–25946–0 (pbk)
 Running head v

1111
2
To Dorothy
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111
4
5
6
7
8
9
20111
1
2
3
4
5111
6
7
8
9
30111
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
40111
1
2
3
44111
How do they know what to do if they don’t ask women in the situation?
It doesn’t make sense, does it? It’s stupid if they go and set up things
without women knowing about it and without asking women what they
need, doesn’t make any sense to me.

If they listen to us it is just so good. It makes the services better, just much
better. No one has ever listened to us before. And then suddenly these posh
organisations are. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

They are beginning to listen, they are beginning to try. That is the really
big thing, isn’t it, the fact that they are finally willing to at least try.
(Women survivors of domestic violence)
 Running head vii

1111
2
Contents
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 List of illustrations ix
4 Acknowledgements xi
5
6 1 Introduction 1
7
8 PART 1
9 Rethinking service user movements in relation
20111 to women survivors of violence 5
1
2 2 Women survivors of domestic violence as service users:
3 the silenced group 7
4
5111 3 The obstacles to empowerment: what kind of power
6 for women? 26
7
8 PART 2
9 Women’s views and voices in domestic
30111 violence services 41
1
2 4 What abused women think of the services they receive 43
3
4 5 How much do agencies listen to domestic violence
5 survivors? 58
6
7 PART 3
8 How to engage in survivor participation and
9 consultation 75
40111
1 6 How to do it: empowerment and stigma 77
2
3 7 How to do it: policies, sensitivities and resources to make
44111 participation effective 89
viii Contents

8 Practical ways forward and innovation, including

domestic violence survivors’ forums 109
9 Further innovatory practice: Women’s Aid, women’s
advocacy organisations and campaigns 125
10 Other methods of survivor participation and getting
agencies to take action 131

11 Conclusion 145

EPILOGUE 149

Words from women survivors of violence 151

Womenspeak: a parliamentary Internet consultation
with domestic violence survivors 160
NICOLA HARWIN CBE, DIRECTOR, WOMEN’S AID FEDERATION
OF ENGLAND

Bibliography 163
Index 174
 Running head ix

1111
2
Illustrations
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 Tables
4
5.1 Percentage of inter-agency forums and refuge services
5
saying they involved service users 69
6
7
8
9 Boxes
20111
7.1 Basic initial checklist 97
1
8.1 New and innovative practice in consultation with
2
abused women 112
3
4
5111
6
7
8
9
30111
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
40111
1
2
3
44111
 Running head xi

1111
2
Acknowledgements
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 Many people have helped to make this book possible. First of all, we wish
4 to thank all the many survivors of domestic violence who have talked and
5 worked with us, and who have given us their time, energy, honesty and
6 expertise, over our years of engaging in domestic violence work. Most
7 particularly, our sincere gratitude goes to the women who had experienced
8 domestic abuse whom we interviewed during the study on which this book
9 is based. They assisted us, throughout, with the research and with ideas for
20111 this publication. Without them it could not have been written.
1 Very many thanks to Nicola Harwin, the Director of the Women’s Aid
2 Federation of England who was the consultant to the study and who has
3 contributed a short section to the book. The study could not have been
4 conducted without the dedicated work of our colleague, Wendy Dear, who
5111 participated in much of the research which forms the backdrop to every-
6 thing we have written here. Our thanks to her and also to Hilary Abrahams
7 who assisted with the research; to Ellen Malos who participated in the study
8 initially; to Cassie Hague for administrative and research assistance; and,
9 particularly, to Valerie Douglas who conducted secretarial work on the
30111 manuscript beyond the call of duty.
1 We are also most grateful to the many policy-makers, managers and
2 workers in inter-agency forums, refuge organisations and statutory and
3 voluntary sector agencies who agreed to participate in the study as inter-
4 viewees and who assisted us to conduct the research in their areas.
5 We are particularly grateful both to domestic violence survivors and to
6 professionals who specifically assisted us in Coventry, the London Borough
7 of Croydon and the North Somerset area (our main study areas), and in
8 Sheffield and the Rhondda (our policy profile areas). In all of these areas,
9 we were welcomed and assisted generously, particularly by the specialist
40111 domestic violence co-ordinators and the equality units and refuge organisa-
1 tions involved. In this context, we would particularly like to thank for their
2 generous time and valuable ideas: Liz Blyth, then of the Coventry Domestic
3 Violence Partnership; Angie Parks and the Coventry Haven project; Sobia
44111 Shaw of Panahghar; Maureen Storey of Sheffield Domestic Violence
xii Acknowledgements

Forum; Rohan Collier, formerly of the London Borough of Croydon Equal-

ities Unit; and Pauline James of North Somerset Domestic Abuse Forum
and North Somerset Action Against Domestic Violence. During the
research, further small case studies were conducted with practitioners and
policy-makers in the London Boroughs of Westminster and Newham and
in Cleveland, to whom thanks are due. We also thank Welsh Women’s Aid
for their assistance and co-operation.
For welcome assistance with the book itself, our gratitude goes to the
Hammersmith Standing Together Against Domestic Violence project, for
input of ideas, to Voice for Change in Liverpool and the Phoenix Group
in Westminster. Also, thank you to Sue Dzendera of Croydon Playcare, to
Vicky Witherington, Croydon Welcare, and to Pat Francis and Lucy
Darlow for contributing their words and expertise.
For commenting on drafts of this book, our thanks go most particularly
for her extremely helpful contribution to Davina James-Hanman, Director,
Greater London Domestic Violence Project. The text was also commented
on most helpfully by: Vicky Grosser, Co-ordinator, Westminster Domestic
Violence Forum; Norma Stoddard, Liverpool Domestic Violence Service
Co-ordinator; Barbra Young, Croydon Domestic Violence Advocacy
Project; and Hilary Abrahams and Ellen Malos, Domestic Violence
Research Group.
Thanks also go to the advisory group for the study: Charlene Henry,
Hadhari Nari Project, Derby; Jan Frances, Chair of the Women’s Aid
National Council; Pat Stafford, Nottingham Women’s Aid Advice Group;
Nadia Rush, Hammersmith Women’s Aid; Ann Wardell, formerly of
Cleveland Domestic Violence Forum; and Ann Harvey, Wiltshire NSPCC
Domestic Violence Project.
On a personal level, during both the study and the writing of the book,
we would like to thank, variously, Peter Burnham, Cassie and Keiran Hague
and David Merrick for all their help, John Ashcroft for his love and support,
and Dorothy Williamson, who died during the study, for her wisdom
approaching death.
 Chapter 1
1111
2
Introduction
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 This is not just another book about domestic violence. Indeed, to learn
4 about the detail of men’s violence to women in intimate relationships –
5 what it is, the damage it does to women’s lives, what we can do about it
6 – it will be necessary to look elsewhere. Over the last twenty years, a great
7 array of books and other publications has been produced on the subject,
8 furthering our knowledge and providing evidence and ideas to inform
9 the way that society, governments and helping agencies respond (see, for
20111 example, Dobash and Dobash, 1992; Mullender, 1996; Hague and Malos,
1 1998). This, however, is a book with a different message. The message is
2 about raising the voices of abused women themselves.
3 In this book, domestic violence is defined to mean violence between
4 adults who are, or who have been, in an intimate or sexual relationship.
5111 We know that domestic violence has impacts on children witnessing or
6 otherwise experiencing it (Mullender and Morley, 1994; Hester et al.,
7 2000). We also know that it is a gendered phenomenon. While such
8 violence can occur in gay and lesbian relationships and can be committed
9 by women against men, the overwhelming majority of incidents are perpe-
30111 trated against women, often by the men with whom they are most intimate
1 (see Dobash and Dobash, 1992; Humphreys et al., 2000).
2 We have attempted here to pay attention to what women who have
3 experienced domestic violence say and feel, especially if they have made
4 use of service provision. However, we have also included a consideration
5 of the views of abused women more generally. In the text, we often use
6 the term, ‘domestic violence survivor’, because, even though many are
7 severely victimised by the violence they have experienced, surviving is
8 what all women try to do. We use the term as one of respect.
9 The argument which underpins this book is that it is necessary to reframe
40111 the way we think about the women who use domestic violence services
1 and to see them as part of a service user movement, similar to other user
2 movements which have lifted the voices of their members in recent years.
3 Women experiencing abuse may be part of the women’s activist movement
44111 against domestic violence, and are quite likely to have used services
2 Introduction

provided by it, but they have not generally been viewed as part of a service
user group in their own right. One question which this book asks is why
not. We will discuss how we can change both the practice and policies of
agencies, and also the way that this issue is thought about in theoretical
terms, so that abused women service users can be both heard and heeded.
Thus, our arguments will be contextualised within theorising about user
movements and new social movements more generally, and will then
be developed in practical, concrete ways. The book looks at how much
the voices and views of domestic violence survivors are currently seen as
contributing to the policy process and goes on to illustrate ways in which
these voices can be more effectively involved in service planning, provision
and delivery.
One of the aims of movements of service users in general is to take
control of how they are defined by others, notably by service providers,
policy-makers and the general public. All of these movements are currently
struggling to combat negative attitudes and labels, to be involved in key
decisions which affect them, to decide for themselves what is in their own
best interests, and to take action together to resist models of service delivery
that may be oppressive or discriminatory, encouraging instead those that
enable and empower (Barnes et al., 1999). They also attempt to have some
measure of direct control over the services they need to lead a full and
rewarding life. One example concerns disabled people who have formed a
powerful movement to argue for their rights. This movement has reframed
thinking within society about disability to challenge a purely medical model
in favour of an alternative social model and full citizenship for disabled
people in every respect, as we will discuss further in Chapter 2.
The women’s movement has similarly rethought and reframed issues in
the specific context of discrimination against women and has, through the
medium of feminism, changed almost everything about how we now view
women. In the 2000s in the UK, very few people question women’s right to
work or to make choices about their own bodies and relationships. We can
make a case that these basic arguments have been won after three decades of
women’s activism. Yet, women’s everyday quality of life still leaves much
to be desired and, in some respects, little seems to have changed at all.
Gender violence remains a massive problem both in this country and across
the globe, for example. In the UK, for an estimated one in three to one in four
women (Mooney, 2000), violence is, at some stage, a part of their everyday
lives and for many of them, as we shall see in Part 2, the services provided
still do not meet their needs.
Above all, despite very serious efforts over many years in both the volun-
tary and statutory sectors, women who have experienced abuse and
accessed services as a result, still do not feel safe. If services do not assist
abused women to safety, one wonders what they do achieve. Further,
survivors of domestic violence frequently do not feel able to speak freely
 Introduction 3

1111 about their experiences. They may feel blamed, silenced and stereotyped
2 and, far from being seen as having expertise derived from what they have
3 gone through, they are often blocked from full participation in service
4 delivery as volunteers or as paid workers because they are seen as ‘still in
5 the experience’. On the plus side, there are some examples of very good,
6 participatory services, women’s projects and domestic violence multi-
7 agency forums with well-developed models of user involvement, and we
8 will explore these in more detail in Part 3.
9 The material for this book is drawn chiefly from a project, one of twenty
1011 within the Economic and Social Research Council-funded Violence
1 Research Programme. This project, named ‘Abused Women’s Perspectives:
2 Responsiveness and Accountability of Domestic Violence and Inter-agency
3111 Initiatives’,1 was conducted by the authors and by Wendy Dear, and was
4 supplemented by knowledge from other research and from direct involve-
5 ment with abused women. The multi-method study we conducted surveyed
6 agencies and domestic violence forums on a national basis and also sought
7 the first-hand views of domestic violence survivors. We will discuss, in the
8 chapters that follow, the perceptions and opinions of the survivors we
9 consulted about the direct services which they had received, as provided
20111 by statutory agencies, by refuge and outreach organisations and by inter-
1 agency domestic violence forums. There is also much to learn from what
2 abused women have to say about domestic violence policy and practice on
3 a general level.
4 Overall, then, the book asks some very serious questions:
5111
6 • To what extent are the voices of women service users heard in domestic
7 violence policy development and service delivery and in inter-agency
8 forums?
9 • Are services, practice protocols and policies responsive to these voices
30111 and informed in any way by service users?
1 • To what degree are services actually accountable to domestic violence
2 survivors?
3
4 The immediate answers to such questions do not appear to be very encour-
5 aging. When asked to throw light on these rather hidden issues, one woman
6 who had experienced domestic violence had this to say:
7
8 We have no influence in their decisions. Not really, just pretend! The
9 agencies pretend!
40111
1 Arguably, unless the above questions can be answered in a positive way,
2 services risk doing more harm than good, and could even place abused
3 women in greater danger since only they can know in detail what will help
44111 them to be safe. If we fail to listen, we may fail to be of help.
4 Introduction

Thus, this book is about the voices and views of domestic violence
survivors and about the need for these voices to be heard – and, more
importantly, responded to – by professionals. If the negative view expressed
by the woman quoted above is typical of other women’s experiences, how
can agencies in both the statutory and voluntary sectors improve their
provision and make themselves more accountable to those to whom they
offer services?
Nothing in this book should be taken as a criticism of, or detraction from,
the huge achievements of Women’s Aid and of a host of other women’s
organisations in the UK. The record of the Women’s Aid Federation of
England, for example, which co-ordinates and supports over 250 local
domestic violence projects in England providing over 400 refuges, help-
lines, outreach projects and advice centres, speaks for itself (Women’s Aid,
2001–2). We should be proud of all that has been achieved by women’s
activism over the last thirty years. But there is room for improvement in any
service and success can bring its own challenges (for example, dealing with
the strictures imposed by accepting state funding (Barnes et al., 1999: 47)).
We will address some of these challenges in later chapters.
Under the impetus provided by the activist movement, many statutory
agencies and inter-agency forums also now take on the issue of men’s
violence against women in a committed way and a wide range of new
policy and practice has developed across the board. These initiatives are
often very helpful. However, they frequently fail to go far enough owing
to shortage of resources, and they may have no mechanisms whatsoever in
place for hearing what service users and other domestic violence survivors
have to say. The ideas that we will offer will, we hope, help to make this
more possible in the future.

Note
1 The study was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, Award
No. L133251017.
 Part 1
1111
2
3
Rethinking service user
4
5
movements in relation
6
7 to women survivors of
8
9 violence
1011
1
2
3111
4
5
6
7
8
9
20111
1
2
3
4
5111
6
7
8
9
30111
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
40111
1
2
3
44111
 Chapter 2
1111
2
Women survivors of domestic
3 violence as service users
4
5 The silenced group
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 Women survivors of domestic violence have been users of dedicated,
4 specialist services for thirty years in Britain. Yet, despite the burgeoning
5 of policy, practice, and academic and political interest in user involvement
6 in general and the long history of women’s activism around violence, it
7 appears that the voices of women survivors of domestic violence have been
8 strangely silent in the context both of demands and of acknowledgement
9 that service users should be consulted and involved. This chapter and the
20111 next will consider this contradiction from a theoretical perspective, explore
1 how it has come about and what it implies, and, with an eye to the pros
2 and cons, make suggestions for reconceptualising women as users of
3 domestic violence services. Later chapters will look at practical ways of
4 moving forward in giving abused women a more effective voice in service
5111 design and delivery than is presently available to them.
6 We begin by considering women’s early organising in a wave of activism
7 that has been seen as one of the first new social movements and a fore-
8 runner of service user movements.
9
30111 Women’s early activism
1
2 Women’s activism constituted one of the earliest of the ‘protest move-
3 ments’ that originated in the latter half of the twentieth century. The
4 Women’s Liberation Movement (known popularly at the time as ‘the
5 women’s movement’ or somewhat derogatively as ‘Women’s Lib’, and in
6 scholarly literature nowadays as ‘second-wave feminism’1) flourished in
7 almost every Western nation, and in many non-Western ones, in the 1960s
8 and the 1970s (Coote and Campbell, 1987; Gelb, 1990). This coming
9 together of women to make key demands for major changes in their role
40111 and status in society occurred at a time of broader social unrest, when civil
1 rights were being pursued by African Americans, when the anti-Vietnam
2 War protests were at their height and when students and workers took
3 to the streets. Socialism, feminism and a broader struggle for democracy
44111 and social justice were in the air (see summaries, focused on women’s
8 Rethinking service user movements

struggles, in Coote and Campbell, 1987; Gelb, 1990; Dobash and Dobash,
1992; see also McIntosh, 1996 for a social policy analysis).
Out of this ideological background, women arrived at some very prac-
tical, emancipatory goals, and always regarded these as more important
than ideas alone. Those who were operating from an equal rights (liberal
feminist) perspective and some socialist feminists who saw gender as
particularly connected to wider class exploitation, made real headway over
the years in relation to equal pay, sex discrimination at work and fairer
treatment in related areas of benefits and services. On the other hand,
women who stood for a more radical, liberation agenda, including those
who defined themselves as radical or revolutionary feminists or as socialist
feminists, felt, and still feel, that there is a long way yet to go. This exten-
sive range of women of different backgrounds, who came together to pursue
broader, anti-oppressive objectives – with a focus on consciousness-raising
for women and an end to men’s patriarchal domination in the home and in
all areas of society. Women took collective action in order to become
personally, financially and legally independent of men, they wanted control
over their own bodies and minds, and they wanted more support with child-
care and in the home. Now, women are equal citizens in the law, and birth
control and abortion are more readily available, but they are still treated as
sex objects in large sections of the media and still undertake the bulk of
domestic chores, with access to affordable childcare still inadequate.
Running as a clear thread throughout the debating and campaigning of
the formative years of the women’s movement was the issue of violence
against women. Early consciousness-raising groups discussed the impact
of men’s violence on their own lives, and on the lives of other women, and
rapidly saw the need to establish refuges or safe houses (‘shelters’ in the
US) to which abused women could escape. This was a revolutionary idea
at the time. Although a few refuges had existed in the previous century
(see Pleck, 1986; Hague and Malos, 1998), the publicly accepted account
of the first modern women’s refuge anywhere in the world was at Chiswick
Women’s Aid, established in 1972. Other refuges were, in fact, established
in various cities at the same time (though they received less publicity) and,
from then on, the movement expanded rapidly with much dedicated activity
that continues to the present day. The US, Canada and other countries
followed rapidly. The first shelter in North America was in Toronto, with
others established very quickly, for example in Minnesota in 1973 and in
many localities, including Boston, by 1974 (Dobash and Dobash, 1992;
Hague et al., 2001a). Within the UK, as public awareness spread of what
women were suffering at the hands of male partners, the topic was taken
up nationally and regarded as part of a wider issue of male power. A
seventh demand, added at the National Women’s Liberation Conference in
1978 to those formulated earlier, was:
 Survivors as service users 9

1111 Freedom from intimidation by threat or use of violence or sexual

2 coercion, regardless of marital status; and an end to all laws, assump-
3 tions and institutions which perpetuate male dominance and men’s
4 aggression towards women.
5 (Coote and Campbell, 1987: 18)
6
7 Refuges were organised under the banner of Women’s Aid and, by the mid
8 1970s, existed in most areas in Britain, usually run by women’s collectives
9 (Hague and Malos, 1998). In 1974, they were organised into the National
1011 Women’s Aid Federation. In keeping with the wider spirit of emancipa-
1 tion and egalitarianism that was prevalent at the time, the same conference
2 that established the Federation saw it split from Erin Pizzey and her
3111 Chiswick colleagues because the latter wanted to maintain centralised con-
4 trol. Though both groupings have moved on in significant ways, the dual
5 heritage remains, in the shape of the Women’s Aid Federation of England
6 and the equivalent organisations of Scottish Women’s Aid, Welsh Women’s
7 Aid and Northern Ireland Women’s Aid, on the one hand, and the organisa-
8 tion called Refuge, still operating from Chiswick but claiming a national
9 role, on the other. The national Women’s Aid federations exist to foster, pro-
20111 mote and develop the refuge, outreach, aftercare and children’s services that
1 are offered by autonomous local groups, and to campaign, research, share
2 information and promote public awareness of violence against women.
3 Thus one of the direct outcomes of the women’s movement was the
4 provision on a nationwide basis of services for women, designed and run
5111 by women, and conceptualised as meeting abused women’s very particular
6 needs. These have always been provided in the voluntary sector so that
7 resources had to be campaigned and applied for from multiple sources
8 that have never been secure. There is still no comprehensive acceptance of
9 statutory responsibility for resourcing work with abused women since
30111 Supporting People goes only part of the way (see Chapter 4). Meanwhile,
1 levels of male violence remain high, with one in every three or four women
2 reporting that they have experienced it (Dominy and Radford, 1996;
3 Mirrlees-Black, 1999; Mooney, 2000). Women’s Aid’s key asset is its
4 thirty-year history – the depth of its roots. This does not mean, though, that
5 there may not be elements of the work in women’s organisations and related
6 services that could be improved, and later chapters of this book will throw
7 light on some areas where this may be the case if we continue listening to
8 women’s voices today.
9
40111
The women’s movement as a new social
1
movement
2
3 As we saw above, Women’s Liberation was one of the earliest protest
44111 movements. Thus, women have always been at the heart of what have now
10 Rethinking service user movements

come to be called ‘new social movements’ (Dalton and Kuechler, 1990;

Scott, 1990). These are social uprisings that are not dominated by tradi-
tional sources of friction; they are not about social class or people’s
relationship to the means of production, although some activists remain
aware of, and engaged, in these issues. Rather, class is no longer simplis-
tically dichotomised between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, while identity
has ceased to derive solely from occupation (Charles, 2000). For women,
this makes sense: it has always been possible to live with a wealthy man
and yet to have no disposable income or personal freedom of one’s own,
or to hold down a well-paid job and yet to be harassed, abused and raped.
Thus, class-based and job-based identity has never been the whole story
for women. The new movements and pressure groups (Grant, 2000) engage
in a personal, social and cultural politics that is sometimes more about
collective consumption and purchasing power than about social class.
Public protest and wide-scale direct action happen alongside campaigning
by non-governmental organisations on environmental, identity and lifestyle
issues and against racism and other oppressive systems, often replacing
negotiation through elected representatives, membership of political parties
and turnout at elections. Thus:

citizens increasingly see themselves as consumers of public services

and that single-issue interest groups offer the best way of articulating
their specific demands.
(Grant, 2002: 21)

There are many ways in which the women’s movement from the 1970s
onwards typified a new social movement. Women’s goals have always been
cultural as well as political, and are as concerned with the quality of life
in civil society (equality, human rights, lifestyle politics) as with the
economy and the state. They are ‘transformative rather than redistributive’
(Barnes and Bowl, 2001: 136). Women have also always sought change
through non-violent action, consciousness-raising, networking, campaign-
ing and so on, rather than solely through party or class politics or, for many,
through any formal engagement with the party political process. Fitting its
actions to its values, early feminism was marked by an interest in democ-
ratic and non-hierarchical organisational forms of all kinds, especially
collectives: rotating responsibility for chairing and minuting meetings;
giving everyone present an equal right to be heard; and sharing all work
and decisions (Freeman, 1972–3). These principles were evident in the first
Women’s Aid groups and in refuge organisation, for example.
Women’s activism has extended particularly widely throughout society
because such disparate groups of women have been involved (Charles,
2000). Middle-class women, working-class women, students, minority
ethnic women, housewives, unwaged and retired women have all taken
 Survivors as service users 11

1111 action – not only for themselves but also for other causes such as peace
2 (notably at Greenham Common), the environment and the struggles against
3 racism and homophobia. This has involved the creation of new knowledge
4 and new beliefs to challenge the old, questioning, and redrawing the
5 parameters of what is considered political. Feminism classically did this
6 and women across society continue to do it.
7
8
Women present, yet absent
9
1011 Thus, women have been remarkably active and vocal in new social move-
1 ments (NSM) generally – with the women’s movement there from the
2 beginning, and women consistently visible in all recent environmental,
3111 peace and other protests (as well as in more traditional trade union and
4 class politics), in all of which they have worked tirelessly. However, the
5 female contribution remains heavily under-represented in theoretical treat-
6 ments, apart from those produced by feminist scholars themselves. As
7 Charles (2000) notes, women’s place and changing gender relations in
8 the movements have been inadequately explored in the theoretical NSM
9 literature, and there is little theorising of second-wave feminism as a social
20111 movement by scholars located outside it.
1 In critiquing this situation, Eschle (2001) reconstructs feminist ideas
2 within theories about the cauldron of globalisation and ideas about ‘engen-
3 dering’ global democracy through social movements. She explores both the
4 strengths and the possible weaknesses of feminist approaches within a
5111 complex analysis that also investigates NSM theory. Eschle points out that,
6 while all of this remains a hugely contested area, many NSM theorists do
7 not identify with feminism, even while frequently stressing its role as one
8 of the important social movements of the late twentieth century (ibid.: 4–5).
9 Where more comprehensive treatments do exist, they often cannot accom-
30111 modate the insights of feminist thought because the social analysts involved
1 have tended to adopt more conventional approaches to enquiry. Nor
2 does women’s experience necessarily fit the theories very well, as Charles
3 (2000) enumerates. Or should we say that the theories do not fit women’s
4 experience?
5 First, in Charles’s account, women have not left economic issues behind,
6 as new social movements are often theorised as doing. Women are dispro-
7 portionately poor, are paid on average considerably less than men, and
8 frequently do not live at the level of abstraction that can see the produc-
9 tion of cultural signs as more important than material matters of production
40111 and reproduction (money and children!) in daily life. Women are concerned
1 both with equalising or gaining political power and with lifestyle changes,
2 hence they are both modern and postmodern and do not fit the ‘malestream’
3 theories very closely. (Perhaps the male theorists still have not noticed that
44111 the personal is political.) Second, within the realm of issue politics, feminist
12 Rethinking service user movements

movements are not considered by all commentators to be new social move-

ments. Second-wave feminism, by definition, cannot be new since it has
continuity with the past.
Third, despite a very high participation rate by women in the new social
movements themselves, there is little overt gender analysis in the literature
on NSM, as noted above. The women concerned are of all age groups and
occupy various relationships to the labour market, but there has been little
scholarly enquiry as to who they are. Fourth, the theoretical field concerned
(encompassing NSM and also resource mobilisation theory, RMT) is often
not gendered and tends to assume a neutral and objective rationality that
is commonly associated with white, middle-class Western males acting
solely out of self-interest. Long-standing feminist critiques of instrumental
rationality are largely overlooked, whereas people actually join social
movements for a far wider range of reasons than pure self-interest or greed,
again seeing that the personal is also political. Incentives may include
values, friendship and other forms of solidarity, as well as, we might
add, caring. However, doubting that participation would necessarily be in
people’s self-interest in reality, much RMT concentrates on looking at
levels of resources and at leadership strategies required to encourage
mobilisation (Baumgartner and Leech, 1998: 67–8, 75–7). Even though
these theories are also used by feminist analysts themselves on occasion
(Ryan, 1992), such an emphasis may overlook women and lead to a rather
reductionist outcome (Eschle, 2001: 28).
Fifth, RMT, in a related point, tends to assume affluent Western forms
of organisation as inevitable and most successful, and strategy as an organ-
ising principle. This has not been the historical experience of the women’s
movement, where collective organisation has predominated (at least until
recently) and goals have often been pursued in a more instinctive, emotional
way with democratic consensus and multi-tasking skills replacing top-down
leadership and job specialisation. Finally, RMT is keen to measure success
and failure, whereas a social movement may either succeed and become
embedded or continue underground, and is likely to go through peaks and
troughs, as we discuss in later chapters. Only hindsight can say what it
really contributed.
All of these issues, though underplayed in the literature, are of partic-
ular relevance to abused women and their organisations. Women fleeing
abuse are frequently on very low incomes, since, whatever their socio-
economic status before the violence, they commonly leave with nothing
and have to start afresh. There is a historical continuity in the recognition
of the needs of abused women that goes back to the nineteenth century and
earlier (Freeman, 1979; Dobash and Dobash, 1981; Smith, 1989). There is
enormous diversity within the collective action of abused women, since
domestic violence is no respecter of class, creed or colour (Mooney, 2000).
While there may be self-interest (and care for children) involved in seeking
 Survivors as service users 13

1111 safety, there is also immense altruism for other women right across the
2 refuge movement, including between refuge residents. Collective organ-
3 isation does live on, though under threat, and there are certainly highs and
4 lows in what it can achieve (see Chapter 6). Overall, we may decide to
5 regard women’s activism, including around violence, not so much as a new
6 social movement but as an important ‘contemporary social movement’
7 (Charles, 2000), since it may not be brand new but it is still unquestion-
8 ably with us.
9
1011
From new social movements to user movements
1
2 New social movements are seen as the forerunners of service user move-
3111 ments. The activism of disabled people’s and psychiatric survivors’
4 movements, among others who use welfare services, has been remarkable
5 in recent years. They have organised their own networks and campaigns,
6 generated their own knowledge and theory and conceptualised their own
7 alternatives to many aspects of social life, including health and welfare
8 provision. They have voiced dual demands for user-run alternative provi-
9 sion, alongside claiming a voice within existing services. Disabled people
20111 and psychiatric service survivors have pursued a politics of social, cultural
1 and political inclusion and participation, against a background of having
2 been not just politically, but physically, excluded in welfare institutions
3 and, even when living in the community, marginalised by ‘discrimination,
4 poverty and stigma’ (Beresford, 1997: 4). Consequently, many see them as
5111 constituting a new social movement in their own right (Oliver, 1990).
6 A key reason why the user movements operate largely outside organised
7 politics is that they are committed to individual participation, self-advocacy,
8 self-organisation, finding one’s own voice, speaking out and taking col-
9 lective action through means such as mass protests and community arts,
30111 believing that these methods are likely to be more participative, more trans-
1 formative of social attitudes and, quite simply, more effective (Beresford,
2 1997). In relation to disability, Oliver (1990) charts this distancing (or mar-
3 ginalisation) from traditional politics, along with the link between the per-
4 sonal and the political, the move beyond class-based, material demands and
5 the international spread of the movement, as establishing the right of dis-
6 abled people’s self-organisation to be counted as a new social movement.
7 Not all disabled commentators would agree. Shakespeare (1993) questions
8 whether the label of ‘new social movement’ can usefully encompass both
9 civil rights and liberation politics, considers that it ignores the continuity
40111 with disabled people’s self-organisation in the past, and argues that (like
1 the women’s movement) the disability movement is grounded in identity,
2 whereas peace and environmental activism are based on a shared interest –
3 anyone can join (Shakespeare, 1993; see also Barnes and Bowl, 2001). Croft
44111 and Beresford (1996) summarise arguments that there is a lost opportunity
14 Rethinking service user movements

for shared action around class-based politics and that identities frequently
overlap, for example for disabled women.
Whether we accept the term ‘new social movement’ or not, however,
user groups can certainly be seen to have their political roots in ‘the eman-
cipatory movements around gender and “race” oppressions’ (Williams,
1996: 75) that predated them and hence to have continued the raising of
popular voices against monolithic tradition and influence.

Women absent from the recognised service user

groups?
Whether or not they are regarded as new social movements, user groups
have made their impact. In his many publications about service users, Peter
Beresford lists the now widely recognised groups that can be viewed in
this way. Though the groupings have gradually expanded in his writing
over the years, they have never encompassed abused women, as the
following quotes consistently confirm:

In recent years, movements of disabled people, psychiatric survivors,

older people, people with learning difficulties and other groups of
[users of] health and welfare services have emerged in the UK, North
America, Europe and the South.
(Beresford, 1997: 1)

Recent years . . . [have] witnessed the emergence of welfare service

users . . . including those of disabled people, older people, mental
health service users/survivors, people with learning difficulties, people
living with HIV/AIDS, etc.
(Beresford and Croft, 2001: 298)

During the last 20–30 years, we have seen the emergence and growth
of new movements of welfare service users: of older people, disabled
people, mental health service users/survivors, people living with HIV/
AIDS, people with learning difficulties, looked after young people
and so on.
(Beresford, 2001: 496)

Women are noticeable by their absence from any of these lists, not
because Beresford has ignored them, particularly, but because they do not
feature in the normal discourse about service users and have not been
accorded public services in their own right (Mullender, 1996). Braye comes
a little nearer when she offers her listing: ‘Whether in disability, older
people’s and mental health provision, or in services for children and their
families, the practice of service planners and providers is, in principle
 Survivors as service users 15

1111 at least, open to scrutiny and influence by service users’ (2000: 9). Abused
2 women would figure in this list via their children where there were acknowl-
3 edged child welfare or child protection concerns (Mullender and Morley,
4 1994), but, again, not in respect of their own needs.
5 Inside other user movements, women are present but may struggle to be
6 heard. Disabled women have written about the personal in the politics of
7 disability, from a feminist perspective (Morris, 1991, 1996; Begum, 1992),
8 and have sometimes organised separately in order to gain an equal voice
9 with men and to ensure that their particular issues – such as harassment,
1011 abuse and exploitation – are thought about (Powerhouse, cited in Morris,
1 1994; Members of Women First, 2002). In the world of psychiatry, women
2 have campaigned against a fundamentally sexist view of what constitutes
3111 a mentally healthy adult; they have highlighted the histories of abuse that
4 may cause depression or mimic psychosis, and have worked to make
5 women safe from abusive therapists and fellow patients on mixed wards.
6 They have also campaigned for childcare facilities in psychiatric settings,
7 for women-only provision in therapies, and for alternative remedies, groups
8 and community-based projects designed to make women feel stronger and
9 better about themselves, as a challenge to the accumulation of more pills,
20111 labels and stigma (see summary in Mullender, 1995). Older women have
1 argued for the right to ‘grow old disgracefully’ (Hen Co-op, 1993, 1995),
2 rather than being seen as sweet old ladies who are grateful for any help
3 they receive and always good for a bit of babysitting. We may conclude,
4 then, that raising the voices of women’s groups and making women more
5111 visible in broader user movements, can only be to the good.
6
7
Resemblances between the aims of the women’s
8
movement and those of recognised service user
9
movements
30111
1 It would seem useful to explore to what extent women’s demands coincide
2 with those of the now recognised user groups. (Later in this chapter, we
3 shall also consider what, if anything, separates them.) In all the writings
4 about user movements, both general and specific to particular groups, it is
5 possible to discern certain key principles (Mullender and Ward, 1991; see
6 also Morris, 1994), a number of which are explored below and which do
7 seem to hold good for women in general and abused women in particular,
8 though none has yet been carried through completely into practice, as we
9 shall see throughout this book.
40111
1
Rejection of negative labels
2
3 It may seem like the emptiest kind of political correctness when user groups
44111 start quibbling with language, but the kind of discourse that is used to
16 Rethinking service user movements

discuss who someone is, what they are like and why, what they can and
cannot do and what they need from others makes a vast difference to the
fundamental way we perceive and treat that person. For example, the reve-
lation in the social model of disability (Oliver, 1990) that disability is part
of normal life, not somehow inferior, and that it is the social environment,
rather than physical or mental impairment, that is handicapping turned
traditional thinking on its head.
Like other user groups, women continue to be defined by male-dominated
society as ‘other’, as lacking something. Theories of ‘learned helplessness’
(Walker, 1977–8) and terminology that stresses a ‘victim’ status (Kelly
et al., 1996), mean that abused women continue to be viewed as depen-
dent, just as they were probably treated during the abuse. Empowerment,
confidence-building and awareness-raising have always been key aims of
the refuge movement, so that women’s individual and collective strengths
move to the top of the agenda, and language is crucial in achieving this.

Gaining a voice
Speaking out, being one’s own advocate or, where this is not possible,
calling on citizen advocacy or collective self-advocacy to put over one’s
true opinions and preferences (as opposed to having a carer or a pro-
fessional assuming they know what is best) is a fundamental aspect of the
principles, process, goals and achievements of all user groups. Finding a
voice is the first stage in voicing demands and calling for social change.
Since women have been arguing their cause since the 1960s (and
before), one might assume that this battle had been won for abused women.
Yet the next chapter will show that even groups that are most vocal on
their own behalf are rarely accorded a real say in decision-making in policy
or practice settings. Furthermore, the findings of our study, reported in
later chapters, suggest that there is an unacknowledged tendency in some
domestic violence services to engage in practice that aims to protect
survivors but, paradoxically, sometimes acts to silence them. This silenc-
ing tendency, we will argue, can lead survivors to minimise the extent
and nature of the abuse they endure and may discourage their participation
in initiatives designed to assist them. Thus, gaining a voice, even thirty
years after the needs of abused women began to be recognised, is still an
issue for women who have experienced violence from partners and
husbands.

Challenging the control of others over one’s life

User groups have sought to establish user-controlled services wherever
possible and, where not, to make service planners, commissioners and
providers accountable to service users for decisions and quality assurance.
 Survivors as service users 17

1111 Only by changing the way that service planners and providers think about
2 users will we fit the services to the users, not the users to the services. This
3 goes beyond the familiar debate within social care about making services
4 needs-led rather than resources-led, because it is also about choice, not
5 merely what a professional says the individual needs. This idea lies at the
6 heart of user-centred services (User-Centred Services Group, 1993), regard-
7 less of whether or not they are user-run.
8 For women, taking control of one’s own life and refusing to be the
9 symbolic property of one’s father or husband (with resonances, still, of the
1011 historical giving in marriage from one to the other as a chattel, to be owned,
1 to obey unquestioningly and to have no voice in decisions) were funda-
2 mental aspects of what the women’s movement demanded. Abused women
3111 have typically lived with men who have continued to believe in their own
4 inherent superiority and right to rule the roost. It is often when women
5 question such attitudes that they are abused. It is consequently particularly
6 inappropriate if the services offered to women post separation from their
7 abuser continue to seek to control their lives. User voices need to continue
8 to be raised so as to ensure that women surviving men’s abuse can make
9 their own decisions and choices.
20111
1
Generating theory
2
3 The first step in moving away from marginalisation and exclusion – in
4 moving centre stage – is to have developed one’s own analysis of the situ-
5111 ation. The most notable example of this kind of reanalysis, not least because
6 it has now itself become the norm in legislation and social policy (though
7 not in medicine), is the social model of disability (see Oliver, 1990). This
8 model recognises, as we have noted, that the major obstacles are situated
9 outside the individual and that the challenge is for society, not the disabled
30111 person, to adapt and adjust. Priestley (1999) regards the analysis of a dis-
1 abling society by disabled people as a ‘counter-culture’, throwing up new
2 theory and new principles that have transformed policy and practice
3 (though there is still some way to go). Service users ‘have generated their
4 own knowledges, theories and models, based on their first-hand experience’
5 (Beresford and Croft, 2001: 295).
6 Equivalent theory generated right across the key fields of oppression in
7 society by marginalised groups, according to Dullea and Mullender,
8 includes:
9
40111 • feminist theory and methodology;
1 • lesbian and queer theorizing;
2 • postcolonial and African-centred theorizing; . . .
3 • ‘people first’ and ‘equal people’ challenges to concepts of learning
44111 difficulties;
18 Rethinking service user movements

• child-centred research and theories of children’s rights and per-

spectives;
• the challenges of the psychiatric survivors’ movement;
• ‘growing old disgracefully’ ideas on ageing.
(Dullea and Mullender, 1999: 96–7)

Women, in generating a body of feminist theory, and also in rethinking

how new knowledge should be arrived at through research (Stanley and
Wise, 1983, 1993; Maynard and Purvis, 1994), have made an enormous
contribution to the sum of human knowledge. This is particularly true in
respect of men’s violence, where all the key writers about women’s and
children’s experiences of domestic violence tend to be female and often
write from an overtly feminist position. Yet, paradoxically, this does not
necessarily mean that women’s perspectives hold sway in respect of the
responses made to men’s violence. In criminal and civil justice contexts,
for example, male-dominated discourses persist and, despite some improve-
ments, it remains hard for women to see their partners appropriately
prosecuted or punished for the harm and fear they inflict (Edwards, 2001).
Women may own their own knowledge, but they have yet to see it acknow-
ledged or implemented where it really matters.

Becoming empowered/empowerment
Empowerment means gaining personal strength and self-esteem, and then
social influence and power, typically through collective self-organisation,
through identifying with one another and through offering mutual support.
The following statement from the nationwide user-led disability project,
Shaping Our Lives, sums up the demands that arise:

We want to be empowered as citizens and members of society and to

achieve meaningful equality. Meaningful equality means having the
same choices, opportunities, rights and responsibilities as all other
members of society. It includes being enabled to live independently
with the support that we require as a result of our impairments. Being
empowered and independent means having full choice and control over
the way we live. It is particularly important in relation to the provision
of support services.
(Shaping Our Lives, undated)

With the exception of the phrase, ‘as a result of our impairments’, which
is specific to one user group, all of the above is true for women and reflects
the equality demands of the early women’s movement. Whether abused
women have choice and control over the provision of support services, we
shall see in later chapters.
 Survivors as service users 19

1111 Differences between abused women and other

2 user movements
3
At the same time, there are aspects of what abused women have to struggle
4
against that are not as widely mentioned in the user group literature.
5
6
7 Confidentiality
8 Both exposure to danger and harm, and the resultant need for any responses
9 to be grounded in issues of safety, security and confidentiality are funda-
1011 mental in the field of domestic violence. In other fields, however, service
1 use rarely involves life-and-death dangers, other than in the sense that some
2 people would be unable to continue living without care. Confidentiality is
3111 rather rarely alluded to in relation to user rights. Interestingly, the other
4 user group self-labelled as ‘survivors’, those of the psychiatric system, list
5 it among key user rights that are denied in current services (Good Practices
6 in Mental Health, cited in Harding and Beresford, 1996, as part of a consul-
7 tation on service standards), thus establishing some commonality with
8 abused women. Also, it is clear from other comments in the same publi-
9 cation that privacy regarding personal information is actually a concern of
20111 all groups who come into contact with social care services. It simply is less
1 often mentioned, perhaps as a less urgent priority, but for abused women
2 it can save lives.
3
4
5111 Stigma/silencing
6 Women often feel unable to disclose that they are survivors of abuse. The
7 stigma of sexual abuse, in particular, and of other types of personal violence
8 means that some abused women still feel silenced (see Chapter 6). While
9 stigma is a widespread experience among service user groups, it may
30111 perhaps be harder for abused women to raise their voices initially, since
1 talking about their experiences may make them feel more, rather than less,
2 ashamed. Over time, however, discovering that they are not alone in their
3 experiences is a positive learning curve for women, as for other user groups.
4
5
6 Hidden among professionals
7 Survivors of domestic violence who are also professionals are often unable
8 to disclose their experiences without losing credibility (as discussed
9 throughout this book). This, again, is a shared experience with survivors
40111 of the psychiatric system and probably with other less visible service user
1 categories. What may be different, however, is the widespread nature of
2 woman abuse, and of child abuse, so that survivors are employed through-
3 out the helping professions. Again, though, if we took a wide definition of
44111 mental distress, this might not be unique.
20 Rethinking service user movements

Overall, there seems no logical reason not to regard abused women

service users as a user group with largely overlapping issues with other
user groups, but with some areas of particular emphasis around confiden-
tiality, safety, stigma and reluctance to disclose, all of which are
experienced in common with at least one other heavily labelled group.

Why have women not been seen as service users?

So, if service user movements sprang from the earlier social movements,
including gender activism, and if women are service users of specialist
services, why are they not thought of as a service user group? Of course
to become a viable social movement, self-organisation and campaigning
are required and abused women service users have engaged in these to a
limited extent so far. However, as we have argued, abused women can be
seen as part of the wider activist movement against domestic violence
which has been extremely vocal over many years, even though, in common
with many user groups, it has often been ignored and overlooked. On a
more general level, the huge social changes that have happened for women
since the 1960s were never primarily about service use but about every
aspect of women’s lives. Indeed, the specialist services we now think of
for women – refuges, rape crisis centres, women’s community-based
projects – had no forerunners that had to be transformed, as was the case
for disabled people, psychiatric survivors and so on. The institution that
women most typically wanted to transform was that of marriage (and the
control of women’s sexuality through it).
Perhaps even more significantly, abused women have had a constant
battle to be accepted as entitled to a service from the statutory sector
of welfare. In the social work arena for example, they were told until
very recently that their difficulties were ‘not a statutory responsibility’
(Mullender, 1996), so it is not surprising that research has shown only about
a third in non-refuge samples finding social workers helpful (McWilliams
and McKiernan, 1993; Abrahams, 1994), with black women giving partic-
ularly negative feedback (Mama, 1996). Even now, most local authorities
only prioritise cases that have a child protection aspect, typically where the
abused woman is thought not to be able to keep the children safe – not
surprisingly if she is given no help with her own life-and-death situation
(Mullender and Morley, 1994). Studies have repeatedly revealed social
workers’ tendency to focus narrowly on the children, to the detriment of
women’s safety (Maynard, 1985; McWilliams and McKiernan, 1993;
Humphreys, 2000) and sometimes of children’s safety, because the danger
to children from a man who abuses his partner is not recognised (Bridge
Child Care Consultancy Service, 1991). This situation has only patchily
improved since the overlaps became more widely accepted between the
abuse of women and the abuse of children (Humphreys et al., 2000). Yet,
 Survivors as service users 21

1111 in fact, local authorities are free to prioritise support for services for abused
2 women and their children, through their Community Care Plans, Children’s
3 Services Plans and Crime and Disorder Strategies, which would work to
4 keep both women and children far safer than at present (Mullender, 1996).
5 Some are beginning to do so.
6 Because abused women have never been thought of as users of social
7 work and other services in their own right, there has been no struggle to
8 gain a user voice and hence, now that user views are being routinely sought
9 in all sorts of government and local government initiatives, women are
1011 frequently omitted from consideration. We would argue that this is a serious
1 gap and that the time has come to challenge it.
2
3111
What could be gained from listening to women as
4
service users?
5
6 User involvement is crucial in improving agency responses to any area of
7 human need, and domestic violence is no exception. An adequate under-
8 standing of the nature and scope of the problem requires that the myths
9 about it be replaced with accounts of women’s actual lived experience,
20111 since these constitute the most appropriate evidence on which to base
1 professional intervention (Mullender, 1996). This is only likely to happen
2 if women’s stories are voiced and heard. Service providers, having been
3 put into the role of experts, need:
4
5111 to understand the complexities of women’s attempts to escape; the use
6 by male partners of all forms of abuse to prevent this; the interaction
7 between the emotional impact of the abuse and the difficulty of nego-
8 tiating the maze of legal and welfare services; above all, the crucial
9 need for advocacy, self-help and support services to empower women
30111 through this process on their own terms.
1 (ibid.: 1)
2
3 This understanding can best be acquired from another kind of expert: that
4 is, from the survivors of domestic violence themselves. The opportunity to
5 share experiential knowledge between survivors through the self-help
6 ethos of Women’s Aid also provides women themselves with mutual access
7 to an expert resource which is different from that available from health
8 and social care professionals and which some women may consider more
9 useful than professional input. Furthermore, the establishment of dialogue
40111 between users and providers of services creates forums in which experien-
1 tial and professional knowledge can be shared and thus offers at least the
2 possibility of transformation and change, as we shall show in later chapters.
3 There is another crucial reason why the voices of abused women must
44111 be heard. It is now widely recognised that it is essential to include partner
22 Rethinking service user movements

reports as the most important measure of whether violent men have changed
after attending a perpetrator programme (Mullender and Burton, 2001).
This is because women partners and ex-partners routinely mention more
incidents of abuse than do perpetrators themselves or than are contained in
official records kept, for example, by the criminal justice system (since
most domestic violence goes unreported and abusers tend to minimise
and deny it). It is also important because women are the only ones who
can say whether they are still living in fear, even if the actual violence has
stopped. For example, in one major study in Scotland, three-quarters of
women reported persistent pushing, grabbing and slapping, as against only
one-fifth of male partners; women reported more, and more frequent,
injuries, whereas perpetrators rated both their violence and the injuries they
inflicted as less serious (Dobash et al., 2000). This is not usually because
women are exaggerating what has happened to them. American research
has shown that women tend to report what has occurred accurately, with
accounts that remain consistent over time and in response to interrelated
interview questions, together with evidence from hospital and arrest records
to substantiate their stories (Gondolf, 1998). Consequently, we can say that
women’s voices are vital to efforts designed to change the behaviour and
attitudes of the men who abuse them.
Though there can be obstacles (which will be explored in the next
chapter), it is not impossible to achieve this open and honest dialogue with
and between service users in any category. In recent years, a generic litera-
ture on user involvement in service provision has developed, featuring ‘how
to do it’ guides aimed at professionals, including those in local authorities
who purchase (Lindow, 1994a) and commission services (Department
of Health, 1996b). Key bodies established to work for these aims have
included the User-Centred Services Group (1993), the Open Service Project
(founded by Peter Beresford and Suzy Croft) and the National User
Involvement Project, through which the Department of Health produced
guides on involving service users as consultants and trainers (Department
of Health, 1996a) and in commissioning services (Department of Health,
1996b). In the same year, the Department funded consultations on the
standards service users and carers expect from social services (Harding
and Beresford, 1996) and on involving them in local services (Harding and
Oldman, 1996). Women need and deserve to be part of these debates.

What abused women lose by not being regarded

as a user movement
The fact that abused women have never won the battle to be regarded as
users of mainstream services in their own right, and are not regarded as a
user movement, matters now because user voices and user viewpoints are
being consulted more than ever before. Independent representation aimed
 Survivors as service users 23

1111 at giving people a say and a choice in services has become a constant
2 official refrain since the Citizen’s Charter (Home Office, 1991). Advocacy
3 is now enshrined in government policy, featuring, for example, in the
4 Valuing People White Paper in the field of learning difficulty (Department
5 of Health, 2001), in Quality Protects guidance, NHS reforms in the shape
6 of Patient Advocacy and Liaison Services, and elsewhere. The role of advo-
7 cacy has been recognised, too, in relation to the protection of vulnerable
8 adults, both nationally (e.g. Law Commission, 1995) and locally (Bennett
9 and Kingston, 1993).
1011 Government is still working here largely within the consumerist model,
1 supporting the marginalised individual to make his or her views known
2 within a framework of national standards, rather than from a collective
3111 activism stance. Standards are imposed from the top down but it still
4 matters that women are excluded. We live now with a politics of partici-
5 pation in social welfare (Beresford and Croft, 2001) which emphasises
6 consumer feedback and which ‘has given those movements whose members
7 are users of welfare services an important space to push for their demands’
8 (Williams, 1992). The Best Value Framework, for example, now requires
9 consultation with service users and with local people more generally (see
20111 also Chapter 7). The issues of information and consumer choice must also
1 feature in Community Care Plans and Health Improvement Programmes
2 and, here, there is a collective element in that users’ and carers’ own organ-
3 isations are among those consulted, with marginalised groups given special
4 mention.
5111 The newly established Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) is
6 including user-generated knowledge among the sources it will consult in
7 recommending evidence-based best practice:
8
9 Users’ and carers’ experience and expertise on what works, along with
30111 the experience of practitioners and of service providers, and the
1 evidence from research and service reviews, should be an important
2 part of the social care knowledge base.
3 (Social Care Institute for Excellence, 2002:
4 pages unnumbered)
5
6 If abused women are not among the users being consulted, then their know-
7 ledge – that they do not feel safe, that confidentiality is a life and death
8 issue and so on – will be excluded from consideration. Yet, provided they
9 are prepared to listen, social workers and other social care professionals
40111 are among those who can help women be safe or can place them in renewed
1 danger. One classic study in this particular arena revealed that as many as
2 one in three social work cases involved known instances of domestic
3 violence (Maynard, 1985), and a similar figure appears if social workers
44111 are asked to estimate the prevalence of domestic violence in cases where
24 Rethinking service user movements

children are on the child protection register (Hester and Pearson, 1998).
This last number can double when practitioners more experienced in
domestic violence matters look at the cases concerned (ibid.). If users are
not listened to, services will march on unchanged, possibly colluding with
– or even increasing – the dangers for women and children, or they will
be ‘improved’ according to political or service provider whim and users
will become yet more disenchanted.
Having a voice does not happen automatically. It takes effort, as this
book will illustrate. So, if a particular group is not conceptualised as part
of the body of users, its views will quite simply be overlooked. We are not
making a naive or simplistic argument in calling for women who have
experienced violence to be included among the service users who are
routinely consulted. We are fully aware of the potential for tokenism and
of the smokescreens that can obscure the lack of real change. The next
chapter will explore in greater depth the obstacles to, and limitations
involved in, user involvement in the design and delivery of services.
However, being ignored – finding oneself outside looking in – is damaging
both to service users and to practitioners, so this chapter has concentrated
on arguing why abused women should be conceptualised as a service user
movement and what could be gained from this.

Conclusion
Women have fought some tremendous social battles since the mid twen-
tieth century and have won enormous social advances but they have never
been able to count on anyone else to include them. Certainly, neither offi-
cial thinking nor the user participation literature more widely has taken
women on board as a user group to be consulted about service provision,
any more than new social movement theorising has given them the place
they deserve, despite women having had their own theory and their own
user-run services for some decades. Abused women in particular tend to
remain marginalised. Yet there is no logical reason why women domestic
violence survivors should not feature in user arguments, demands and
action. As we have shown in this chapter, the empowerment demands of
the women’s movement and of other user movements overlap almost
entirely in terms of process (having a voice, winning rights and respect
and so on), and, where abused women do have particular issues that affect
them disproportionately, such as stigma and confidentiality, these are also
shared with at least one other identifiable user group. Meanwhile, govern-
ment policy has moved strongly towards user consultation and the provision
of advocacy (at least within an individualised, consumerist model of
user participation which will be explored in the next chapter), so that
it is becoming increasingly worthwhile to be on the inside rather than
the outside of the user movement. Also, if policy planning and service
 Survivors as service users 25

1111 development lack abused women’s voices, they will be at best flawed and
2 incomplete and, at worst, dangerous.
3 We need to think of women service users as social actors, as socially
4 included, not excluded. However, we can no longer see ‘women’ as a homo-
5 geneous group, or as a dichotomised or essential category. There is differ-
6 ence and diversity between women, and services must meet the needs of all,
7 including the needs of children if women themselves become abusive
8 (Mullender et al., 2002). This means ensuring that all women are included,
9 black and white, lesbian and straight, disabled and non-disabled. It means
1011 hearing the voices of women of different ages, women married and with
1 children or not, and women of wide-ranging ethnicities and backgrounds.
2 Service providers and policy-makers cannot afford to ignore these voices,
3111 as the rest of this book will illustrate.
4 The next chapter will show that all user groups and movements, including
5 abused women, still face obstacles to real participation. The research
6 reported in the later chapters of this book may, therefore, have much to
7 offer to the service user movement across the board, and not just to abused
8 women, in further exploring the obstacles to involvement and particularly
9 in offering some possible remedies.
20111
1
Note
2
3 1 What is now referred to as ‘first-wave feminism’ was the activism of the nine-
4 teenth and early twentieth centuries that led up to women gaining the vote and
5111 to other advances.
6
7
8
9
30111
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
40111
1
2
3
44111
Chapter 3

The obstacles to
empowerment
What kind of power for women?

Following on from the argument we developed in the last chapter, we are

not so naive as to assume that gaining a voice as a user group would leave
abused women wholly better off. User participation has been widely
critiqued as open to tokenism, co-option and exploitation. There needs to
be a clear understanding of the dangers and limitations, and of action that
can be taken to combat these, if women are to obtain full benefit from a
new level of involvement. Indeed, our own research study (reported in later
chapters) sought to distinguish between the mere semblance of involve-
ment, on the one hand, and survivors of domestic violence exerting actual
influence and decision-making power, on the other.
The problems with both the theory and practice of empowerment through
user participation are well-documented (Croft and Beresford, 1996;
Humphries, 1996; Ramcharan et al., 1997). They revolve around issues
such as competing ideals, professional vested interests and the demands of
funders. In this chapter, we explore a range of barriers to empower-
ment, grouped under considerations of conflicting models, managerial and
professional agendas, practical obstacles and contested understandings of
power. All of these may prevent abused women, as well as other groups
of service users, from having a full say in the policies and services they
need to help them survive. In the chapters that follow, based on our research
with women survivors of domestic abuse, we will see some of these
obstacles operating in practice, as well as a number of effective ways round
them, and we will conclude with some useful advice to those who want to
be part of abused women gaining a real voice in refuge, multi-agency and
statutory responses to men’s violence.

Conflicting models: two approaches to

empowerment
We saw in the last chapter how there can be a tension, even within the
aims of user movements themselves, between concrete change and a
broader philosophy of consciousness-raising and empowerment. At the
 Obstacles to empowerment 27

1111 wider, societal level, a fundamental element of the understanding required

2 to give a real say to women (or to any other user group) is to perceive that
3 there have always been two approaches to user empowerment (Mullender
4 and Ward, 1991; Croft and Beresford, 1996; Forbes and Sashidharan,
5 1997). These can be broadly identified with individual consultation, on the
6 one hand, versus finding a collective voice, on the other – what we might
7 see as a continuum from user involvement in top-down policy and prac-
8 tice agendas to users’ control of their own agendas. Over the same period
9 that the theory and practice of empowerment were coming to the fore, in
1011 the form of a call for a full, anti-oppressive sharing of power with service
1 users (e.g. Mullender and Ward, 1991), social policy in the Conservative
2 era was introducing the ideas of the market into community care provision,
3111 and John Major’s Citizen’s Charter (Home Office, 1991) was arguing for
4 individual choice.
5 The language of the two philosophies met in the middle, around words
6 like ‘choice’ and even ‘empowerment’, but they have never used the terms
7 to mean the same thing. The welfare consumerist model of the New Right
8 (during the Thatcher era and subsequently) concerned the right for those
9 who could afford it to buy choice, among whichever services survived the
20111 move to a mixed economy after comprehensive public provision came
1 under attack. The user movement, on the other hand, had fundamentally
2 different demands, calling for a full say in controlling decisions about what
3 kinds of services should be provided, in what ways and to what standards
4 – indeed, often for the right to run their own services (Mullender and Ward,
5111 1991). Thus, it is always essential to be mindful of the continuum between
6 ‘consumerist’ and ‘democratic’ models (Croft and Beresford, 1996: 186)
7 and to be wary of what lies behind any general discussion of ‘user partici-
8 pation’ or ‘user involvement’. The speaker may be situated at one extreme
9 or the other of the continuum, or may simply never have thought through
30111 the issues.
1 The consumerist approach is usually associated with policy-makers,
2 politicians and service providers, and its aim in offering users participation
3 is really to make services more efficient, cost effective and responsive,
4 rather than to redistribute power. Users are being ‘used’ to deliver this end.
5 The democratic approach on the other hand, is associated with service users
6 and their organisations, who are primarily concerned with participation as
7 a way of improving their lives, winning rights and exercising choice and
8 some control over the policy process. This can be summed up in the short-
9 hand phrase: ‘user empowerment’. Hence, as Croft and Beresford (1996)
40111 emphasise, participatory initiatives can be a route either to redistributing
1 power or holding on to it. They call this ‘the paradox of participation’ (ibid.:
2 192) and, for them, the key to resolving it is being clear about the under-
3 lying objectives – whether the initiators of the move to involve users see
44111 it as an emancipatory project (Leonard, 1997; Pease, 2002) or simply as a
28 Rethinking service user movements

means to a more efficient status quo. Both models do, to some extent, refor-
mulate the way we view service users, placing them far more in the centre
of services and giving them some kind of a voice, but it is important to
remember that the approaches diverge fundamentally around the question
of power, to which we shall return later in this chapter.

Losing hold to managerialist agendas: the

encroachment of bureaucracy
Recognising this divergence, according to Croft and Beresford (1996),
helps us to understand why user participation ‘is so often treated as a
rhetorical flourish rather than a serious policy and why it has become so
devalued’ (ibid.: 192). Under New Labour, we have stayed largely with the
consumerist model, first introduced under Thatcherism. The modernisation
agenda that is currently being promoted is managerialist in many respects.
Users are consulted (classically in focus groups – has any other political
group ever been identified with its own research method?), but they are not
in charge. They are listened to, and possibly respected now by politicians
and the public more than are the public sector officers and social workers
who serve them (though this is not generally true for women users of
child care services), but they are not given control of budgets. (Direct
payments that are given to users to buy their own services are allocations,
not overall budget decisions.) Purchasing from preferred providers and
suppliers under block contracts has reduced the opportunities for users to
exercise choice (Dowson, 1997), rather than increasing them as the com-
munity care reforms were meant to do. Indeed, service providers may want
to involve users in order to improve efficiency and reduce costs rather than
to have them exerting any real influence or making changes. They may
co-opt users to give the impression of participation rather than genuinely
wanting to share or transfer power.
‘Safe’ ways to involve users, as far as service providers are concerned,
include using consultative procedures as delaying tactics, diverting users
into alternative agendas, legitimating decisions by having users present,
and inviting tokenistic individuals rather than talking to representative
groups of users (Croft and Beresford, 1996). All the talk of user partici-
pation and of a move to more user-centred services can be hijacked by
those whose chief interest is the effective management of budgetary allo-
cations. For example, service users who receive a questionnaire asking
them to state where they prefer to access services, may find, if they reply
that it was handy to contact a social worker through the GP surgery
following an accident, that they are contributing to the closure of social
work offices elsewhere in the town that they might have found handier or
more appropriate for other kinds of problems (a real example). Service
users want to get involved, in order to have a say and to broaden the basis
 Obstacles to empowerment 29

1111 of participation, not to be made party to a managerially-driven agenda, such

2 as a reduction in service, which has never been fully explained.
3 In a similar vein, Anderson (1996) argues that ‘[t]hose with power-over
4 will inevitably try to de-politicise by appropriation of the terms and defini-
5 tions’ of empowerment; those who hold the power may not openly oppose
6 collective action but they diffuse it just as effectively by individualising it,
7 or by employing its strategies ‘in top-down, disempowering ways’ (ibid.:
8 74). These and other forms of tokenism – giving the appearance without
9 the reality of involvement – can be far harder for users to handle than
1011 outright opposition because they appear (and may actually be) well inten-
1 tioned and because they buy off opposition with partial, incremental change
2 that does not threaten the real location of power and influence. If these
3111 tactics are being used to mask, justify or sell policies that primarily aim to
4 save money, cut back on services and shift blame, then we are driven back
5 into questioning who holds the power and for whose benefit they are exer-
6 cising it (as further discussed on pp. 34–9). The acceptance of funding for
7 a user-run group or service, in particular, may have strings attached and
8 can result in interference, especially from the more mainstream sources
9
(Lindow, 1994). We found examples of this in our research, which we
20111
discuss in later chapters.
1
2
3 Who initiates participation: the professionalisation
4 of empowerment
5111
At the front line, there are also tensions between practitioners and service
6
7 users. Through the 1990s, empowerment became a major focus and, indeed,
8 an assessable requirement for qualified practice in the welfare professions.
9 This was fought hard for by professionals who were committed to the issue
30111 and to anti-discriminatory policies. Paradoxically, though, a mainstreamed
1 emphasis on empowerment can present a further problem if the pro-
2 fessionals who ‘do the empowering’ (Baistow, 1994: 37) make ‘claims to
3 empowerment as a knowledge base’ (Gillman, 1996: 108). This can place
4 them, the professionals, rather than users, at the centre of the process – a
5 position from which they may appropriate both the definition and the
6 operation of empowering practice and once again assume the role of experts
7 in determining other people’s needs. This professionalisation of empower-
8 ment can be seen as a reaction to the threat to professional knowledge and
9 expertise, and to professionally designed services, inherent in the develop-
40111 ment of new social movements and user groups that we outlined in the last
1 chapter (Gillman, 1996).
2 There have been many examples of user-designed and user-led services
3 that celebrate the knowledge and expertise of users in identifying and
44111 meeting their own needs (particularly well documented in relation to mental
30 Rethinking service user movements

health (see, for example, Barker and Peck, 1987; Chamberlin, 1988;
O’Hagan, 1993; Lindow, 1994)), as well as moves towards people taking
control of their own health and welfare. These initiatives may be benefi-
cial for service users but they can also threaten professionals who see their
position as rooted in their exclusive rights to these areas of practice.
So, while professional theories of empowerment might appear to be anti-
discriminatory, they need to be treated with caution (Gillman, 1996),
because, if empowerment is professional territory, there are dangers for
those who seek to empower themselves, in their own ways, or who prefer
not to be empowered by professionals at all (Baistow, 1994).
A particularly trenchant criticism of the notion of user empowerment is
that the constant talk about it has been a ‘substitute for action’ and a
‘comfortable delusion of change, while allowing professionals to keep their
power in all the ways that matter’ (Dowson, 1997: 101). Thus, the atten-
tion given to user empowerment may not signify any appreciable degree
of professional commitment to hand over power or that any real progress
has been made. Once again, Dowson sees the struggle for power taking
place entirely on professional territory and regards status differentials, in
this case between people with learning difficulties and the staff who work
with them, as, to date, immune to change. Furthermore, although pro-
fessionals can offer evidence of service users having been given a voice in
all sorts of projects, consultations and advocacy groups, they typically still
do not have power as tenants, consumers or employees, and being
‘consulted’ is simply not a substitute that the general public would readily
accept in place of these other roles, he argues. ‘When the initiative for user
empowerment rests with people who would best serve their own interests
by holding on to the power they already enjoy, there is good reason to be
sceptical about the prospects for real change’ (ibid., 1997: 107). In our
study, the operation of power emerged repeatedly as a vital issue to address
in terms of user participation by survivors of domestic abuse, as we will
discuss in Part 3.
At a purely practical level, the lid can be kept on user dissatisfaction by
professionals indulging in power games, linguistic subterfuge or a resort to
procedures. In domestic violence services, multi-agency forums can
become talking shops that fail to challenge inaction and consequently make
little real progress (Hague et al., 1996). If they do engage in dialogue with
service users, professionals may baulk at or dilute user involvement
because they anticipate criticism, unrealistic demands or outright anger; it
is hard to be open to complete rethinking of how one does one’s job
(Harding and Oldman, 1996). This kind of questioning is unfamiliar and
uncomfortable for professionals, and may make them unduly defensive. It
is especially hard to be challenged by patients and service users who have
traditionally been labelled as vulnerable, or as unable to cope or make their
 Obstacles to empowerment 31

1111 own decisions (Barnes, 1999); that is, by people who are ‘discredited’
2 (Lindow, 1994: 5) and who have a ‘spoiled identity’ (Aris et al., 2002,
3 drawing on Goffman, 1963), as we discuss in detail in Chapter 6. Even
4 more so, in organisations that have a high level of user involvement or are
5 user-controlled, it is hard to face being hired and fired by service users.
6 Professionals and their agencies are also suspicious of non-hierarchical
7 forms of organisation (Lindow, 1994a). They tend to want to know who is
8 ‘in charge’ and to mistrust the idea that collective action can mean collec-
9 tive management (and vice versa). Getting past all these negative
1011 assumptions and prejudices takes time and particular effort, as we shall see
1 in later chapters.
2
3111
Barriers to involvement
4
5 In practice, the process of participation may be far from smooth for service
6 users. Formal consultative procedures can tend to become enmeshed in
7 bureaucracy and administration, and levels of actual involvement may be
8 uneven, resulting in only limited achievements. This may prove ‘stressful,
9 diversionary and unproductive’ for service users unless adequate support
20111 and access provisions are put in place (Croft and Beresford, 2002: 388).
1 Many studies of community, disability and user groups have confirmed this
2 scepticism. Grant (1997), for example, records a parent saying that there
3 did not seem much point in being consulted if the experts were going to
4 take the final decisions, an issue that was frequently raised, too, by service
5111 users we interviewed in our own research.
6
7
Practical limitations
8
9 A range of practical obstacles are on record as likely to impede user partic-
30111 ipation. In a study of user involvement in community care, for example,
1 Servian (1996) found that the actual process was disempowering, owing to
2 management-controlled agendas and incomprehensible procedures, power
3 structures that limited levels of participation, scarcity of resources and
4 ‘buck-passing’. Every attempt at empowerment by managers and frontline
5 workers had its downside in the way it actually operated. Crucially, one
6 carer even doubted whether the consultation forums in which users and
7 carers participated were genuinely part of the decision-making process,
8 since they seemed to keep the real issues from being aired. Grant (1997)
9 lists shift work, lack of available transport, poor health and caring respon-
40111 sibilities as concrete barriers to getting involved. All of these can affect
1 women disproportionately. Croft and Beresford argue for adequate support
2 to make a reality of participation, ‘on equal terms’ (2002: 390). We shall
3 see in Part 3 that this can mean training, mandating and practical matters
44111 like paying travel and childcare costs.
32 Rethinking service user movements

Psychological barriers
Not all the obstacles to user participation are essentially practical. Some
are psychological. Despite the fact that all the survivors interviewed in a
previous study of multi-agency work in relation to domestic violence
thought that women’s voices should be heard in their local domestic
violence forum and that it was important that agencies should listen to and
learn from women who have experienced domestic violence, some were
less positive in relation to being personally involved (Hague et al., 1996).
Similarly, in a study of the All Wales Strategy for the Development of
Services for Mentally Handicapped People (Welsh Office, 1983), Grant
(1997) found that a typical response to the question of user partici-
pation (in this case from a parent) was: ‘Good idea but don’t ask me;
it requires people with particular qualities – people who can speak out,
people with time, people whose expertise . . . is acknowledged’ (ibid.:
126). Thus, a lack of confidence can be a real barrier, which may need
considerable support and encouragement to overcome. Grant found that
a large number of people were unaware of their right to participate,
or of the purpose of this, despite widespread publicity. And many of
those who did get involved wondered whether the degree of change
achieved made their own or others’ participation worth the effort. We might
assume that this could deter service users from being involved on further
occasions.
Further disincentives to involvement are outlined by Harding and
Oldman (1996). Users are not used to being listened to and may not believe
that this can really happen. It may feel unsafe to speak out if you are depen-
dent on others for their goodwill, help and practical resources, or if what
you are likely to say feels confrontational because you need to tell agencies
that their well-meaning efforts to date have been tokenistic or positively
unhelpful. Certainly, some participants in Servian’s study (1996) felt that
speaking out and expressing their views might have been seen as aggres-
sion, thus getting them into trouble. Service users might feel nervous,
lacking in confidence and unable to participate on an equal basis with
apparently powerful and articulate professionals (Harding and Oldman,
1996). Further, participation may not extend equally to everyone if some
user group members lack the patience to help others speak out and instead
do all the talking themselves (Adams, 1996).
There may also be issues of racism and of other types of discrimination
and disadvantage coming into play. Black women may find it harder to
speak out in front of white women, users in front of carers (and vice versa),
and lesbian service users may have their own issues which it would be
easier to share in a separately convened group, for example.
 Obstacles to empowerment 33

1111 A gendered hierarchy of involvement?

2
From the above discussion, it is clear that those who would benefit
3
most from change – the most powerless – frequently do not feel able to
4
participate in the process (Wallerstein, 1992). Hence many women, and
5
particularly abused women, are likely to be at a disadvantage. When women
6
do decide to get involved, it may not be on an equal basis. In mixed
7
community groups, they may contribute disproportionate time and energy,
8
deriving less benefit at greater cost than other participants (Anderson,
9
1011 1996). In community action contexts, there is some evidence that women
1 are less likely than men to be paid for their efforts, less likely to be in lead-
2 ership roles, more likely to take on the bulk of the detailed organisation,
3111 and more likely to be assumed to have the time for voluntary work
4 (Anderson, 1996). Yet men are more likely to benefit from the gains that
5 such campaigns may win, unless women organise separately to raise their
6 own issues and to ensure that a diversity of women’s views are heard within
7 this (Dullea and Mullender, 1999). One reason why women have estab-
8 lished their own groups and organisations is to ensure that their agendas,
9 including decreasing men’s violence, can be pursued.
20111
1 Accusations of unrepresentativeness
2
3 Clearly, it is hard for any individual woman to speak for all women since
4 women constitute half the world. The issue of representativeness (or un-
5111 representativeness) in fact crops up in all social movement and user group
6 debates and is often used as an excuse for not taking users seriously. Service
7 users and their organisations can expect to be criticised as unrepresenta-
8 tive. This will tend to happen particularly when service providers, local
9 authorities and others do not like what users have to say and regard it as
30111 a threat to the status quo and to their own power and influence, or when
1 they are so unused to hearing users speak out that they assume anyone who
2 has learnt to do so cannot be ‘typical’ (Beresford and Campbell, 1994).
3 Beresford and Campbell (1994), in a closely argued paper, suggest that it
4 is up to the service world itself to ensure representative involvement. This
5 can be done, they propose, by adopting less tokenistic forms of involve-
6 ment than inviting just one or two people to speak on behalf of many, by
7 providing appropriate forms of access and support, by involving a diver-
8 sity of users (including those from black and minority ethnic communities)
9 and by inviting members of collective advocacy organisations to speak for
40111 the organisation, not just for themselves. Professionals should also recog-
1 nise, say these authors, that they themselves have not established their
2 representativeness and that, however narrow the base of those speaking out,
3 this can never excuse bad practice. Furthermore, whereas the current
44111 fashion for focus groups, market research and other centrally controlled
34 Rethinking service user movements

forms of consultation does not involve any element of power-sharing with

service users, conversely, user groups and movements do organise collec-
tively, mandate their representatives to speak on their behalf, and often
represent views and perspectives gathered through the widest possible
participation. The authors conclude with a challenge that resonates loudly
with the research reported in this book:

There are important questions here for service agencies. Can they
reconcile schemes for user involvement and empowerment within the
overall political structures within which they are set? How can such
schemes avoid being marginal and tokenistic?
(ibid.: 324)

Later chapters will attempt to provide some answers from the experience
of abused women.

Loss of integrity or loss of impetus

Even alternatives to mainstream statutory and voluntary services that are
user-controlled from the start can face problems. They may adopt what
Dowson (1997) calls ‘the service culture’ of managerial and evaluative
structures, and may become complicit with the statutory services. Alter-
natively, they may start to mimic traditional services over time, rather than
breaking new ground to meet actual needs in more appropriate ways
(O’Hagan, 1993), the biggest challenge in doing something different
being ‘to keep it different’ (Lindow, 1994: 9). Lindow suggests that ways
of doing this include: constantly raising the awareness of new members,
keeping power in the hands of users, remaining true to the group’s original
philosophy and avoiding the replication of traditional, hierarchical
management structures and undemocratic leadership.

Power: how it operates

If empowerment is about sharing or taking power, as we have suggested
earlier, then it becomes important to think in both theoretical and practical
ways about what that power is and how it operates. Some ways of looking
at power hold out more hope than others for service users. For example,
postmodernist views of ‘bottom-up’ power and resistance can be helpful,
although the challenge they imply to the grand theories that can inspire
collective action has been something of a dampener.
Power, though a fundamental aspect of people’s lives and something we
can all talk about in a common-sense way, is actually one of the most
disputed and contested of all concepts (Scott, 1994). In our attempts to
 Obstacles to empowerment 35

1111 understand and explain how power operates within society, difficulties
2 begin when we try to formulate precise definitions. No definition of power
3 has universal support among sociologists and political scientists, because
4 what we think power is, and how and why it is possessed and exercised,
5 depends on disciplinary conventions, theoretical perspectives and political
6 allegiances. Emancipatory theories tend to involve a call for power, and
7 our understanding of it, to be transformed, so that power can be shared in
8 new ways for the good of the wider society (Mullender and Ward, 1991;
9 Dullea and Mullender, 1999). We need to look in more detail at what is
1011 meant by this.
1
2
3111 Power as domination
4 Many analyses of power (e.g. Croft and Beresford, 1996; Servian, 1996)
5 start with the work of Lukes, an Oxford sociologist and political scientist.
6 Lukes’s definition is that ‘A exercises power over B when A affects B in
7 a manner contrary to B’s interests’ (1974: 34). His three-dimensional view
8 of power builds up in three distinct stages. First, in the one-dimensional
9 view, decisions are made as a result of ‘actual, observable conflict’ (ibid.:
20111 13). There is no allowance for interests that might be ‘unarticulated or
1
unobservable’ (ibid.: 13). Rather, they are consciously held preferences
2
that result in actions related to overt issues. Out-and-out sexism versus
3
consciously aware feminism would fall under this definition. However,
4
women know only too well that most opposition is more subtle than this,
5111
and that it is often harder to marshall the arguments against unspoken patri-
6
7 archal assumptions that men know best and are always in the right.
8 Lukes’s two-dimensional view is about keeping certain issues off the
9 agenda. Overt, observable conflict is not the whole story. The sheer power
30111 of the patriarchy, we might argue, has been in making it so difficult for
1 women, for centuries, even to question the way they were treated and
2 expected to live their lives. There was simply no debate, no issue. Any
3 woman who did attempt to speak out was vilified and rejected, often by
4 other women who wanted to keep their reputations in the eyes of society,
5 quite as much as by men. Lukes traces various ideas of coercion and more
6 subtle influence operating as barriers to the open debate of policy issues
7 that it would not suit one interested party to have brought into the open.
8 ‘Non-decisions’ (ibid.: 18) become as important as decisions, with demon-
9 strable vested interests built into the prevailing political process and an
40111 uphill battle for anyone who happens to think the whole system, and its
1 underpinning value base, is wrong. This is certainly what it has felt like,
2 over the years, when women have tried to question their lot. Men’s inter-
3 ests have seemed to be embedded in the entire political, judicial and
44111 religious system. One of us can remember laughing out loud, for example,
36 Rethinking service user movements

at the incongruity of a radio station inviting the chief commentators in a

public debate, over a lesbian woman wanting a hospital to help her have
a baby by artificial insemination, to be a senior churchman, a judge and a
doctor (all male). How would the deeper questions about women’s
sexuality and motherhood ever enter into consideration on the same terms
as these men’s learned pronouncements, backed as they were by all the
weight of traditional authority – that is, of power? And the same thing is
true of woman abuse, perhaps most starkly in child contact cases where
women opposing contact with abusive ex-partners have been accused in
court of ‘implacable hostility’ or of generating ‘parental alienation
syndrome’ because no one would listen to their deepest fears that they and
their children were still in danger (Radford et al., 1999; Saunders, 2001).
So, as well as fostering certain decisions, power is used to shape people’s
perceptions, cognitions and preferences so that they accept their role in the
existing order of things, because they see this as either natural and
unchangeable, or divinely ordained and beneficial, or inevitable because no
kind of change is likely to be possible. All these suggestions have been
used to keep women ‘in their place’.
Lukes adds a third dimension to his model by arguing that the study of
power cannot be confined to conflict that is observable in the way those
with opposing interests behave, even if we include the way issues are kept
off the agenda. That is still an inadequate view of the world, he continues,
because power is used, not only to suppress conflict, but also to stop it
arising in the first place. At this most subtle level, the status quo is so perva-
sive (1974: 21) that the system reinforces itself without conscious choice
or even the conscious exercise of power. No action is necessary; there are
no acts of conflict. The less powerful party does what the powerful party
wants him or her to do, but feels as if they have chosen it for themselves.
Their very ‘thoughts and desires’ (ibid.: 23) have been controlled. This is
how advertising works and it will also sound very familiar to anyone who
has lived with an abusive man. It is ‘thought control’ and ‘indoctrination’
(ibid.: 23), but at a very insidious, subtle and completely legal level that
depends on the utter belief of the person or group with the power that
that power is absolute, right, legitimate and unquestionable. Again, think
of abusive men, and of the role of law, church and state in upholding
their position over the centuries. For empowerment to happen, not only
must resources be acquired to influence the outcomes of overt decisions,
and access be secured to decision-making processes, but, also, political
consciousness must be raised, so that women, service users and other histor-
ically powerless groups begin to perceive the issues that affect their lives
and the need to become involved in these. This begins to feel much closer
to the way in which feminist activists view the world and was certainly
how the women’s movement came to establish the first refuges.
 Obstacles to empowerment 37

1111 Power: relational

2
A fourth dimension to the study of power has been added by the French
3
philosopher, Michel Foucault, in an enormously influential analysis that
4
might better be seen perhaps as a departure from all previous notions.
5
For Foucault, power is not a possession, to be won and lost in struggles
6
between different classes and social groupings or between them and the
7
state (Foucault, 1979). Power, in this unitary sense, in his view, does not
8
exist ‘out there’ as a separate entity. We can no longer talk about ‘social
9
1011 structural oppression’ in the way we formerly did when discussing the
1 patriarchal subordination of women. Power is often seen rather, in these
2 post-structuralist days, as ‘an effect of the operation of social relationships,
3111 between groups and between individuals’, so that ‘[e]very group and every
4 individual exercises power and is subjected to it’ (Sheridan, 1980: 218).
5 This happens at every interaction and at every moment within any inter-
6 action, in constantly unequal and shifting ways. In other words, power is
7 everywhere, contained within every kind of interpersonal or social relation-
8 ship and transaction, whether economic, informational, discursive, sexual
9 or of any other kind, and even people whose ability to exercise power in
20111 most directions is severely curtailed generally find some other outlet
1 (Sheridan, 1980). Poor black men experiencing racism at work and on the
2 streets, who at home are woman abusers, might be seen as one example of
3 this, though this in no way excuses their abuse nor places it outside their
4 control to end it (see Williams, 2003).
5111 Furthermore, in Foucault’s (1979) world-view, wherever there is power,
6 there is resistance, contained within the same interaction. This leads to the
7 conclusion that everyone has some ability to resist his or her own oppres-
8 sion or abuse – to exercise ‘bottom-up’ power. We nowadays see that
9 women experiencing violence typically explore a whole range of survival
30111 mechanisms and do ‘fight back’ against their abusers in any way they can
1 (Okun, 1986; Hoff, 1990; Kirkwood, 1993). However, it is rare for the
2 ‘plurality of resistances, each a special case, distributed in an irregular way
3 in time and space’ to converge ‘to bring about a major upheaval’ because
4 ‘resistance [like power] usually takes the form of innumerable, mobile,
5 transitory points’ (Sheridan, 1980: 185). In other words, resistance is every-
6 where, but everywhere it resides in individuals and is continually shifting,
7 not constant or shared in a form that can be got hold of and worked
8 with. Revolution is possible, but, according to Foucault, would depend on
9 the ‘strategic codification’ of all these points of resistance into a concerted
40111 effort, in the same way as the state draws together and institutes the
1 dynamics of power (Foucault, 1979: 96). The women’s movement, des-
2 cribed in the last chapter, can therefore be seen as an extraordinary achieve-
3 ment, while the potential for holding on to and further advancing its gains
44111 is the responsibility of each one of us, in every daily interaction,
38 Rethinking service user movements

and arguably might not normally have an influence beyond that particular
interaction.
Foucault’s notion of power is a useful corrective to approaches which,
in trying to overcome women’s position as discriminated against, actually
replicate and perpetuate discourses that position the female as victim within
a fixed identity. On the other hand, it could be argued that Foucault’s
formulation of power makes it impossible to analyse – and even rejects the
existence of – patriarchy; that is, the systematic power of men as a group
over women as a group. This makes it much harder for feminism to survive
or to be helpful as a body of theory because it can be accused of
being essentialist, of being a unitary and overarching ‘grand theory’ that is
now too simplistic to be taken seriously. As we indicated in the last chapter,
much feminist scholarship has gone into contesting and debating these
charges, leading to substantial development within feminist epistemology
(see, for example, Hill Collins, 1991; Stacey, 1993; Stanley and Wise,
1993) and to a recent tendency to refer to ‘feminisms’ rather than
‘feminism’ (see Squires and Kemp, 1997).
Certainly, we can no longer assume, just because a project or initiative
is set up to serve women, that it is automatically good for all women. It
takes work to ensure inclusivity in relation to ethnicity, sexuality, socio-
economic status, (dis)ability and age, for example, to engage creatively
with difference and to combat discrimination. When establishing or
evaluating any service, it is important to ask: ‘which women benefit, how
much, at what costs, compared to which alternatives’ (Rhode, 1989: 317).
At the same time, there is a need to avoid excessive fragmentation. Practice
cannot be based on an individualism that denies common experiences of
abuse and violence, any more than essentialist assumptions of universal
justice must be allowed to deny individual difference or diversity. There is
still the potential for an ‘emancipatory project’ in social welfare (Leonard,
1997), and theorists in Australia (Pease and Fook, 1999; Healy, 2000)
and the UK (Batsleer and Humphries, 2000) have extended this thinking
into detailed possibilities for ‘critical’, ‘progressive’ or ‘transformative’
practice.
The critique of ‘grand theories’, or meta-narratives, as progressivist and
positivist has been a threat to feminism in some ways (see, for example,
Harding, 1993, writing within the feminist standpoint tradition). Feminism
has had to adapt to encompass the fragmented and multiple subjectivi-
ties that we now consider to constitute ‘woman’. However, since feminism
is a body of theory that is actually very good at handling uncertainty,
relativism, dissent and questioning of the discourses through which people
make sense of their lives and their world, it is still viable to think about
women as women, and about the multiple oppressions that different groups
of women sustain, provided we can encompass difference and diversity
within this.
 Obstacles to empowerment 39

1111 Following on from many structuralist, socialist and standpoint approaches,

2 postmodernism and post-structuralism have particularly emphasised that
3 knowledge is historically and culturally specific and that we must listen to
4 the voices of individuals previously silenced by dominant discourses if we
5 are to understand and work with them, for example through helping them
6 tell their own stories in ways that explore relations of power and control.
7 Foucault’s analysis of power makes it particularly important to hear indi-
8 vidual voices and individual narratives in both practice and research
9 (Davis, 1994). There is not one ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ voice (Edwards and
1011 Ribbens, 1998). Rather, we need to hear many women – including women
1 from black and minority ethnic communities, disabled, lesbian and older
2 women and women living in poverty – all talking about their personal lives
3111 and their experiences in family, community and society. We then have a
4 responsibility to attempt to convey publicly the understandings and experi-
5 ences they share, without losing meaning or context (Ribbens, 1998).
6 Certainly, it has been our aim throughout the study reported here, and now
7 in this book, to raise the voices of women who have experienced abuse and
8 who have sought help from various sources thereafter.
9 Of particular relevance in this context, perhaps, Foucauldian views on
20111 power, as outlined above, lead us to infer that there is power inherent in
1 the responses made by professionals to abuse and that individual women
2 receiving services may resist the superiority or subordination implied in
3 the relationship between helper and helped. Hearing women’s voices in
4 respect of policy and practice is just as important as hearing them in rela-
5111 tion to the original abuse. Failure to do so can lead to equally inappropriate
6 responses in both cases. Personal experience, pain and suffering can form
7 an underpinning for collective action through ‘the valid therapeutic contri-
8 bution of the non-expert, and the centrality of personal experience as a
9 powerful tool for change’ (Campbell, 1996: 221). All user movements can
30111 bring together the personal and the political – for example, impairment at
1 the level of personal feelings, emotions, perceptions and pain, with
2 disability at the level of social structural relations (Morris, 1996; Beresford,
3 1997) – just as the women’s movement does. These are the messages with
4 which we shall conclude this chapter. Listening to and working in part-
5 nership with abused women is not optional. It has to be the way forward
6 for multi-agency and other domestic violence services.
7
8
Conclusion
9
40111 Much of the literature and research reviewed above on user participation
1 as a route to changing the distribution of power in organisations appears
2 pessimistic. The contemporary analysis of power that sees it as everywhere
3 and nowhere – far harder to get hold of and to oppose than we historically
44111 thought – is apparently of little help in this process, except that it does
40 Rethinking service user movements

show how every individual can and does resist, at every point and all the
time. However, we have to find a way forward, one that takes into account
all the obstacles and complexities we have reviewed in this chapter. Not
to do so will leave service users, including abused women, without a voice,
excluded from decision-making and without a real say in their own lives
(Croft and Beresford, 1996). So, rather than continuing with ‘outside in’
social policy and sociological commentary in the rest of this book, we will
move to an approach that aims to get inside and to find out what can perhaps
work better. A key theme is the need to be willing to develop ideas and
responses that enable women survivors to engage with what exists in terms
of services and forums, to work out what gains can be made in any given
situation, and to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the opera-
tion of power. Within this, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that
refuges and related provision are among the very few feminist organisa-
tions that have been established in the UK (McIntosh, 1996). These
achievements did not come easily and they certainly cannot be sustained
or improved through tokenistic rhetoric. They have been the hallmark of
women’s resistance and campaigning, and their survival is testimony to the
fact that they are still needed in contemporary life.
Despite the difficulties, user involvement is crucial in improving agency
responses to domestic abuse. This is all the more true since ‘[e]ffective
action in any social sphere is impossible without an adequate understanding
of the nature and extent of the problem’ (Mullender, 1996: 1), yet violence
against women remains surrounded by widespread ignorance. We need to
draw on the expertise of women service users as citizens, as social actors,
as no longer socially excluded. If they are to share control over the design
and delivery of services, this means having a real voice in refuges, domestic
violence forums, key statutory agencies and other groups. Women’s power
to resist oppression includes the oppression that can come from services
themselves, for example services that started life with feminist principles
but may have allowed them to be diluted along the way. Of course, there
is difference and diversity between women, and services must be respon-
sive accordingly. The range of voices we shall hear in the chapters that
follow will help to ensure that this is the case.
 Part 2
1111
2
3
Women’s views and
4
5
voices in domestic
6
7 violence services
8
9
1011
1
2
3111
4
5
6
7
8
9
20111
1
2
3
4
5111
6
7
8
9
30111
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
40111
1
2
3
44111
 Chapter 4
1111
2
What abused women think of
3 the services they receive
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 In the previous chapters in Part 1, we developed arguments about the
4 frequent exclusion of women and of gender issues from theorising on
5 service user movements, and about the contributions these movements
6 make, together with the barriers they face in becoming effective. We also
7 discussed the way in which women who have experienced violence are
8 rarely seen as forming a service user group in their own right and so miss
9 out on the possible benefits and strengths which could result.
20111 In the following chapters, we build on these debates to put forward argu-
1 ments about the frequent exclusion of abused women in practical terms
2 from decision-making within domestic violence policy and about concrete
3 ways of challenging and improving the current situation. Many of the sensi-
4 tive issues, contradictions and complexities which have been drawn out
5111 theoretically in the preceding section will be developed in the ensuing chap-
6 ters in practical ways and in specific relation to current domestic violence
7 policy and practice in the UK. In this section (Part 2) of the book, we will
8 discuss what women survivors of violence think of the services they receive
9 and how much their voices are heard. We will also look at why the involve-
30111 ment of domestic violence service users is essential to the policy process.
1 The final section (Part 3) contains chapters on how to go about it, on the
2 practical difficulties and positives involved and on examples of good and
3 innovatory practice in regard to service user participation and account-
4 ability to abuse survivors.
5 Throughout, we will draw extensively on the findings and insights of the
6 study on raising abused women’s voices to which we referred in the
7 Introduction, and which was one of the studies within the recent Economic
8 and Social Research Council’s Violence Research Programme (see Hague
9 et al., 2001, 2002). Conducted by the present authors, it examined how
40111 much the voices of abused women are heard in service and policy devel-
1 opment. This chapter also draws on the Briefing Notes for the Home Office
2 (prepared by two of the present authors) on women survivors of abuse and
3 their views of the services they have received (Mullender and Hague,
44111 2000), and on the wider review of these issues on which the Home Office
44 Women’s views and voices

Briefing Notes were based (later published as Mullender and Hague, 2001).
Many personal testimonies and accounts have been produced by domestic
violence survivors themselves, accompanied by the publication of num-
erous self-help books and academic accounts of women’s help-seeking
efforts (e.g. Homer et al., 1984; Women’s Aid, 1989; Hoff, 1990;
Kirkwood, 1993; Violence Against Lesbians in the Home, 1998), and we
have also drawn on these. In the present chapter, we will begin by consid-
ering how, under the impetus of the women’s activist movement, domestic
violence provision has been transformed, compared to how it was in the
past. We will then go on to discuss the views of abused women service
users, from the 1980s onwards, of the services they have received, followed
by a consideration, first of diversity and equality issues, then of the
performance of individual agencies as far as survivors of abuse are
concerned. The chapter concludes by bringing the debate right up to date
and considering very recent research and the current situation.
Thus, we begin these discussions by again, as in the previous chapters,
affirming that any consideration of the views of domestic violence survivors
needs to start by acknowledging the social movement that has been
listening and responding to the needs of abused women for the last thirty
years. Throughout, the empowerment of women has been the watchword
of this activist movement of women, as discussed throughout this book. Its
principles include both an adherence to an analysis of domestic violence
based on understandings of gender and power, and also a stated commit-
ment to raising the voices of abused women and children and to insisting
that society, men, the state and both statutory and voluntary sector agen-
cies take the abuse of women seriously (see Dobash and Dobash, 1992;
Mullender and Hague, 2001). Developing out of the wider women’s
movement, understandings of men’s violence towards women that are
derived directly, and in a principled way, from women’s actual experiences
have, since the 1970s, informed both feminist theories and practice (see,
for example, Schechter, 1982; Kelly, 1988; Dobash and Dobash, 1992;
Hague and Malos, 1998). Over the years, feminist-inspired projects and
campaigns have grown out of, and attempted to respond to, these direct
experiences.
Indeed, as we have discussed in Chapter 2, the very first responses
to domestic violence in the mid 1970s came about through the self-
organisation of women’s groups and women’s centres connected with the
Women’s Liberation Movement of the time. Safe houses and refuges were
established by women for women, with a strong element of self-help and
collective activity by survivors themselves (Dobash and Dobash, 1992;
Hague and Malos, 1998). Since then, emergency and long-term housing,
advocacy and outreach projects, helplines and women’s support groups
have continued to be established by women’s organisations (which often
themselves contain a high percentage of domestic violence survivors),
 What abused women think 45

1111 despite a persistent lack of stable funding. Thus, over the years, women
2 who have had personal experience of domestic violence have played a key
3 role in instigating such services, helping to ensure that these have been
4 sensitive to abused women’s expressed needs and wishes, as part of the
5 wider movement.
6 The activist movement against domestic violence in the UK includes
7 campaigning and lobbying bodies, autonomous refuge and support organ-
8 isations, a wide variety of women’s groups and the four Women’s Aid
9 national federations, as we have outlined previously. While independent
1011 refuge groups do exist, the federations co-ordinate the majority of the
1 provision of refuge services, alongside a network of refuges for women
2 from minority communities, including a variety of Asian women’s projects.
3111 Women’s Aid lobbies and campaigns on domestic violence, with the
4 federations acting as the principal specialist organisations across the UK
5 offering protection to abused women and their children and representing
6 their views and interests. The refuge movement has always had strong
7 principles and policies concerned in direct practical ways with making
8 sure that abused women and children are listened to and recognised. Other
9 grass-roots women’s projects and campaigning groups have also consis-
20111 tently voiced both the injustices experienced by abused women and their
1 children and also their visions for the future, their hopes and their needs
2 (Women’s Aid Federation of England, 1998; Southall Black Sisters,
3 2000). Imkaan, for example, assists the network of Asian women’s refuges,
4 facilitating network-building and providing training, conferences and
5111 research, geared towards the stated needs of Asian women in the UK.
6 Southall Black Sisters has, for many years, campaigned on violence against
7 women, and particularly takes up issues which affect immigrant women
8 and women from minority ethnic communities, informed by the words
9 and views of the women themselves. Many of these organisations have
30111 been campaigning and listening to women’s voices and needs since long
1 before the subject of domestic violence began tentatively to move into
2 the mainstream.
3 Now, though, mainstreaming is with us. After years – indeed millennia
4 – of neglect, domestic violence by men against women is in the public view
5 as never before. The abuse of women in intimate and family situations has
6 become a major issue of concern within social policy, social work, child
7 protection and public education, and among many members of the public
8 in the UK, as elsewhere in countries across the globe. The result has been
9 the development of new services, good practice and policy guidance,
40111 improved initiatives within the police, and the setting up of inter-agency
1 domestic violence forums. These previously unprecedented responses to
2 domestic abuse are as yet, uneven and are often not prioritised within
3 complex budgetary demands and competing interests faced by local author-
44111 ities, the health service and the criminal justice system. But they are there.
46 Women’s views and voices

The increase in service provision, though dogged by scarce resources, has

been welcomed by long-term practitioners and activists in the field and by
survivors of domestic violence – sometimes with a certain measure of
disbelief (see Hague and Malos, 1998; Taylor-Browne, 2001).
It is quite clear, although it is sometimes overlooked by present-day
policy-makers, that much of this new attention has its roots in the move-
ment against domestic violence and that – without this movement – the
subsequent improvements and changes would not have happened (Dobash
and Dobash, 1992; Harwin, 1999). Thus, over the years, activism, backed
up by research and service development, has transformed both our under-
standings of the issue and the practice of many agencies throughout the
statutory and voluntary sectors, as we indicated in Chapter 2. But we might
ask whether what survivors of domestic violence think and feel, their views
and their aspirations, have been taken on as an integral part of this trans-
formation or merely whether professionals have been taking over. In Part
1, we looked at this question in a theoretical way. Here, we look at it more
practically. How do abused women view the services, which have been
offered to them, and do these services meet their needs and enable them
to increase their personal safety and to build violence-free futures for them-
selves and their children?

Domestic violence survivors and inadequate

services
It is almost impossible now to remember the old days when no services
whatsoever were available in the UK. The domestic violence field has
changed beyond all recognition since the early 1970s. (For a consideration
of how domestic violence was viewed between 1945 and 1970, see Hague
and Wilson, 1996, 2000.) However, in more recent years, despite the trans-
formations which we have highlighted, women’s experiences of all the
public sector services have consistently been that they are patchy and in-
adequate, with practitioners often assuming judgmental or woman-blaming
attitudes. This was the case especially up until the mid 1990s. For example,
two key studies in the 1980s illuminated women’s help-seeking efforts at
the time and the difficulties and barriers which they faced at every turn
(Binney et al., 1981; Dobash et al., 1985). Many women in these and subse-
quent studies have spoken of trying one agency after another and of the
long trek between them to find help, sometimes leading to an ever
increasing sense of desperation and disillusion.
The previous lack of attention accorded to violence experienced by
women and, indeed, the fact that it has been sanctioned throughout history
(Dobash and Dobash, 1980; Pleck, 1986), have continued to have their
effects, despite service improvements. In the 1980s, there were various
attempts to work with women in respectful ways and to recognise them as
 What abused women think 47

1111 active participants in trying to stop the violence they had experienced.
2 Nevertheless, women survivors of violence have continued to be stereo-
3 typed, very often, in public discourse and among helping agencies as
4 passive and incapable (Aris et al., 2002). Despite the efforts of the
5 Women’s Aid movement, abused women are still rarely regarded as com-
6 petent participants in the policy process. Their views of the inadequacy of
7 services have, until recently, fallen on deaf ears, despite document after
8 document detailing these difficulties (Smith, 1989; Women’s Aid, 1989;
9 Hague et al., 1996a).
1011 As regards individual agencies, there have been clear improvements in
1 service provision and delivery in the last ten years. Nevertheless, it
2 continues to be well researched that all of the public sector organisations
3111 tend to suffer from internal inconsistency and that responses also vary
4 substantially between different geographical localities (Malos and Hague,
5 1993; Grace, 1995; Taylor-Browne, 2001). Abused women talk of feeling
6 constantly let down and of unsatisfactory responses, despite attempts by
7 agencies to improve (Humphreys et al., 2000). While positive assessments
8 by women of services received are becoming more common, many women
9 users have continued to end up with very negative views of the whole range
20111 of agencies involved in their and their children’s lives.
1 Government is currently trying to catch up. In 1999, the Women’s Unit
2 of the Cabinet Office (now named the Women and Equality Unit and moved
3 to the Department of Trade and Industry) published an action plan for
4 violence against women (Cabinet Office, 1999). This action plan was far
5111 from comprehensive, but was a beginning nonetheless. It was accompanied
6 in 2000 by the production by the Home Office of a useful set of Briefing
7 Notes summarising what works in tackling domestic violence. These devel-
8 opments, among other official initiatives, were important in terms of
9 signalling a new willingness by government to take on the issue. The
30111 Briefing Notes detailed both inadequacies in services and also innovative
1 new developments within different agencies and policy agendas (Home
2 Office, 2000). They provided evidence that, currently, many committed
3 attempts are being made across the field to improve the way that agencies
4 deal with domestic violence. Indeed, the Home Office Crime Reduction
5 Programme on Violence Against Women, established after the Briefing
6 Notes were produced, has since funded a varied set of demonstration
7 projects to give some pointers for co-ordinated ways forward in the future.
8 In some of these projects, concerted efforts to find out abused women’s
9 views have been conducted and satisfaction with services received has
40111 increased in consequence. The Cheshire Domestic Violence Outreach
1 Service, for instance, has conducted and published qualitative surveys of
2 what service users think of the service and the project team has acted on
3 the results (Cheshire Domestic Abuse Project, 2002). More commonly,
44111 though, it seems that women, as yet, remain dissatisfied and unsafe even
48 Women’s views and voices

after they have sought help in a systematic manner and made use of all the
relevant services that are available.
It is not only women who urgently need improved services. We now
know that domestic violence can have varied and serious impacts on chil-
dren who witness, live with or otherwise experience it (see Mullender and
Morley, 1994; Hester et al., 2000). However, outside refuges (Hague et al.,
1996a), children’s voices are very rarely heard in relation to their views
about the abuse experienced by adults and about policy and practice
responses. Until recently, for example, studies of domestic violence and
children in the UK used mothers and professionals as their research respon-
dents, although recent work (McGee, 2000; Mullender et al., 2002) includes
consultation with children. A study in the Economic and Social Research
Council’s Children 5–16 years: Growing into the 21st Century Research
Programme (Mullender et al., 2002) has revealed that children are far from
being passive victims of domestic violence. Rather, they use a wide range
of coping strategies, often in an active way, to deal with the violence they
experience. The research found that children would, generally speaking,
like to be consulted about responses, and that they can be a rich source of
good advice for other children and adults (see also Mullender et al., 2000).
However, while there are many new practice developments within agencies
in regard to domestic violence that attempt to address children’s needs,
once again few of these have consulted children directly. Relevant agencies
could usefully seek the views of children who have experience of domestic
violence (in a sensitive and careful way and where it is safe to do so)
about policy and services. Scottish Women’s Aid, for example, published
Young People Say in 1998 (Scottish Women’s Aid, 1998). Many Women’s
Aid refuges run children’s workshops and hold regular, decision-making
children’s meetings, but few other agencies do anything comparable.

Diversity and services

The situation of potential exclusion and silencing for both abused women
and their children is often compounded for minority groups. Black women
and children may experience institutional and personal racism, for example,
and often face added problems when attempting to access services, as well
as those experienced by all women, as detailed in research by Amina Mama
(Mama, 1996). In her pioneering survey of statutory and voluntary sector
responses, conducted in the 1980s, the women interviewed had consistently
encountered unsatisfactory and discriminatory services, as well as overtly
racist attitudes. Activist and first-hand accounts such as those published
by Southall Black Sisters (1990) have confirmed these concerns. A study
in the 1990s in the London borough of Islington (James-Hanman, 1995)
suggested that provision still failed to meet language and cultural needs,
leaving many black and minority ethnic women isolated, unaware of their
 What abused women think 49

1111 options and sometimes placed in additional danger by discriminatory re-

2 sponses by helping agencies. More recently, Rai and Thiara (1997, 1999)
3 have provided two helpful overviews of refuge and other support services
4 from the perspective of black service users and workers. Black organisa-
5 tions in the community are valued according to their studies, but other
6 sources of help are commonly perceived by women as not understanding
7 the black experience and sometimes as institutionally racist, particularly
8 (although, by no means, solely) in predominantly white areas. A new study,
9 named Domestic Violence and Minoritisation: Supporting women to inde-
1011 pendence, similarly describes discriminatory responses continuing in a
1 range of agencies including some refuges (Batsleer et al., 2002).
2 For lesbian and bisexual women and their children, domestic violence
3111 from past or recent male partners, or from women partners, can present
4 particular difficulties which are often compounded by homophobia (Vio-
5 lence Against Lesbians in the Home, 1998). These may include negative,
6 prejudiced or voyeuristic attitudes within agencies and lack of information
7 about the issue, leading to inappropriate or judgmental responses. Lesbians
8 are often even more silenced in relation to violence issues than other
9 women, and stand even less chance than others of being recognised by, and
20111 acknowledged within, the policy process.
1 Disabled women and children are also likely to experience additional
2 difficulties, which may be exacerbated by negative attitudes and discrim-
3 ination. For example, a disabled woman living in her own home faces the
4 potential of being trapped there, and may be unable to access services or
5111 publicity about them (James-Hanman, 1994). It is difficult for a disabled
6 woman to leave home if she is not mobile or if she has had her home
7 adapted. Further, a complex care package may also have been assembled
8 to support her which may be hard to leave behind (Cross, 1999). All
9 of these situations are likely to be seriously exacerbated if her abuser is
30111 also her carer. Leaving situations of abuse may be almost impossible if
1 accessible refuge accommodation is over-subscribed, which it often is. Deaf
2 women face particular problems where no interpreting in sign language is
3 available and where agencies are unaware and ignorant of, or insensitive
4 to, deaf issues. The list goes on and on (Mullender and Hague, 2001).
5 However, disabled women’s views on these complex difficulties relating
6 to domestic violence are rarely heard, if ever, even within disability move-
7 ment organisations. Overall, the voices of abused women and children from
8 minority groups of all types are inadequately represented in the literature
9 and in policy documentation, with resulting implications for potentially
40111 skewed and discriminatory policy development.
1 It should not be thought, of course, that agencies do not try to deal with
2 these issues. Some do, although not always with a great deal of success,
3 often due to resource shortfalls (for example, in refuges). A few have begun
44111 to be more sensitive and inclusive about equality matters overall and about
50 Women’s views and voices

consultation in general. For example, some specialist police units (e.g.

community safety units in London) that deal with racial, homophobic and
domestic violence have begun to develop increased awareness about issues
for disabled, black and lesbian women. Policies and good practice guide-
lines on domestic abuse within a variety of agencies may stipulate listening
to what abused women have to say, and new service plans or reviews
conducted by partnerships and local authorities may include some consul-
tation on user satisfaction with the relevant services, including specialist
provision for minority groups.

Individual agencies
Individual agencies vary in their responsiveness to domestic violence, so
that it is worth discussing women’s views of each in turn. Starting with
those agencies which have a connection to the activist movement, women’s
organisations and refuge groups provide a wide range of emergency refuge,
support, outreach and advocacy services, which have a generally good
record of involving service users in both provision and policy. Abused
women, including those from minority groups, consistently rate refuge
and outreach services very positively within both personal testimonies and
research surveys. For example, in study after study, refuges have elicited
by far the most satisfaction from women who have used them, as com-
pared with other agencies (Malos and Hague, 1993; Hague et al., 1996;
Humphreys et al., 2000; Mullender and Hague, 2001). In the majority of
cases, refuge organisations are the principal agencies that offer suppor-
tive and understanding staff, expert in dealing with domestic violence,
and they are frequently the only ones that women believe can offer them
safety. Conversely, mainstream agencies often pay too little attention
to safety, according, for example, to over half the women surveyed through
a self-completion questionnaire widely circulated in Lewisham (London
Borough of Lewisham Community Safety Team, 1998). It is also the case
that refuge staff are generally the only professionals to whom abused
women feel able to tell the full details of their experiences because, in most
other contexts, they may fear disbelief, patronising responses, blame and
possible consequences in terms of child protection intervention (Sissons,
1999; Kelly and Humphreys, 2001; Mullender and Hague, 2001).
While there are always, of course, improvements that could be made,
and the crowded conditions of many refuges continue to be rated nega-
tively by users of the service, the generally positive tone of the feedback
on refuge provision is more or less universal. For example, Henderson
(1997) found that 81 per cent of women surveyed in Scotland had found
Women’s Aid services to be helpful, owing to both the actual assistance
provided and the supportive attitudes of staff. Women’s support groups
and advice or information services are also valued highly. An independent
 What abused women think 51

1111 evaluation of support groups for women survivors of domestic violence in

2 the US found that women attending them experienced substantial improve-
3 ments in social and emotional functioning and also a reduction in violence
4 (Tutty et al., 1993).
5 Specialist projects for women and children from minority communities
6 have a key part to play. As we have noted previously, the network of Asian
7 women’s refuges and support groups in towns and cities across the UK
8 operates both within and alongside Women’s Aid, offering culturally
9 appropriate and non-racist support. In some localities, there are also a few
1011 specialist refuge organisations and support groups variously, for example,
1 for all black women and children, or for African, for African Caribbean,
2 for Chinese, for Jewish and for other women and children from minority
3111 ethnic communities. Mama’s study (1996) found some dissatisfaction
4 among black women escaping violence with generalist refuges, as com-
5 pared with specialist ones. However, the Women’s Aid federations have
6 attempted to address some of these problems with specific work on refuges
7 and black women (see e.g. Rai and Thiara, 1997) and through the adop-
8 tion of strategies to combat racism and other forms of discrimination. These
9 strategies are not as yet completely effective, and a recent study has noted
20111 continued difficulties for black and minority ethnic women in generalist
1 refuges in some areas (Batsleer et al., 2002). However, in general terms,
2 Rai and Thiara report that black women value refuges highly. There are
3 also a very few specialist refuges of other types, for example, for women
4 with learning disabilities, for women who have experienced sexual assault
5111 and for young women, all of which are generally rated highly by service
6 users. Similarly, Violence Against Lesbians in the Home, while encour-
7 aging further improvements, states of refuges: ‘it is unlikely that any agency
8 has responded more positively to Lesbians fleeing violence in the home’
9 (1998: 50).
30111 As regards other agencies, the police are a vital emergency service for
1 victims of domestic violence, and have a central role in meeting the needs
2 of abused women and their children. They frequently top the list of agen-
3 cies contacted for help, and the major improvements in policing policy
4 which we have witnessed over the last decade have been broadly supported
5 by women who have experienced domestic violence and by their advocacy
6 organisations, such as Women’s Aid (Home Office, 1990, 2000a). Even so,
7 in some localities, women continue to report little change in police and
8 criminal justice responses with only patchy improvements recorded across
9 the country as a whole (though these are undoubtedly considerable in some
40111 areas and are continuing to get better) (Grace, 1995; Plotnikoff and
1 Woolfson, 1998; Home Office, 2000).
2 A 1999 study by Liz Kelly and colleagues in London, supported by
3 Henderson’s (1997) research in Scotland and related work nationwide,
44111 found that domestic violence survivors are often quite clear about the
52 Women’s views and voices

services they need from the police. In the Kelly study, for example, women
said that they wanted respectful treatment by, and assertive action from,
the police, but that they did not always receive either or both. They thought
that domestic violence should be responded to as a crime, but they needed
support and protection in order for this to be a viable option as far as their
own participation as witnesses was concerned. There were major problems
in translating arrest into effective action against perpetrators and, where
prosecutions did occur, the sentences passed were perceived by victims as
failing to place sanctions on men’s behaviour (Kelly, 1999).
Like the police, social services have a vital role to play, both through
their adult and their children’s services. Most studies have found that,
despite the difficulties to which we alluded in Chapter 3, women value the
practical help available from social workers (Binney et al., 1981; Pahl,
1985; Mullender, 1996; Humphreys and Mullender, 2002). They commonly
approach social services for help and advice, despite the fear reported in
most of the relevant studies (e.g. Abrahams, 1994; Mullender et al., 2002)
that they might lose their children through child protection procedures.
However, there is little evidence of abused women being able to influence
social services’ responses, despite some increase in awareness in recent
years (Humphreys et al., 2000).
Similarly, in the NHS and the health field, services have improved
considerably, but not nearly enough. Health practitioners have a key role
to play in meeting abused women’s needs, both in terms of physical injuries
and of mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and insomnia
(Mooney, 1994; Williamson, 2000). Thus, it is vital that health services
are able to respond effectively, quickly and sympathetically to women
experiencing domestic violence, but there is much evidence that health
personnel often do not ask about the violence, or that women in the situa-
tion may feel too anxious to disclose it (Williamson, 2000). In one recent
study, for example, the unsympathetic manner of some practitioners
and their evident lack of time constituted further obstacles for women, who
were not satisfied with being prescribed antidepressants or sleeping tablets
(e.g. Dominy and Radford, 1996). However, specific, practical improve-
ments in health responses and the adoption of a more proactive approach
are now taking place with the development of a variety of initiatives. These
include the adoption of practice guidelines by the Royal Colleges and the
specialist practitioner organisations for groups of health workers, and
the publication of a Department of Health resource manual (Department of
Health, 2000).
According to survivors’ testimonies and to research evidence, one of the
principal needs of women and children escaping violence in the home is for
access to safe and secure temporary and permanent housing options – in
other words, for somewhere safe to go. While temporary housing may be
provided by the refuge movement, or through the homelessness legislation,
 What abused women think 53

1111 access to permanent housing is a more problematic issue. Women and chil-
2 dren who are statutorily homeless due to domestic violence under the home-
3 lessness legislation make extensive use of local authority and housing
4 association provision, and their treatment by their local housing department
5 is of key importance in this respect. Women survivors consistently make
6 the same points during housing consultation exercises and wider-scale
7 research projects with housing-related content (e.g. Malos and Hague,
8 1993; Henderson, 1997; Morley, 2000). In summary, they regularly high-
9 light the need for a sympathetic, believing approach, a non-judgmental
1011 service, an ending of unreasonable delays in being accepted as home-
1 less and in being rehoused and the removal of obstacles to service (e.g. the
2 requirement for certain forms of proof or the insistence that legal remedies
3111 to remove the perpetrator be substituted for rehousing the woman and
4 children). Interviewees in all of these studies consistently stressed that the
5 safety of abused women and their children should be the major priority, with
6 a strong emphasis on confidentiality and security, and on the need for both
7 emergency and permanent housing to be available, secure and of a reason-
8 able standard in an area the survivor considers safe.
9 While there are many other individual agencies to which abused women
20111 turn for help, there is particular potential when dealing with domestic
1 violence (which crosses so many areas of work and cannot be corralled
2 into just one category) for improved service co-ordination and integration.
3 This is usually carried out through inter-agency initiatives, as encouraged
4 by both the present and the previous governments (Home Office, 1995,
5111 1999; Hague, 2000). The only national study to date in the UK of multi-
6 agency initiatives as a response to domestic violence (see Hague et al.,
7 1996; Hague, 2000, 2001) found that domestic violence forums and other
8 inter-agency responses could sometimes take a creative approach to tack-
9 ling domestic violence, but that they could also become ‘talking shop’
30111 exercises, as noted previously, and that women experiencing violence were
1 rarely involved. In this study, some of the ideas which women survivors
2 themselves suggested to the research team (by no means a comprehensive
3 list) included:
4
5 • listening to women;
6 • questionnaires on the effectiveness of forums and services;
7 • snappy slogans and campaigns;
8 • more publicity and public awareness campaigns;
9 • more involvement of abused women in worker training sessions
40111 and in domestic violence training overall;
1 • more participation of abused women in new services established
2 by forums;
3 • the setting up of a local domestic violence ombudsperson post in
44111 the community;
54 Women’s views and voices

• a principled avoiding of the exploitation or ‘using’ of women

participants;
• adequate compensation for time spent on consultation and other
forms of participation, plus expenses;
• using refuges to pass information between survivors and multi-
agency initiatives.
(Hague et al., 1996)

Across the board, however, it seems that, despite focused suggestions of

this type from women survivors, they are rarely actioned. More commonly,
documents in which abused women’s voices are raised continue to describe
inefficient or self-serving policies, cutbacks and a lack of helpful resources
in the right places at the right time (Mama, 1996; Hague and Malos, 1998;
Mullender and Hague, 2001). In sum, then, women’s experiences of
services and agencies over the years have commonly been that they are
under-resourced, difficult to access and of uncertain effectiveness (e.g.
Dobash et al., 1985; Mullender, 1996; Home Office, 2000), and that these
difficulties may be compounded for minority groups by discrimination and
disadvantage (James-Hanman, 1994; Mama, 1996; Rai and Thiara, 1997).
Things have of course improved since the mid to late 1990s with very
significant and positive changes in recent years. Professionals in the field
can take some solace from the widespread development of new policy and
practice. Unfortunately, though, women and children escaping abuse still
face inadequate services in many instances and change remains localised
and incomplete.

The current situation

Bringing the debate right up to the moment, wide-ranging consultation is
being carried out by government in 2003 on the proposed new Domestic
Violence Bill. Most recent studies find that the situation remains little
changed in the early 2000s, although much effort has been directed toward
service improvement (see Taylor-Browne, 2001), so that a greater level of
service user satisfaction could reasonably have been anticipated. In a very
recent study for Women’s Aid, named Routes to Safety, Cathy Humphreys
and Ravi Thiara from the Centre for the Study of Safety and Well-being
at the University of Warwick found, for example, that agency responses to
women’s help-seeking in response to domestic violence were very mixed
(Humphreys and Thiara, 2002). While many of the 200 women and thir-
teen children who completed questionnaires or were interviewed had
experienced positive responses overall, there was a large percentage who
had been unhappy about the services they had received. Women in this
recent study consistently recommended that what the users of services most
need and value include the following: an immediate response; accurate
 What abused women think 55

1111 information, advice and referral; a respectful and professional attitude; a

2 proactive approach; and consistency across social divisions of ethnicity,
3 class, sexuality and disability (ibid.: 119). While these recommendations
4 related principally to the police, they were considered relevant across the
5 board.
6 In the authors’ study referred to throughout this book, the majority of
7 the 112 women interviewed felt that their views were overlooked to a
8 considerable extent by service providers and that their needs were not
9 adequately met. They felt silenced, regarded as not important and unable
1011 to achieve the type of service and policy responses that they sought.
1 Most felt they were powerless to influence the direction of policy or ser-
2 vice development and they related accounts of inadequate or potentially
3111 dangerous responses by agencies, alongside some improved services. Forty-
4 five per cent of the women we spoke with felt that they had not been
5 believed by the agency approached. Gratifyingly, 58 per cent overall had
6 nevertheless been assisted to feel and be safe. However, 42 per cent had
7 continued to be unsafe and unprotected, sometimes over long periods of
8 ineffective service intervention. Overall, only 19 per cent of interviewees
9 had been asked what their own needs were by agencies approached for help
20111 and, in one of the study areas, this was as low as 3.7 per cent.
1 At the same time as frequently feeling silenced and excluded, many of
2 the women interviewed thought that agency practice had indeed got better
3 in various ways over recent years. Encouragingly, for 59 per cent of inter-
4 viewees overall, there was a belief that services had substantially improved
5111
in the 1990s and 2000s, but, in one study area (not the same one referred
6
to above), this figure was only 29 per cent. Improvements, where these
7
had occurred, included increases in numbers of services and more under-
8
standing or sympathetic officers. The police were felt by the largest per-
9
30111 centage of women to have improved the most, but the findings of the
1 study in this respect were contradictory. Despite transformations in service
2 in many areas, this research, like the earlier studies mentioned previously,
3 found that police responses to domestic violence in the 2000s have
4 continued to be uneven overall. A notable exception in our study was
5 provided by domestic violence units and liaison officers. These were
6 regarded very positively. In fact, almost all the improvements reported in
7 the study were associated with these specialist units and officers, and rela-
8 tively few with the uniformed general service, a vote of confidence in this
9 type of dedicated provision. Importantly, however, specialist police
40111 domestic violence services are under threat of closure in some localities,
1 or at least face reductions in staff or amalgamations into larger units,
2 focusing on vulnerable persons, community safety or child protection/
3 family violence, which can mean a dilution of expertise and of attention to
44111 violence against women.
56 Women’s views and voices

Similarly, the Routes to Safety study, cited previously, found that many
women victims had positive experiences of using the police, especially
where specialist units had been involved (Humphreys and Thiara, 2002:
60). However, the study noted that positive responses from the police can
depend on the woman being a ‘good victim’. Once falling into the ‘bad
victim’ category, perhaps by wanting to drop the case during prosecution
or by remaining with their partners despite many incidents of violence,
women interviewees in this study reported a variety of dismissive responses
from the police. Overall, the positive responses reported were accompa-
nied by an equal level of comments from women who had found that
policing responses fell far short of their expectations (ibid.: 60).
While women respondents in our own study were most positive about
the police changes, they also noted changes in other agencies. After the
police viewed positively by 54 per cent, interviewees identified the most
improvements within statutory agencies as being within housing at 41 per
cent, while other statutory agencies scoring at markedly lower percentages.
Social services came out at 29 per cent, for example, and the health service
at 25 per cent. The courts and the Benefits Agency were the least impres-
sive at 13 per cent and 12 per cent respectively, in terms of whether or not
they had improved their responses to abused women. Given the importance
of both financial support and legal remedies through either the criminal
justice system or the civil law for women escaping domestic violence, these
findings are particularly concerning.
Slightly different figures were found in relation to how much the agen-
cies women had approached for help actually understood about the needs
of abused women and children in relation to services. Again, these figures
were extremely disappointing in relation to the courts and the Benefits
Agency which scored positively for only 3.5 per cent and 4 per cent each
all interviewees, although these figures were somewhat better for those who
had actively used their services in the recent past, at 10 and 8 per cent
respectively. The police overall scored only 28 per cent overall, but this
figure rose to 40 per cent for those who had recently used the service
directly. These findings indicate that women may find that these agencies
sometimes give a better service in practice now than they might expect
them to do based on previous experience. A stunning result was achieved,
once again, by the specialist police domestic violence liaison officers at 96
per cent, and refuge organisations came in at 98 per cent for those who
had directly used the service recently.
Thus, in this research, refuge and outreach organisations scored by far
the best in terms of satisfaction with services received, with positive
comments from women service users across the board. Recent work in the
2000s has confirmed this situation, not only as regards refuge provision but
also in relation to women’s outreach and support services (see, e.g. Kelly
and Humpheys, 2000). For example, the Routes to Safety study analysed
 What abused women think 57

1111 the effectiveness of two types of outreach services. One type provides
2 support for women who have lived in refuges, while the other is for women
3 who have never used such a service (Humphreys and Thiara, 2002). Within
4 a very wide range of outreach services and considerable variations in the
5 effectiveness and extent of provision, women service users generally found
6 the service helpful and appreciated meeting with other women. Children’s
7 views were also sought during this study. The children interviewed had
8 positive feelings about the outreach service they had attended, rated it
9 highly and, in some cases, felt that their relationships with their mothers
1011 had improved as a result of attending (ibid.: 36).
1 However, this encouraging response to specialist service provision
2 by women’s refuge, advocacy and support projects needs to be viewed
3111 against the background of chronic underfunding of these voluntary sector
4 organisations. It is doubtful that this will be adequately addressed by
5 the Supporting People initiative which is funding refuges from 2003
6 (DETR et al., 1998), since this will provide resources primarily for housing
7 provision rather than for support needs, despite the stated commitment of
8 some of the new officers within this initiative to both refuge and outreach
9 provision.
20111 Thus, in summary, improvements are ongoing across the board, but
1 refuge services are still underfunded, and survivors in the authors’ study
2 who had used other agencies identified continuing gaps in provision that
3 had left them vulnerable and unsafe. We turn now to further findings from
4 the study to discuss why the involvement of service users and other
5111 domestic violence survivors needs to be an integral part of all policy devel-
6 opment, not something suddenly thought of and ‘added on’ at the last
7 minute, as appears often to be the case. We will then move on to debate
8 what actually happens as regards such involvement in reality.
9
30111
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
40111
1
2
3
44111
Chapter 5

How much do agencies

listen to domestic violence
survivors?

This chapter discusses the extent of agency commitment to domestic vio-

lence survivor consultation and participation, and considers how much the
views of women experiencing violence are heard – and, more importantly,
listened to – by professionals. We begin by discussing why user involve-
ment needs to be integral to policy-making and service provision, and then
look at how much agencies, including statutory services and inter-agency
forums, involve domestic violence survivors at the moment, leading on to a
consideration of women’s movement projects and survivor participation. We
conclude by looking at the way that workers in all sectors often view abused
women as unworthy participants while they are still ‘in the experience’.
In investigating these issues and in looking at empowerment and the
raising of the voices of abused women, we can learn, as discussed briefly
in Chapters 2 and 3, from the sometimes inspiring contributions of other
service user movements which have self-organised over recent years to
challenge poor or discriminatory services. Thus, a key tool – both in effec-
tively listening to, and in theorising from the views of service users – is
the body of literature on service user involvement more generally. As we
have discussed, the movements concerned have campaigned for better
services and have also produced guidance on how to conduct consultation
effectively (see, for example, Lindow, 1994; Department of Health, 1996a).
The disability movement and the movement of psychiatric service survivors
have been particularly active in this regard, and have also theorised
responses to social issues from the perspectives of those involved (for
disabled people, see Swain et al., 1993; Campbell and Oliver, 1996;
Priestley, 1999; for psychiatric service survivors, see Barker and Peck,
1987; Chamberlin, 1988; Brandon, 1991; Sayce, 1999).

Why should user involvement be integrated into

service development?
As we argued in theoretical terms in Part 1, the contributions of these user
movements and the increased recent attention to the views and needs of
 How much do agencies listen? 59

1111 people using services have led to broad conceptualisations of the empower-
2 ment of users in relation to a wide range of public services, including
3 child protection, community care, housing and health (Hastings et al., 1996;
4 Means and Smith, 1996; Barnes and Warren, 1999; Barnes et al., 1999).
5 Using these ideas, cogent arguments as to the importance of involving
6 service users in service provision and delivery can be elaborated in rela-
7 tion both to the importance (and frequent ignoring) of social movements,
8 and to the empowerment of those who have suffered disadvantage and
9 exclusion in relation to general notions of citizenship and community (see
1011 Barnes and Oliver, 1995; Barnes, et al., 1996). In theory, greater account-
1 ability of services can be achieved through participatory democracy,
2 although this often does not happen in reality (Braye, 2000; Cull and Roche,
3111 2001). Community development, for example, has a long history but has
4 often failed to promote dialogue and meaningful involvement (Barnes,
5 1997). The development of service user movements and the empowerment
6 of users themselves can be an antidote to these failures.
7 There are further convincing reasons for listening to service users.
8 Broadly speaking, the positive practical outcomes of user involvement can
9 be argued to outweigh by far the attendant difficulties in terms of achiev-
20111 ing more focused and responsive services and more democratic policy-
1 making. Many service user movements have suggested that, in general,
2 user participation is an essential and basic component of good policy-
3 making, in order to regulate and to ‘keep an eye on’ service provision
4 (Barnes et al., 1999). In this argument, it is not an option that policy-makers
5111 may or may not engage in, depending on their level of personal or pro-
6 fessional commitment but, rather, a fundamental matter. Along these lines,
7 within the domestic violence field specifically, we would assert from our
8 study that the involvement of women who have experienced abuse in policy
9 and service development needs to be an integral element, built into the
30111 process and properly funded so that it becomes possible and practical to
1 achieve it.
2 There are many justifications to support this assertion. An important one
3 is that user involvement and consultation is now officially and legally
4 required, as we noted in Chapter 3. It is beginning to be common practice
5 in many types of service provision to engage in the routine seeking of the
6 views of service users in relation to customer satisfaction and service eval-
7 uation. On both an operational and a strategic level for policy-makers, user
8 consultation is now necessary as part of the legislative and policy dictates
9 that agencies need to meet in terms of targets and performance indicators
40111 (Hague et al., 2002). It has become a mainstream issue in this sense, placing
1 a legal duty of consultation on all designated authorities. In relation to
2 domestic violence specifically – a hidden crime and one that has been tradi-
3 tionally under-documented – it can be very helpful that there is so much
44111 official and government emphasis currently on seeking user views, although
60 Women’s views and voices

it is important to make use of this new situation in a creative and effective

way. Disturbingly though, while rhetoric about the issue has become wide-
spread, most service user movements in a variety of fields report that
concrete strategies have been lacking, often leading, as we saw in Chapter
3, to ineffective or cosmetic outcomes, or to a bureaucratic type of consul-
tation with no subsequent effect on policy or change (Barnes and Oliver,
1995; Cooper et al., 1995). As part of this process, tactics used by project
managements to accept what service users say when it suits them, but to
use various strategies to de-legitimise them when it does not, have also
been widely reported, as noted above (Barnes et al., 1999).
Being forced to engage in consultation by government, while very useful
if carried out effectively, results of course in a ‘top-down’ type of pro-
cess, as we discussed in Part 1. From a more ‘bottom-up’ position, getting
managers and policy-makers to listen to people’s voices ‘on the ground’ is
likely to spread involvement locally through community participation
(Beresford and Croft, 2001). At best, this can lead to self-advocacy and to
real accountability of policy and services to those being consulted. Thus,
the involvement of users of services can be seen to be important in terms
of improving local processes of participation and accountability. Such
mechanisms are also essential so that better, more efficient, outcomes
can be achieved. User participation for abused women can result in the
provision of services which are safe, proactive, sensitive and respectful,
leading to increased customer satisfaction all round. Services and policy
become more effectively focused on expressed needs, and these needs
can inform and be built into both present provision and future planning.
Thus, user involvement enables services and policy development in both
the statutory and voluntary sectors to be kept on track, and to be subjected
to – and able to withstand – user scrutiny. Without abused women’s voices
to provide a ‘reality check’, official responses can result in professional
interventions that are cut off from what is really needed. Sometimes, for
example, lengthy policy documentation and implementation on domestic
violence can take place, taking much time but resulting in little change
(Home Office, 2000; Hague et al., 2001a).
Overall, the single most important performance measure for any agency
or practitioner to apply in working with domestic violence is: ‘Will my
intervention leave this woman and her children in greater safety or in
greater danger?’ The issue of giving survivors a voice, both individually
and collectively, revolves around the fact that they almost always apply
safety as their overarching criterion and that they are likely to be able to
make judgements about it more knowledgeably and skilfully than pro-
fessionals alone. They also ask the searching questions about system
failures – why the victim was not adequately protected, why the perpetrator
was not held accountable, why effective services were not provided.
It is these questions which help multi-agency domestic violence forums to
 How much do agencies listen? 61

1111 become more than talking shops and individual agencies to make radical
2 improvements in their services.
3 Thus, user participation results in better value for money and more effec-
4 tive use of resources as services can be tailored more efficiently to need.
5 It contributes to improved liaison with survivors and with the women’s
6 advocacy agencies that represent them, and guards against the possibility
7 of cosmetic or inappropriate responses and of policies and practice going
8 wrong. It can also demonstrate where implementation of services can be
9 best focused by exposing any gaps between what is meant to happen
1011 and what actually does. Vitally, it also contributes on a personal level to
1 individual and collective empowerment for abuse survivors.
2 During our study, these positive outcomes were identified many times
3111 as anticipated possibilities by both professionals and women who had used
4 services. The positives were suggested so far to outnumber the negatives
5 that it can be hard to understand why consultation (at the least) with domes-
6 tic violence survivors is not standard practice. In summary, the anticipated
7 benefits included improved and more effective services and policies that
8 would be responsive to abused women’s stated needs; the avoidance of
9 ‘talking’ or ‘smokescreen’ responses from professionals; increased account-
20111 ability and democracy in terms of service provision; and the empower-
1
ment of abuse survivors. A further bonus is seen as increased liaison
2
between, on the one hand, service providers, local and central government
3
agencies and the statutory and voluntary sectors, and, on the other, abused
4
women and the agencies (women’s support and refuge services) that
5111
6 represent them.
7
8 Mainstreaming: survivor participation in multi-
9 agency forums and statutory agencies
30111
1 So, we might well ask whether the positive outcomes associated with
2 service user participation, and the compelling reasons for engaging in it,
3 have been taken on board in the domestic violence field. Is it possible to
4 locate some practical examples of abused women service users being
5 viewed as a powerful user group in their own right, as we theorised in
6 Chapter 2? Now that provision for abused women is more widely avail-
7 able, it is important to know whether service delivery has been directly and
8 deliberately informed by women’s voices and the extent to which domestic
9 violence agencies and policy-makers have accepted the importance of
40111 listening actively to what survivors of violence have to say. The answers
1 to these questions are understandably complex, and vary to some extent
2 from agency to agency and from locality to locality, across all the different
3 types of agencies involved. Some overall observations can, however, be
44111 made to inform more detailed analysis.
62 Women’s views and voices

In terms of overarching understandings, then, it can be seen from the

discussion up to this point that there are two, contrasting, situations at play
in regard to consultation with women who have been abused. The first
of these is that, until now, women survivors of domestic violence have
typically reported unhelpful responses, poor services and the experience of
being silenced or stigmatised by statutory agencies which may also engage
in cosmetic or ineffective consultation, if they engage in any at all (Hague
et al., 2001). The second is that, in this field of work, unlike some others,
there is a wider activist movement championing survivors in general and
trying to raise the voices of abused women and their children, which has
pioneered the way (Schechter, 1982; Hanmer and Itzen, 2000).
In the improving situation currently, it is of some use to ask how much
agencies in the former category are being influenced by the latter. In the
rest of this chapter, we will discuss the extent to which agencies and forums
have taken on the issue of participation by survivors. We will couch this
discussion within a consideration of whether inter-agency forums and the
new services and statutory responses of the 2000s have taken a cue from
women’s refuge and advocacy services in terms of an empowering engage-
ment with those using the services, or whether the influence has been more
the other way round. Dealing first with the mainstream response, then, our
study was able to analyse how much domestic violence survivors are
consulted by statutory and voluntary sector agencies and how much these
services, projects and policies are accountable (in any way at all) to women
service users themselves. It will come as little surprise that the short answer
to both these questions is ‘not much’.
From both the literature to date and from the study reported here, it
appears that much of the recent mainstream response to domestic violence
has focused on policy development which, though often creative and dedi-
cated, has not necessarily been marked by involving or consulting women
who have experienced abuse directly. In the last couple of years, there has
been a belated, and far from universal, recognition that abused women’s
views constitute the single most important element in the evaluation of
perpetrators’ programmes (Mullender and Burton, 2001) as we noted
in Chapter 2. However, apart from some of this provision, and with the
notable exception of women’s refuge and support services, it seems that
most domestic violence projects and inter-agency forums do not involve
abused women directly (see Mullender and Hague, 2001).
A tendency for statutory agencies to ‘take over’ multi-agency domestic
violence forums has been identified in research studies, and women’s advo-
cacy and outreach projects themselves have sometimes been marginalised
within top-down policy development (Hague et al., 1996; Home Office,
2000; Kelly and Humphreys, 2001). Encouragingly, our own study found
that almost all domestic violence forums and other services do believe, in
theory, that the involvement of women’s refuge and advocacy groups is an
 How much do agencies listen? 63

1111 important priority, although the practice could be rather different. In focus
2 group-type workshops run by our study, the point was often made that, in
3 reality, both domestic violence forums and higher level partnership group-
4 ings sometimes overlooked and excluded Women’s Aid and other women’s
5 advocacy organisations – let alone groups of survivors. Just keeping
6 Women’s Aid on board was hard enough. These findings confirmed those
7 of the previous national study of multi-agency initiatives mentioned earlier
8 (Hague et al., 1996). Workshop members who were workers in refuges
9 spoke of not being invited to meetings and so not knowing when user
1011 involvement or consultation exercises were about to take place, and then
1 finding their views sidelined in resulting policy reviews or recommenda-
2 tions. Sometimes, organisations like Women’s Aid were viewed as just one
3111 organisation among many of equal weight (including some which worked
4 only very occasionally with domestic violence). In fact, however, women’s
5 organisations are frontline providers of key importance. Domestic violence
6 forums and agencies need to be cognisant of this central role and of the
7 importance of women’s refuge and advocacy services in developing policy
8 and practice. Where Women’s Aid and other women’s organisations are
9 struggling to stay involved, it can be even harder for the voices of domestic
20111 violence survivors and service users to be heard.
1 In the study, it was clear that some multi-agency forums do seriously
2 attempt to engage in good practice as regards both the involvement of
3 women’s services and consultation with survivors. These forums may
4 contain dedicated officers from a variety of agencies who are strongly
5111 committed to improving responses to domestic violence. Some are willing
6 to experiment with new ideas and to try sensitively to reach women service
7 users and seek out their views in a careful and systematic way. On the other
8 hand, as far as wholeheartedly engaging with service users in order to shift
9 power – actual, real power – and decision-making in their direction is
30111 concerned, the number of inter-agency forums and other domestic violence
1 projects trying to open themselves and their procedures in order to do this
2 was minimal. Thus, we were able to discern a difference between workers
3 in forums and agencies who were willing just to consult and those who
4 were keen to take the involvement of abused women further.
5 As discussed in Part 1, progress within service user movements in general
6 began to be made in the 1990s in the form of an important, user-driven
7 transition from notions of ‘having a say’ to having ‘greater control’ (User-
8 Centred Services Group, 1993) and making services ‘user-led’ (Morris,
9 1994), but was then somewhat overtaken theoretically by postmodern ques-
40111 tionings of both the possibility and legitimacy of collective action for
1 change (Servian, 1996). It is only recently that ideas of celebrating diver-
2 sity and difference within a collectivity have once more made user-led
3 change appear feasible (Leonard, 1997; Batsleer and Humphries, 2000).
44111 It is clearly important to harness these more sophisticated notions of power
64 Women’s views and voices

as a counter to sometimes naive good intentions in policy and professional

quarters (or equally naive rejections of the belief that any form of repre-
sentation is possible). However, our study was able to identify only one or
two practical examples where domestic violence agencies or multi-agency
forums attempted to share real decision-making power or tried to be directly
accountable to abuse survivors. More often, they engaged in consultation
exercises (useful though these could be), if they took on the issue at all.
There are currently a very few examples of sensitive methods being devel-
oped to involve, or at best to devolve power to, women service users, but
many agencies in the domestic violence field continue to admit to a major
shortfall between their rhetorical statements or wish-list and their actual
achievements in giving women survivors of violence real influence (Hague
et al., 2001, 2002).
Domestic violence, however, is a complex, human issue. Its complexity
means that answers to questions are rarely straightforward. In reflecting on
the extent of the impact of survivor voices on service and policy develop-
ment, it is important to remember and constantly to reaffirm that these
voices are not solely those of women who are using, or have previously
used, services. Rather, women who have experienced domestic violence
are also present within almost all professional responses. Women who are
themselves abuse survivors are represented among policy-makers and
other professionals throughout the field, and have often taken a leading
role in developing services. Thus, even if there is no machinery in place
to consult service users or ex-users, the voices of abused women are in
fact present. It is important to be clear about this significant issue, as dis-
cussed in Part 1, and about the fact that domestic violence survivors are
represented throughout every level of society and are not limited to those
who have used services. For example, multi-agency forums to address
domestic violence continue to be much encouraged by government, as we
have discussed (Home Office, 1999, 2000), and it is certain that survivors
of abuse are represented on almost all of them. Many women professionals
who have personal experiences of abuse take an active part, driving the
work of the forums forward. Some may choose not to reveal their own
past abuse while others refer actively to it, not as something belittling
but as a way of pushing others to be proactive on the issue. One pro-
fessional whom we interviewed in our study strongly stated her position
as follows (although she also believed that further consultation would be
beneficial):

Well I object to being asked ‘does the [forum] have ways of consulting
survivors’. I’m a survivor and I don’t mind who knows it and I’m the
chair so they have to listen, don’t they.
(Chair of domestic violence forum)
 How much do agencies listen? 65

1111 It is service users, though, who are in the best position to comment on
2 services received. Overall in our study, only 12 per cent of survivor inter-
3 viewees had experience of domestic violence forums taking notice of
4 service user views. However, almost all interviewees, both women who
5 had experienced violence and agency representatives, felt that it was very
6 important that they should do so, indicating a general willingness to address
7 this issue in the future. From 258 responses from organisations across the
8 country, it could be seen that the majority of forums wanted to involve
9 survivors, even if few are currently doing so. It was also evident in our
1011 study that, while many particularly wanted to consult service users, they
1 were often less clear about engaging in the next part of the process in terms
2 of moving on from doing the consultation itself to making it a real part of
3111 the policy-making process. In the words of one forum member, delivered
4 with a sardonic smile and a shrug, multi-agency forums were often ‘keen
5 on making policies but less keen on bringing agency policies down to the
6 “real, the raw” ’. Some interviewees, both service users and agency
7 workers, felt that inter-agency forums and individual agencies made consul-
8 tation difficult almost deliberately and hung on to their own powerful
9 positions:
20111
1 Agencies and forums erect barriers (physical, procedural, emotional,
2 practical, deliberate, unconscious etc.) to survivors being part of meet-
3 ings and decision-making processes.
4 (Officer from a multi-agency forum)
5111
6 In total, 80 per cent of the women survivors themselves whom we inter-
7 viewed believed that domestic violence survivors should be able to
8 participate in, or contribute to, multi-agency forums and domestic violence
9 services as automatic practice and right. The evidence of the study in
30111 general was that women who have experienced domestic abuse believe that,
1 if practice were informed by their feedback and views, more efficient and
2 cost-effective provision would result. In all the data collected, service user
3 consultation and the development of policies that devolve some power and
4 influence to domestic violence survivors were believed to offer a construc-
5 tive way forward in the development of domestic violence forums, policies
6 and services.
7 Specifically as regards consultation, the initial stage of any user partici-
8 pation programme, some multi-agency forums had developed innovative
9 ways of carrying it out (which are further discussed in Chapters 8, 9
40111 and 10), including domestic violence survivors’ forums, focus groups and
1 structured representation through Women’s Aid. Some of these have the
2 potential to move on from solely consultation to more comprehensive user
3 involvement. These committed attempts need to be acknowledged and
44111 publicised in order to provide guidance and ideas for others (even while
66 Women’s views and voices

recognising that many forums have not taken on the issue at all as yet). A
number of multi-agency forums approached in our study systematically
consulted existing women’s groups (for example, one London Borough
worked directly and consistently over time with separate groups for Arabic-
speaking women, refugee women, refuge users and African Caribbean and
Asian women). In other cases, women who were, or who represented,
survivors joined the organisation to assist with specific projects, or were
consulted about a one-off piece of policy development (for example, plan-
ning services on a particular council estate).
Overall, though, under half of inter-agency forums consulted survivors
in our study. Further, in some cases the consultation was extremely sketchy
or was something that forums said they were in the process of doing but
hadn’t fully done yet. In others, the consultation consisted merely of needs-
led surveys, rather than direct involvement, although still others had taken
it forward in committed, careful and effective ways. In interpreting these
findings overall, however, it should also be noted that a possible element
of ‘over-claiming’ was observed, in that domestic violence inter-agency
forums generally claimed that they had a better record in consulting women
service users than women’s refuge and outreach projects in their localities
suggested they did.
As regards actual participation in the forum’s structure, rather than con-
sultation, the figures were somewhat different. Seventeen per cent of the
forums nationwide whom we approached during our study involved
survivors as members, and 15 per cent did so within their management
structure, although it was not always clear whether these figures referred
to service users and ex-users (in which case they seem quite high) or to
survivors more generally (in which case, conversely, they seem rather low).
Overall, the picture was constantly changing. This situation of change is
partly because domestic violence forums themselves alter all the time and
may not have a recognisable structure in any case, and partly because
they lack statutory weight, unlike, for example, Area Child Protection
Committees (ACPCs). As a result, they have no established resource base
that could be drawn on to finance user consultation exercises. They may
also be dominated by agencies that are unused to working collaboratively
with service users.
Turning now to direct statutory and other services, our study found that,
where they involved users at all, they did so less systematically than either
refuge and outreach projects or domestic violence forums. None of the
statutory or voluntary sector projects interviewed in the study, outside
women’s refuge, advocacy and support organisations, had any policies at
all in place as regards direct access for users and ex-users to management
and policy-making. Although there were examples of good practice and of
attempts to involve service users and ex-users here and there, the over-
riding view in the statutory sector (with some exceptions who were often
 How much do agencies listen? 67

1111 local authority equality and other specialist officers and police domestic
2 violence liaison officers) seemed to be that women who have experienced
3 domestic violence deserve pity and protection.
4 It must be said that, in general, individual agencies did quite often make
5 a stab at consultation, but frequently of the most rudimentary kind. They
6 might, for example, consult their service users through exit questionnaires
7 evaluating services received and through user surveys. At best, such eval-
8 uations and user feedback can then be helpfully fed into planning and
9 development decisions about improving the service in the future. They can
1011 be most useful if operated systematically and if the agency concerned takes
1 notice of, and acts upon, the results. Using the police as an example, it was
2 clear from our study that police services use well-established mechanisms
3111 for gauging victim satisfaction with services received, but these do not
4 appear to be well embedded in relation to domestic violence or necessarily
5 to feed into wider consultative strategies (Mullender and Hague, 2001).
6 None of the police domestic violence units in our study consulted their
7 users in a wider way, except very informally (although some police services
8 have advisory groups, including abuse survivors). We found few examples
9 of statutory agencies involving service users in a more systematic or influ-
20111 ential way to assist with policy development, apart from policy reviews
1 or partnership plans and audits which generally require user input and had,
2 in some cases, engaged in substantial consultation.
3 Between 29 and 32 per cent of our women interviewees believed that
4 the views of abused women were taken more seriously by some of the new
5111 specialist domestic violence services in the statutory and voluntary sectors
6 than by traditional services like housing departments. In general, these
7 types of specialist provision were regarded very favourably in terms of
8 consultation and involvement of service users. Current examples include
9 the ‘One stop shops’ that have been established in various local authori-
30111 ties. The work of one of the pioneers of this approach, Ambassador One
1 Stop Project in Croydon, in which women who have experienced violence
2 take an active part in providing services, is discussed in Chapter 10. (The
3 project is now named the One Stop Partnership.) There are so few specialist
4 women’s projects of this type, however, that we were unable to collect
5 meaningful statistics from them, but it appears that they all consult women
6 survivors whenever they can. This includes many of the projects currently
7 being funded by the Home Office Crime Reduction Programme on
8 Violence against Women.
9 Some of the abuse survivors and domestic violence workers with whom
40111 we talked in our study, in a variety of agencies and forums, had been devel-
1 oping survivor consultation and involvement strategies for some years and
2 had much rich experience of what happens on the ground. The majority of
3 these inter-agency respondents who had substantial amounts of expertise in
44111 developing effective consultation confirmed that domestic violence service
68 Women’s views and voices

users and their representatives (for example, women’s refuge and support
or advocacy organisations) were frequently marginalised and silenced in
multi-agency work more generally. These experienced respondents made a
case that satisfactory service and policy development can only occur when
representation and some form of informal accountability have become:

an integral and accepted part of the work, but few forums currently
understand this on a real, ‘felt and lived’ level. It is crucial that user
involvement and consultation is not just a trendy idea but is translated
into policy, so that its raison d’être is to lead to action and change, not
just to look good.
(Multi-agency forum co-ordinator)

From their direct experience, they had learned the importance of concrete
change and action, rather than fashionable consultation on its own.

Survivor participation in women’s refuge, support

and outreach services
Within the wide range of agencies now involved in domestic violence work,
women’s organisations are the most likely to view user participation as
integral to what they do. Confirming the findings of many previous studies
(for an overview, see Mullender and Hague, 2000, 2001), women’s refuge
and outreach projects in our own study had the best record, not only of
providing sympathetic specialist services as discussed in the last chapter,
but also of consulting and involving women and children using these
services (although they often did so in a less systematic way than in the
earlier days of the women’s refuge movement). Service users and service
providers within Women’s Aid have always interacted together in a non-
traditional way, attempting to be realistic about the power differentials
between them, but also breaking down those differentials wherever
possible.
Women residents and ex-residents attend regional and national meetings
and conferences of the Women’s Aid federations, for example, and
frequently speak out about their experiences at events and feed their views
into the organisation in various ways. Refuges and women’s support organ-
isations conduct many surveys and pieces of research to ascertain the views
and needs of women experiencing domestic violence in general or using
refuge services. The federations also contribute to, and have taken a
pioneering role in, electronic consultation through the Internet (as further
discussed later and in the Epilogue). Overall, survivors of violence and
women using services have a high profile in Women’s Aid, as compared
with people using the services provided by most other voluntary sector
agencies.
 How much do agencies listen? 69

1111 Table 5.1 Percentage of inter-agency forums and refuge services saying they
2 involved service users (N = 258)
3
Refuge Inter-agency
4 services forums
5 (%) (%)
6
7 Women consulted 90 40
Women having influence over 77 36
8 policy
9 Women having real power to 30 26
1011 contribute to decisions
1 and policy
2
3111
4 Table 5.1 compares the extent to which inter-agency forums and refuge
5 organisations in our study consulted with service users and ex-users and
6 compares this figure both with the percentage where women in these situ-
7 ations had some influence over policy-making, and with the figure where
8 they had real power to participate in decision-making, according to agency
9 representatives. Overall, 90 per cent of refuges reported consulting with
20111 their women residents and other survivors, an encouraging figure. By
1 contrast, only 40 per cent of inter-agency forums across the country
2 consulted with women service users. For all of these agencies and forums,
3 even though it was a self-report survey, there was a precipitous decrease
4 in percentages between those who solely consulted and those in which
5111 abused women were reported to exert a measure of real decision-making
6 power, with those where service users had some influence over policy being
7 in the middle.
8 These figures confirm what perhaps could have been predicted. Whereas
9 a very high percentage of refuges and almost half of forums directly
30111 consulted domestic violence survivors in some way, a smaller percentage
1 would be expected to involve survivors in a way that enables them to have
2 some actual influence over policy and service direction. This was the case
3 both for refuges, at 77 per cent of women having influence, and for inter-
4 agency forums at only 36 per cent. Importantly though, while women users
5 were far more often consulted and given influence in refuge groups than
6 in domestic violence forums, there was little difference between them in
7 terms of service users having any real power to participate actively in deci-
8 sion-making about the project. Refuge organisations scored 30 per cent
9 here, and forums 26 per cent. This is a telling finding for refuge services,
40111 which often take pride in their principles of democratic sharing and of
1 listening and empowerment as regards their service users. Admittedly,
2 though, power is a difficult matter to categorise, and our informants may
3 have been interpreting it in different ways in different agencies. Also, it
44111 may be a near impossible task to involve users and ex-users in actual
70 Women’s views and voices

decision-making more substantially within a moderately conventional

service organisation (as opposed to an advocacy project, for example).
Nevertheless, refuge organisations might have been expected to score more
highly here.
Activist women’s projects have always had general policies to empower
abused women and their children which have often been carried out in prac-
tical, down-to-earth ways, and this continues. But, in the study reported
here, the qualitative evidence was that Women’s Aid and other refuge and
support organisations were perhaps less able to involve their residents
and ex-residents than they had been in the past, when it was very common
for ex-users of the service to apply for jobs or to join the support group
(the previous, more informal, name for what is now more often known as
the management committee). This kind of involvement continues to a
considerable extent, but somewhat less frequently than previously. Thus,
rather than women’s services influencing statutory bodies and new
domestic violence projects to involve users and ex-users more, the influ-
ence has perhaps operated the other way round to some extent. Rather
than statutory services becoming more participative, women’s refuge
organisations and support projects appear to have become somewhat less
so (although they have influenced statutory services positively in abused
women’s favour in many other ways). Many refuge services now involve
service users less in their management and operation than they did formerly,
at least in terms of women residents being able to participate in policy-
making within the agency.
This development is partly an inevitable result of the enormously
increased amount of monitoring, target-setting and paperwork that now
afflicts Women’s Aid as much as it does all other agencies. Participating
in multi-agency and partnership initiatives has also added greatly to work-
loads (Harwin, 1999). These factors mean that time is limited and there
can be a demand for specific skills and qualifications which ex-residents
may not have. In general, the work done may be divided up between staff
members along more hierarchical lines than in the past, and the overall
employment structures currently in use in refuge organisations are often
now less collective than they used to be (Hague et al., 2001). One woman
who had both lived and worked in a refuge had this to say:

It has changed so much. Before, you could get a job in the refuge as
a survivor or go to the support group. It upsets me to think about how
much it has changed.
(Woman interviewee)

The trend towards ‘professionalisation’ and the demands of funders for

a more managerial approach frequently cut across commitments to collab-
orative or participative structures within women’s organisations. On a
 How much do agencies listen? 71

1111 general level, it has been observed that projects tend to become less radical,
2 and that innovatory dynamism is sometimes lost, as a response to main-
3 streaming and professionalisation, although Women’s Aid retains its
4 critical edge. Over the years, there have been many debates about such
5 issues in terms of the relationship between the women’s movement and the
6 state, and the possible co-optation of the former when the latter gets
7 involved (see, e.g., Lovenduski, 1993; Hague and Malos, 1998). Our study
8 adds some fuel to these debates in terms of the price of mainstreaming on
9 activism in many (but by no means all) women’s projects.
1011 During our study, 40 per cent of refuge groups had residents’ rights poli-
1 cies in operation, although more of these are being developed all the time.
2 In just 24 per cent, current residents could attend management meetings,
3111 despite a previous commitment throughout the refuge movement (particu-
4 larly evident in the 1970s and 1980s) to collectivity in this respect. This
5 was perhaps always a rather cosmetic commitment in that current residents
6 could rarely participate in real decision-making, so often had no role at the
7 meetings they attended. Their presence, though, meant that they were
8 informed about, and involved in, what was going on within the organisa-
9 tion. They often felt more important and respected, simply by being invited.
20111 Of course, in the early stages of trying to escape their abusers, the last
1 thing many survivors need is to be asked to attend meetings and groups,
2 as 71 per cent of the women we interviewed pointed out. It can also be
3 argued that it is good practice to maintain management functions separately
4 from forums for service users in order to avoid a loss of clarity and the
5111 emergence of potentially messy or unprofessional situations. An alterna-
6 tive might be to engage in formal representation processes, as is common
7 practice elsewhere, with a quota of service users attending to represent the
8 views of everyone else. However, overall, it appears that there has been a
9 loss in many refuge groups in terms of the lessening of the ability both to
30111 challenge traditional ways of running the organisation and to do things in
1 different, and exciting, new ways.
2 The situation as regards ex-service users in Women’s Aid is different
3 again. In 52 per cent of the refuges in our study, ex-residents (unlike resi-
4 dents) not only attended but sat formally on management committees and,
5 in many cases, took official positions in the project (for example, as chair).
6 Most refuges have policies that this is only possible after a certain time
7 period has elapsed to allow the ex-resident concerned to move on from her
8 own personal crisis so that she can take a more general view of the overall
9 issues, as befits a manager. This strategy has been developed over many
40111 years of practice. For example, some refuge groups have a policy that ex-
1 users can only join the management committee after all the women who
2 were their friends when they were in the refuge have left, which would
3 appear to be sensible practice in terms of confidentiality and avoiding
44111 inevitably vested interests. Others have a time period of typically six
72 Women’s views and voices

months which must elapse. However, if women experiencing abuse are

willing to participate earlier, our study found that there may be room for
a more flexible approach, cognisant of the complex emotional difficulties
involved. Rigid policies are likely to have a negative effect on those women
who are ready to participate earlier, whereas their participation in refuge
operation and management can be a very positive personal experience, as
many survivors have testified over the years within Women’s Aid.
Furthermore, a blanket policy will never be right for everyone, particularly
in respect of an issue that can have a long-term impact. It may be how a
woman is supported in surviving her experiences that counts, rather than
a simple lapse of time. Women’s refuges are currently in the process of
revisiting some of these difficult but challenging issues.
On an operational level, rather than a managerial one, on the other hand,
more than half the refuge projects which we consulted during our study
involved residents in the actual running of the project. Women took respon-
sibility within the project itself, even if not in the management structure,
and participated in day-to-day decisions in a variety of ways, including
handling admissions, deciding on internal policies, and making decisions
and sharing ideas through house meetings. Refuge services also often
involve women residents and other survivors in outward-looking work on
awareness-raising, for example the design and production of leaflets and
publicity materials (or in providing ideas for, and then choosing from,
professionally produced designs). Women survivors from refuges are also
involved in representing the organisation to external bodies and in training
provision, both in contributing to the content of the training and also on
occasion in participating in its delivery. Encouragingly, in our study, chil-
dren could take a role in decision-making in 52 per cent of refuge groups
and 69 per cent held children’s meetings. These findings on children
are supported by the independent findings of a recent mapping study of
services for families where there is domestic violence, which found similar
percentages (see Humphreys et al., 2000).
The Women’s Aid federations have been working over the last ten
years to improve the accountability and effectiveness of management and
operational structures in refuge projects, and these developments have in
some cases included mechanisms for consultation with service users.
Consultation is included in Women’s Aid Codes of Practice and in the
performance indicators used. Overall, too, in almost all refuge groups
consulted in our study, women who had experienced domestic violence
were represented as professionals among volunteers, staff or management
(whether or not they had revealed to colleagues what had happened to them
in the past). Despite a diminishing of previous formal commitments to
collectivity, refuge providers continue to offer an often creative engage-
ment between women who have experienced domestic violence and those
who have not.
 How much do agencies listen? 73

1111 Being ‘in the experience’

2
A contentious issue was identified during our study about abused women
3
who were still considered to be ‘in the experience’ of abuse and were there-
4
fore not taken seriously. All agencies appear to play into this. This includes
5
statutory agencies who in the past have often displayed a patronising atti-
6
7 tude to those who used their services but who may now be trying to leave
8 that heritage behind, not always with great success (see, e.g. Humphreys
9 and Thiara, 2002). It also includes, more surprisingly, some women’s advo-
1011 cacy and support services. Being labelled as still being ‘in the experience’
1 relates to the way in which refuge groups may insist, as noted above, that
2 ex-residents take a break from the organisation for a set time period
3111 after service use before being eligible to contribute to the management
4 committee. In general, for all agencies, many workers appear to take the
5 view, to varying degrees, that women service users are likely to be unreli-
6 able participants or informants, owing to emotional factors and unresolved
7 trauma caused by the violence which they have experienced. Abused
8 women are frequently, therefore, left out of consultation procedures, at least
9 until their abuse is well in the past. Strategies of exclusion of this type
20111 can discriminate against some service users, and interviewees in one of
1 the main study areas felt that the raw strength of survivor voices could
2 be overlooked, while simultaneously recognising the complex emotional
3 difficulties involved, which necessitate a particularly sensitive and flexible
4 approach.
5111 By labelling or ‘constructing’ survivors in this way, workers in all sectors
6 in the domestic violence field sometimes unwittingly constrain and dis-
7 empower those who are ostensibly being helped. When asked to talk in our
8 study about why they thought this was, and how survivors could be
9 involved more effectively in policy-making and the provision of domestic
30111 violence services, the same qualification (echoed by voluntary and statu-
1 tory agency representatives alike) was often applied, although sometimes
2 expressed slightly differently. Thus, women who had experienced violence
3 were seen as rightfully involved, but not until they had ‘moved on from
4 the experience’. Ways of expressing this view included ‘survivors have
5 enough to deal with already’ and ‘they should not remind themselves’
6 (quotes from agency representatives). Officers in both statutory and volun-
7 tary agencies were often similarly reticent, citing both lack of expertise
8 among service users and ex-users, and lack of resources, as key factors in
9 a regrettable situation.
40111 Abused women often have much creativity to offer in terms of surviving
1 abuse. Rather than recognising this, however, or seeing participation as a
2 way in which domestic violence survivors might gain strength, confidence
3 and control over their lives, workers in the field, ranging from statutory
44111 managers to some refuge workers, frequently took the opposite view. They
74 Women’s views and voices

appeared to feel that the experience of men’s abuse rendered women so

vulnerable and so much in need of protection (from a range of outside influ-
ences as well as from their abusers), that they were usually not able to
engage in consultative and participative processes at all, at least in the short
term. In the next section, this complex issue is discussed further, in terms
of the empowerment of domestic violence survivors, on the one hand,
versus, on the other, the silencing and stigma which they are frequently
forced to endure.
 Part 3
1111
2
3
How to engage in
4
5
survivor participation
6
7 and consultation
8
9
1011
1
2
3111
4
5
6
7
8
9
20111
1
2
3
4
5111
6
7
8
9
30111
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
40111
1
2
3
44111
 Chapter 6
1111
2
How to do it
3
4
Empowerment and stigma
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 Something positive has come out of our sadness, out of our experiences,
4 and others can learn from this.
5 (Survivors from the Phoenix Group, City of Westminster)
6
7
8 Out of sadness, can come change. The women in the group quoted above
9 are currently participating actively in the policy process, and their pain and
20111 experience are indeed leading to positive developments for other women
1 in similar situations. They are clear that the best way to prevent domestic
2 violence is to consult survivors of the violence. This statement was made
3 to us several times in our research by a variety of different workers, agen-
4 cies and abuse survivors. Who better to give meaningful information and
5111 to suggest possible solutions and effective responses to such violence than
6 those who have had direct experience of it, working in tandem with policy-
7 makers, practitioners and activists? However, this does not happen nearly
8 as often as it should.
9 In Part 2, the frequent lack of consultation and participation strategies to
30111 involve survivors of abuse in the work of inter-agency forums and agen-
1 cies was discussed. In order to correct this situation we need to ask what
2 has to happen for abused women to be able to raise their own voices effec-
3 tively and for these voices to be properly heard by policy-makers and
4 service providers. In Part 3 then, we move on to discuss the ‘how to’ of
5 user involvement in the domestic violence field. We address how, for
6 example, to engage in survivor consultation and participation in a way that
7 takes on the complexities involved, and which is meaningful, rather than
8 merely cosmetic. We also discuss the practical methods that are currently
9 being tried out, together with the positives and drawbacks of each. In doing
40111 this, we draw, as throughout this book, on the findings of our study and on
1 the insights and lessons of the activist movement to empower women
2 experiencing domestic violence. Thus, this is less an academic analysis than
3 a practically oriented discussion to provide ideas, nuance and guidance for
44111 practitioners, activists and abused women themselves.
78 Survivor participation and consultation

In the current chapter, we discuss ways of involving survivors in the

policy process in general terms, and engage in a detailed consideration of
stigma and the silencing effects of abuse, both of which need to be recog-
nised and combatted in concrete ways as a basic foundation-stone of any
practical survivor participation strategy. We then discuss the important
issue of the collective and individual empowerment of abuse survivors that
such strategies can facilitate, and end by considering the benefits of
listening to abused women.
In terms of service user involvement in general in the domestic violence
field, there are many different ways of seeking the views of survivors of
violence and incorporating these into policy and practice. However, it is
clear, as was discussed in the last section, that professionals in the field
have only just begun to embark upon, and to explore, this challenging road.
In various areas of the country, a few pioneers are currently experimenting
with different approaches, and both workers and women using services are
putting themselves on the line to try something new. In this endeavour,
praise and recognition are due. One thing that is clear from the research
we have undertaken is that the building of consultative methods and mean-
ingful involvement for domestic violence service users is not an easy task.
Achieving the accountability of services to users and shifting real power
in their direction are massively harder. Even if consultation alone is consid-
ered, there are many thorny issues to be addressed and no one is yet sure
of the best way to go about it.
It may be, in fact, that there is no ‘best way’. We found in our research
that methods and strategies vary, according to what is going on in the
locality concerned. Thus, no single strategy for consultation or participa-
tion emerged as better than any other. Rather, approaches appear to depend
on local circumstances and conditions, so that strategies which are effective
in one area may not be so somewhere else, needing instead to be individ-
ually tailored. What will work where cannot necessarily be prescribed in
advance.
Crucial factors which have an effect on whether accountability and user
involvement ideas are likely to take hold in a locality include how widely
services and domestic violence forums have been developed in the area
concerned, together with the presence or absence of refuges and women’s
support services and also of key local personnel to take a pioneering role
(see also Hague et al., 1996). The employment, within both refuges and
the other service agencies dealing with domestic violence, of sometimes
charismatic figures with a deep commitment to women survivors of abuse
is often helpful, although willingness to give user involvement a try is
perhaps more crucial. The issue needs champions to take it forward. Where
service users, employees and managers are indeed willing to take the first
steps, and where, in addition, activists are willing to support those who do
so, real progress is possible.
 Empowerment and stigma 79

1111 Thus, active support for participation is required by organisations, both

2 at a managerial strategic level and at an operational one, in order to make
3 domestic violence user involvement work. Where such a commitment is
4 made by managers as well as practitioners, it needs to operate on both a
5 ‘theoretical’ and a practical level. In the study on which this book is based,
6 though, it was clear that, while there was a wide commitment in principle
7 among inter-agency domestic violence forums and agencies across the
8 country to service user accountability and participation, few had much of
9 an idea of how to do it in down-to-earth ways, nor, in almost all cases,
1011 were any available resources allocated.
1 One thing that has become clear to us as we have talked with those prac-
2 tically engaged in the enterprise around the UK is that approaches used
3111 may flower for a while and then may die away, to be replaced after a time,
4 perhaps, by another method. Participants may be distressed when their
5 efforts seem to have been of no avail, but such an outcome need not be
6 regarded negatively. The fact that a strategy worked for a period of time
7 is more important than its longevity. Peaks and troughs are experienced
8 within attempts to engage in service user participation and community
9 activism in all fields (see Lindow, 1995), as we noted in Chapter 3. But
20111 this tendency can be particularly important to acknowledge within domestic
1 violence services due to the crisis nature of the work, the necessity for secu-
2 rity and confidentiality, and the fact that abused women and children may
3 need to be geographically mobile. Thus, things may change quite quickly.
4 In one local area in which we worked in 1999–2000, for example, a partic-
5111 ularly pioneering survivors’ group had been a forerunner of its type but
6 had not endured over time, as further discussed in Chapter 8. However, its
7 legacy has enabled others to learn from the experience. The evidence from
8 our research in relation to this experiment and to other ground-breaking
9 attempts has led us to believe that the flowering should be celebrated, rather
30111 than leading to disillusion because of the possible subsequent dying away.
1 In general, then, involving domestic violence survivors can be a sensi-
2 tive and difficult matter. If it is to be successful, overall strategic direction
3 is needed within agencies, sensitively developed with the involvement of
4 domestic violence survivors themselves wherever possible, accompanied
5 by concrete procedures agreed by all concerned. Developing and operating
6 such strategies and procedures can be a complex, and potentially painful,
7 task. This is partly due to the distressing and often traumatic nature of the
8 abuse that women are likely to have experienced and also to the need for
9 safety issues to be paramount. We address these issues further in the next
40111 chapter but, first, we believe it is important to acknowledge that, when it
1 works, survivor participation can be very moving and powerful for all
2 involved and can be of great significance for policy development. If it is
3 set up well, with attention to the sensitivities involved and with commit-
44111 ment and good planning and resources, the results can be extraordinary,
80 Survivor participation and consultation

according to the findings of our study. Women’s lives and confidence can
be transformed, and so can service provision and delivery:

You can do something to give back some of the things you have learnt
. . . and say, ‘Look, it can be done’ and make a contribution. People
listen to me and I feel strong now and that I can help out other women.
We all have to help each other, that’s the only way to beat this thing.
It’s slow but we’re getting there. . . . We’re getting there. . . .
(Interview with woman ex-service user)

Domestic violence survivors speaking out: stigma

versus empowerment
Survivor participation can, then, be a powerful and passionate process and
speaking out can have extraordinary results. Domestic violence, however,
is not an easy issue to speak out about. Rather than the invigorating
strengthening to which the woman quoted above alludes, the more common
experience for abuse survivors is of being silenced, coupled with the possi-
bility of being pathologised if you break the silence. In this section, we
discuss these difficulties and ways of overcoming them through the empow-
erment, both of survivors individually, and of groups coming together
collectively to challenge abuse. All attempts to develop survivor partici-
pation and accountability need to take on these issues as a fundamental and
integral part of everything they do, and to do so consciously, sensitively
and in practical ‘real-life’ ways, if they are to stand a chance of success.
Stigma, silencing – and empowerment – are at the heart of the matter.

Stigma
Survivor involvement and empowerment cannot flourish if those involved,
both professionals and service users, hold negative views about women
who have experienced violence. However, this appears very often to be the
case. In other arenas (see, for example, Aris et al., 2003), we have argued
that survivors of domestic violence may be stigmatised and deskilled by
societal attitudes, and this may happen even within the very agencies that
are most sympathetic to their situations, as discussed in the last chapter.
Previous research has shown that, despite many recent improvements, there
is widespread misunderstanding of the nature of domestic violence, not just
among the general public, but also among workers in the statutory and other
agencies to whom the majority of women experiencing abuse, and seeking
help, turn for assistance and support (Smith, 1989; Hester and Pearson,
1998; Home Office, 2000). This lack of understanding has had serious
consequences for survivors of such violence and their children in relation
to access to services, and it has cost some women their lives. It has also
 Empowerment and stigma 81

1111 silenced and stigmatised abused women within the commonly held view,
2 to which we alluded at the end of the last section, that those who have
3 experienced domestic violence somehow become less competent than those
4 who have not. In our research, workers both in statutory agencies and in
5 some refuge and advocacy organisations often seemed to impose stereo-
6 types on survivors (either consciously or unconsciously) in such a way that
7 they absorbed a sense of themselves ‘as helpless paralysed victims who
8 can’t manage daily life’ (quote from woman survivor). Such attitudes are
9 clearly likely to militate against survivor participation strategies and will
1011 need to be carefully taken on as part of any implementation plan.
1 There are parallels to this situation in other fields, notably in the disability
2 rights movement where the extent to which ‘pity oppresses’ has now been
3111 made clear and challenged. Activists in this movement reject ideas that
4 present disabled people as being dependent and defined by their impair-
5 ment (Wolf, 1993). Within the struggle to combat domestic violence,
6 moves have also been made in this direction. However, many respondents
7 in our study, both workers and service users themselves, saw survivors of
8 violence as so adversely affected psychologically by their experience as to
9 be both unreliable and incapable, at least temporarily, of participating in
20111 decision-making, as we have noted.
1 To some extent, the negative psychological effects are quite often real,
2 at least for a time. But they are likely to be compounded by adverse
3 messages, relayed often unconsciously by agencies and conveyed by those
4 in a position to offer services and support. Interviewees talked of damaged
5111 job prospects, of low self-esteem, of avoiding reporting abuse and of editing
6 their experiences to preserve themselves in a non-stigmatised situation
7 because they knew how others regarded them.
8 A variety of women interviewees had these words to contribute: ‘I didn’t
9 tell them it’s domestic violence and they didn’t ask’; ‘I wanted to get
30111 a divorce by two years separation so as to gloss over the violence’;
1 ‘I wouldn’t tell them the truth . . . frightened of their reaction’; ‘women
2 don’t want people to know; if they know they blame them’; ‘I kept it quiet
3 at the beginning’. Those who had experienced sexual abuse, in particular,
4 found that the attitudes of others towards them often changed for the worse
5 if they revealed it, so they usually edited it out. A few suspected some
6 officials they had encountered of having a prurient interest, which had
7 amplified the extreme personal embarrassment they already felt, and could
8 even be compounded by sexual innuendo.
9 In these respects, it is plausible to argue that the identity of the survivors
40111 of domestic violence is not only reconstructed but, to use the term first
1 pioneered by Erving Goffman in the 1960s, is ‘spoiled’ (Goffman, 1963).
2 Stigma and the spoiling of identity in this way has the effect on an indi-
3 vidual, in Goffman’s words, of ‘cutting him [sic] off from society and from
44111 himself so that he stands a discredited person facing an unaccepting world’
82 Survivor participation and consultation

(ibid.: 19). Goffman’s original and pioneering elaboration of this phenom-

enon (much developed by later writers) resonates with the reluctance of
many abuse survivors to participate in initiatives around domestic violence.
He asserts, for example, that someone with a stigma ‘may perceive, usually
quite correctly, that whatever others profess, they do not really “accept”
him and are not ready to make contact with him on “equal grounds”’ (ibid.:
7). Further, as Goffman notes:

the standards he has incorporated from wider society equip him to be

intimately alive to what others see as his failing, inevitably causing
him, if only for moments, to agree that he does indeed fall short of
what he really ought to be. Shame becomes a central possibility, arising
from the individual’s perception of one of his own attributes as being
a defiling thing to possess.
(ibid.: 7)

The gender-specific language, of course, belongs to the period in which it

was written, but, reframing it for the present day and in respect of abused
women, we can see how this process can damage how others see them and
how they may see themselves.
The belittling effect of viewing survivors of abuse in this way became
clear in the interviews and discussions with abused women which we
carried out. Some of those who were professionals themselves talked of
their input being diminished or marginalised if they disclosed their own
abuse, with the result that many of them had chosen not to do so, rather
than risk embarrassment and possible pity or voyeurism from colleagues.
If they were known to be domestic violence survivors, these workers
described how their objectivity and credibility were sometimes called into
question even in quite unrelated areas of their work.
A considerable percentage of the women we interviewed who were
service users were similarly reticent, and it is vital, if participation is to
work, for these views to be sensitively understood and addressed. Some
interviewees, for example, thought that survivors should actively partici-
pate in domestic violence forums – but not they, themselves. In Chapter 3,
the issue of not feeling qualified to participate in policy discussions was
discussed for service users more generally as a barrier to empowerment.
However, it was crucially compounded in this case by the impacts of the
violence. Those survivors we spoke to who were uneasy about participa-
tion were quick to talk of the disabling effects of experiencing abuse. While
some had become strong and vocal, many spoke of having been tainted by
the experience, and of the need to put it behind them and move on.
Thus, it can be particularly hard to identify yourself publicly in partici-
pation and consultation exercises as a survivor and to make yourself heard
 Empowerment and stigma 83

1111 (see Aris et al., 2002). Some women in our study felt quite simply that
2 they did not deserve to have a voice. These women, who had often suffered
3 abuse over very many years, felt that their confidence and self-esteem were
4 at too low an ebb and expressed anxieties about their own ability to
5 contribute or to be seen as able to do so, as the following selection of quotes
6 indicates: ‘women need to get over the problems first’; ‘survivors are seen
7 as “silly women” ’; and ‘women are “not strong enough”’. Some inter-
8 viewees were also doubtful in terms of their lack of information and skills.
9 One suggested that: ‘women would need a self-development course’;
1011 another that: ‘there should be training and counselling for women who want
1 to get involved’. Several were nervous of not being able to do what they
2 were being asked:
3111
4 I don’t know. I don’t like the sound of it. Sounds frightening to me.
5 Suppose you got it wrong, what would happen then? I think I’d rather
6 leave it to them, they know what they’re about.
7 (Woman interviewee)
8
9
Empowerment
20111
1 Yet, for women who have experienced abuse, the very process of survivor
2 consultation and participation can be individually empowering, as we have
3 noted, and can work against ideas and attitudes about stigma and spoiled
4 identity. Where a group process is used, this empowering experience can
5111 also be a collective one. Such notions of empowerment very much resonate
6 with the aims of Women’s Aid and other women’s organisations. The indi-
7 vidual and collective empowerment of women has always been an
8 important aim of the activist feminist movement since the early days (see,
9 for example, Schechter, 1982; Dobash and Dobash, 1992; Davies, 1994;
30111 Hague and Malos, 1998) and, in the refuge movement, strong practical
1 policies along these lines have been developed. These include a belief in
2 the strength of women together and in the affirming nature of the notion
3 that abuse is not the fault of the victim (Hague and Malos, 1998), as well
4 as concrete policies to encourage group strengthening and career and life
5 skills development.
6 Listening to abused women with dignity and respect and promoting their
7 needs and views without judging them need to form the baseline of all
8 strategies to develop survivor involvement, and are empowering in them-
9 selves. For example, current research in Women’s Aid refuges (Abrahams,
40111 forthcoming) has demonstrated that active listening and respectful treatment
1 by workers and the adoption of a non-judgemental attitude are crucially
2 important if women are to rebuild confidence and self-esteem and to recon-
3 struct their lives after abuse. Similarly, support groups, by their nature, if
44111 run supportively and sensitively, can enable abused women to build their
84 Survivor participation and consultation

strength and self-esteem. Members of a support group for women from

minority ethnic communities whom we interviewed suggested that:

Sharing experiences helps you – the group is very strengthening. It is

hard emotionally to come to a group like this – to admit you’ve suffered
violence and are going to a support group. But once you get over that
and feel yourself here, it helps you, it makes you stronger and gives
you friends and breaks your isolation. Women and children sticking
together and helping each other – we love it!

Such experiences are supported by literature about resilience and coping

strategies which emphasise the importance of both group support and
personal involvement in planning processes and decision-making (Boushell,
1994). Grotberg (1997) and others have suggested, for example, that resil-
ience and the ability of trauma victims to cope in the face of adverse
circumstances can be encouraged by supportive interactions which foster
autonomy, by the degree of development of individuals’ own personal
communication skills and by a sense that they are important and will be
listened to and respected (see also Hester et al., 2000; Mullender et al.,
2002). The particular work quoted here refers mainly to young people, but
the same protective factors have been identified for adults. In terms of
protection from debilitating and undermining aspects of intimate violence,
the reality of being consulted about services and being regarded as
important can have potentially transformative effects for abuse survivors.
Thus, for women who have experienced violence, the twin experiences of
participating in support groups and of also being involved at the same time
in decision-making about policy may reinforce each other, so that the
empowering effect is likely to be magnified. It can be seen, then, that, at a
personal level for women who have experienced abuse, survivor consulta-
tion and participation can contribute to individual empowerment. Women
who are experiencing domestic violence are often excluded by their
violent partners from decision-making and have been placed in a position of
being unable to take meaningful control over their own lives. Taking part in
consultation, or participating actively in a project, can counteract past abuse
of this type. Women who may never have been listened to before, whose
views may never have been regarded as important or worthy, are placed in
a position where what they think is viewed as significant and helpful. The
positive effects on self-esteem can scarcely be overemphasised.
Empowerment has been much debated (for a recent analysis, see, e.g.
Barnes and Warren, 1999) and its positive features for communities, as
well as for individuals, have been well elaborated (as opposed to its less
grass-roots use in professional discourse to which we alluded in Chapter
3). In terms of groups rather than individuals, survivor groups that are
engaged in consultation and accountability work with policy-makers and
 Empowerment and stigma 85

1111 practitioners often experience collective empowerment, which can be a

2 socially and politically significant outcome for previously excluded and
3 disempowered women. Networks of support, friendships and the power
4 of group support and cohesion are important factors here. Being part
5 of decision-making in a group, being listened to collectively and having
6 the power of the group behind you can build self-respect and confidence
7 and enable those concerned to move forward in their lives in previously
8 unimaginable ways.
9 However, overcoming stigmatisation and the resultant difficulties noted
1011 above may be hard to achieve in this way. Negative attitudes to domestic
1 violence are difficult to shift, and pain and trauma may recur on an ongoing
2 basis for survivors. This is a further reason for not excluding women who
3111 are ‘in the experience’. In some ways, the experience never ends and arbi-
4 trary cut-off points are difficult to apply. Thus, in developing participation
5 strategies, specific sensitivities and difficulties need to be recognised,
6 named and negotiated, rather than being ignored, as so often happens
7 if those involved are not familiar with the dynamics of domestic violence.
8 Getting over the silencing effects of this type of violence and the possible
9 impact on self-esteem are issues that need to be carefully taken on, if
20111 survivors are to be enabled to collaborate with agencies successfully.
1 Similarly, there are many painful complexities and emotional issues
2 involved in any disclosure of abuse. Such issues may be differently experi-
3 enced as a result of cultural, ethnicity and class differences, and by the
4 stressful effects of living as a migrant or as a member of a minority
5111 community in the UK (see Mama, 1996; Rai and Thiara, 1997). Any policy
6 initiative on user participation must take on cultural matters and the reality
7 of multiple discrimination and possible disadvantage.
8 In our study, the impacts of poverty and of living in socially excluded
9 or marginalised conditions were also strong factors in impeding women’s
30111 ability to participate in policy-making processes. Most of these personal
1 and structural issues have implications in terms of identity and self-esteem.
2 Additionally, because of the traumatic nature of domestic violence, there
3 may be interpersonal conflict in ongoing consultative groups and problems
4 with keeping such groups going over time. Further difficulties to be over-
5 come that we identified in our study included the possible exploitation of
6 unpaid members of the public by highly paid policy-makers and, vitally,
7 issues of confidentiality and safety for women potentially at risk. These
8 important matters are addressed throughout the remaining chapters.
9 In sum, then, our study found that there is a host of complexities to be
40111 addressed in order to enable women to raise their voices and to engage in
1 individual and collective ‘strengthening’, which may include issues of iden-
2 tity, culture, discrimination, internal ‘power’ and self-image, and the
3 shaming and debilitating effects of abuse. Where these can be dealt with
44111 sensitively and supportively, the experience can lead in powerful new ways
86 Survivor participation and consultation

both to individual empowerment for abused women and to collective

empowerment through the strength of the group.

Listening to women who have experienced

domestic violence
Survivors of domestic violence are currently making contributions to the
policy process in a range of localities. The personal impact of survivor
voices on policy-makers can be remarkable, and may add to the pro-
fessional commitment of those policy-makers to instituting effective
improvements in services, especially if they, themselves, are also survivors
of abuse. The impact can also be remarkable for the survivors concerned,
enabling them to contribute directly and in a constructive way to service
and policy development, building on their own experiences. In our study,
many women who had previously used services told us that they felt proud
to give something back, to show their gratitude for the help they had
received and to do what they personally could to assist other women. Two
women had this to say:

By working on domestic violence later, as a volunteer or worker, you

can give back a bit of power and help to other women. Don’t do it too
soon – it would be too upsetting. Go away and come back to it. You
need to heal first before you can help others.

It helps to give a role model – I’ve survived, so can you.

Thus, when abused women join together to speak out, the emotional power
of what they may say can be salutary for professionals. Many to whom we
spoke expressed how moving they found such experiences, as the following
member of an inter-agency forum described:

The women provide real experience; their testimonies to the forum are
very powerful and prevent our meetings becoming professional talking
shops or purely academic. We couldn’t stay on course without them.

However, as women ex-service users move away from service use and
become accustomed to participating in service and policy development,
some policy-makers and practitioners we interviewed felt that this emotive
power had become muted by what they saw as professionalisation. In other
words, as domestic violence survivors become accustomed to policy work,
they begin to behave and think like the professionals they may previously
have criticised. This issue was discussed in Chapter 3 as a general prob-
lem which has to be confronted and overcome by service user movements
in terms of the possibility of losing impetus and integrity. However, while
 Empowerment and stigma 87

1111 in our study we found a couple of examples of abuse survivors becom-

2 ing demanding to work with as professionals, as one might expect in
3 any situation, we uncovered few cases of professionalisation damaging
4 women’s commitment to the cause. Rather, the reverse was true in that ex-
5 service users who had become workers in the system often brought renewed
6 energy and understanding to the project in question. On occasion, of course,
7 there may be some truth in the observation that ex-service users can begin
8 to think like policy-makers and to curtail their demands accordingly.
9 However, those survivors we interviewed who had considerable amounts
1011 of later professional experience in participation work told us that they felt
1 this experience had facilitated their contributions, rather than detracting
2 from them. They had been able to use their abilities in a more effective
3111 way through learning about the policy process.
4 Many women use survivor participation and consultation as a stepping
5 stone to developing their own careers as volunteers or trained workers. The
6 Women’s Aid Federation of England has developed training courses for
7 women service users, for example. NVQ courses in domestic violence now
8 exist, some run in conjunction with refuge organisations, through which
9 women service users or ex-users can gain qualifications which may then
20111 provide access to further training opportunities. Other courses (for example
1 social work qualifying courses) may also offer possible avenues for career
2 development, with eligibility to apply assisted by participation in consul-
3 tation exercises and volunteer work by users or ex-users in the management
4 or operation of projects.
5111 It remains true that, whether or not professional changes of this type are
6 facilitated for the women involved, many domestic violence survivors who
7 have experience of working with agencies have given breadth and depth
8 to policy responses by speaking out, and some have done so in powerful
9 ways that have had strong effects, both for themselves and for the service
30111 in question. One woman said to us:
1
2 I do what I can. I’m on all these committees and you have to educate
3 them. They don’t know what to do realistically and they keep making
4 mistakes unless you are there to correct them and to point out the
5 reality. It drains you, it drains you. . . . But it is satisfying because you
6 can see you are making things better.
7 (Woman ex-service user)
8
9 Another woman we interviewed spoke movingly in the following words:
40111
1 If they listen to us it is just so good. It makes the services better, just
2 much better. No one has ever listened to us before. And then suddenly
3 these posh organisations are. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking
44111 about it.
88 Survivor participation and consultation

Such a positive outcome is dependent on the consultation and participation

strategies in use being effective, supportive and building on strengths. How
then can such outcomes be ensured? What policies are needed and how
can they best be made to work? These issues will be explored in the next
chapter.
 Chapter 7
1111
2
How to do it
3
4
Policies, sensitivities and resources to
5 make the participation effective
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 In this chapter, we move on to consider the practicalities of survivor
4 involvement. Beginning with a brief discussion of power issues in this
5 context, we then consider consultation as part of official, legislative and
6 policy requirements, and the need for sound and concrete policies, what-
7 ever type of participation is being considered. We then discuss some of the
8 difficult issues that need to be part of any strategy for user involvement.
9 These include safety, representativeness, diversity issues, and the need for
20111 resources and support. The chapter ends by opening up a discussion of what
1 works and what does not, with a particular focus on the limited strategy of
2 inviting individual survivors to attend policy meetings and forums on behalf
3 of other woman, a strategy which we found in our study to be often in-
4 appropriate, upsetting and ineffective.
5111 In general, it is of little point engaging in consultation and participa-
6 tion policies, as we have indicated in previous chapters, if nothing changes
7 as a result and if the exercise remains cosmetic rather than an integrated
8 part of policy and service delivery. However, many studies of consultative
9 strategies with service users have found that such a tokenistic outcome is
30111 common. Consultation is carried out but there is no link between this and
1 actual progress (Lindow and Morris, 1995). A clear issue here is who
2 has power (see also Chapter 3), how it is operated and how much
3 it is shared.
4
5 Power and who has it
6
7 Where agencies retain all the power and the service users being consulted
8 have very little, it is clear that the most likely outcome is that nothing much
9 will change if users voice their issues and concerns. Thus, there has to be
40111 a shift if effective user participation is to be possible. This can be hard to
1 bring about, however. In general, service user involvement is widely
2 viewed as difficult to achieve and as hampered by social exclusion and by
3 inadequate understandings of the operation of power, as discussed in earlier
44111
90 Survivor participation and consultation

sections (see, for example, Beresford and Croft, 1995; Stewart and Taylor,
1996). In fact, clarity about power issues and about who can or cannot
make decisions is vital to avoid confused or muddled outcomes.
In the specific case of domestic violence, the impacts of existing power
differences between service providers and service users within agencies
are likely to be compounded by stark and hurtful power issues between
the abuser and the woman being abused (which may, perhaps, be still
continuing in post-separation harassment or through child contact). Thus,
the effects can be especially reinforcing and painful. It is particularly
distressing, for instance, when multi-agency forums attempt to involve
survivors but do so in a way that victimises them all over again. An example
would be where the woman being consulted is overlooked, not allowed
to speak, or made to feel stupid during the participation process, outcomes
she may have experienced countless times in abusive situations at home.
Thus, the power dynamics between policy-maker and service user can
mirror in an unfortunate and disturbing way those between abuser and
abused. At best, of course, as discussed earlier, survivors can be empow-
ered by a process that may contradict their previous experiences of
victimisation. At worst, conversely, these negative experiences can be
merely confirmed.
One woman, experienced in user participation strategies, illustrated both
these outcomes in her own words. She described the power issue as follows:

It is all about power, all about power, You have to understand that in
a very deep way – it’s not all obvious or straightforward – power takes
many, often hidden, forms. Survivors don’t have it. People in the
agencies have to let go some of their power. And they don’t want to
– they just want to come to meetings and discuss it! You can struggle
on as best you can but, unless they let go of some of the power – hope-
less task – hopeless.

But her experiences had also led her to feel optimistic:

Domestic violence is to do with power – so the problems with getting

the agencies to share their power plays into all of this. All the power
stuff can get reinforced. On the other hand, if the survivor account-
ability works, it is the most wonderful thing, quite amazing, and it
challenges all that other stuff.

Shifting power, at least in small ways, towards domestic violence survivors,

then, is what meaningful survivor involvement and accountability is all
about. We move on now to look at ways of trying to do so.
 Policies, sensitivities and resources 91

1111 Consultation with service users as part of local

2 and central government strategy, legislation
3 and policy
4
One way of trying to ensure that survivor participation is effective (though
5
falling short of genuine accountability) and to increase the power and status
6
7 of those being consulted is to use the legislative channels that have opened
8 up in recent years in terms of formal requirements for user involvement,
9 as we briefly discussed in previous chapters. Using such channels, survivor
1011 voices are given weight and their prominence is magnified and officially
1 sanctioned. Such sanctioned consultation with service users, or with the
2 general public, has now been ‘mainstreamed’ and is embedded in much
3111 new social policy and legislation, placing a duty of partnership and consul-
4 tation on all designated authorities. Depending on the legislation or policy
5 in question, it is required, relevant, or at least possible for strategic consul-
6 tation both to focus on women who have experienced domestic violence
7 in order to seek their views, and to include diversity of representation.
8 (In almost all cases, of course, any consultative process will include
9 domestic violence survivors, as both service users and professionals, but
20111 they may not have disclosed their abuse, or the consultation may be on an
1 unrelated subject.)
2 Thus the setting and meeting of targets and performance indicators by
3 professionals working with such legislation can be combined with innova-
4 tory consultation with survivors of abuse, or groups of survivors, and those
5111 who represent them. As discussed later in this chapter, over-bureaucratic
6 and long-winded mechanisms may result in rather formal and stilted results
7 or in the consultation losing participants. Outcomes of this type of consul-
8 tation may well be rather cosmetic and, in any case, may facilitate only the
9 most basic form of user involvement (as compared with fuller user involve-
30111 ment and participation leading on to agency accountability), in which those
1 being consulted have almost no power in the process. However, where
2 consultation which is an official part of legislation is carried out creatively
3 with domestic violence service users, and is acted upon in practical ways,
4 the use of such embedded and required procedures can be of some use.
5 They may, for example, give the consultative process more authority, and
6 ensure that agencies do not push the consultation to one side or forget to
7 do it. At best, this type of officially required exercise may result in policy
8 change through accepted channels defined by legislation. Where consulta-
9 tion is not part of required procedures in this way, there may be a tendency
40111 for agencies to overlook it or not to take it seriously. Thus, now that
1 domestic violence policy and service development are taking place across
2 the board, it is particularly important that required consultation procedures
3111 are used as a constructive and sensitive way of building on abused women’s
44111 expressed views and wishes.
92 Survivor participation and consultation

For example, through the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, Crime and
Disorder Partnerships are required to engage in extensive public consulta-
tion and, within this, are encouraged to consider domestic violence.
Both of these provisions can be especially relevant and useful for women
experiencing abuse. Partnerships are required to draw up Crime and
Disorder Audits, in which they are expected to include the nature and
profile of domestic violence in their locality. They must then consult
with relevant bodies and the public in drawing up a Crime and Disorder
Strategy based on the Audit. Provisions in the legislation for consulta-
tion include public meetings (usually unsuitable for discussions of domes-
tic violence), surveys and networking. Women who have experienced
domestic violence are placed in the ‘hard-to-reach’ category in the legis-
lation (and, in practice, may also be ‘hard to hear’ for reasons explored
earlier). Possible methods for reaching them that are recommended by
government include the convening of (possibly disguised) public meetings
in safe venues used by the hard-to-reach group in question; convening
special groups; using existing forums (but for another purpose in this
case); holding special conferences; and using focus groups. The Home
Office also suggests that women’s specialist refuge and support agencies
can assist with such consultation. (See www.homeoffice.gov.uk [crime
reduction].)
Similarly, Best Value is a wide-reaching and comprehensive programme
to ensure high standards of service, crossing many areas of policy and
provision. It requires consultation at all levels and relevant targets need to
be met within Best Value performance plans and performance indicators.
Within their overall plans, local authorities are required to conduct Best
Value performance reviews on selected topics in terms of the four ‘Cs’, of
which Consult is one. (The others are Challenge, Compare and Compete.)
It is possible to conduct Best Value reviews on domestic violence, and the
London Boroughs of Croydon and Haringey, among others, have carried
out specialist exercises of this type. Extensive consultation with service
users is a feature of these reviews. Domestic violence survivors and special-
ist domestic violence service providers have also participated in addressing
the Challenge category. (See Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: www.
odpm.gov.uk [local government].)
Supporting People, the new programme for providing housing-related
services to vulnerable people, is required to establish working partner-
ships of local authorities, support agencies and service users. The Support-
ing People initiative, now the major funding source for refuge-based
services, requires user consultation and aims to engage in transparent
decision-making (see www.detr.gov.uk [supporting people]). There are
also extensive consultation strategies within the health service, and
public involvement is now an intrinsic part of NHS practice (for instance,
 Policies, sensitivities and resources 93

1111 extensive public consultation preceded the publication of the ten-year NHS
2 Plan). Each health authority is required to produce a Health Improvement
3 Programme (HImP), a strategic framework for improving health and reduc-
4 ing inequalities in health in local areas. Extensive consultation is required
5 in the production of the HImP, with user involvement throughout the
6 process, rather than as a one-off or ‘paper’ exercise. Domestic violence is
7 clearly of relevance within HImPs and new methods of consultation are
8 currently being developed across the country, including within health action
9 zones. (See www.doh.gov.uk.)
1011 There are many other partnership groupings which are required by new
1 legislation, including local strategic partnerships within local authority
2 areas that include voluntary sector and community representatives. The
3111 Local Government Act 2000 requires local authorities to consult with
4 community members to prepare Community Strategies and to build the
5 strength and capacity of the voluntary sector, which is of course the site
6 of much independent women’s support and refuge provision (see www.
7 detr.gov.uk). Other partnerships, including Children and Young People’s
8 Strategic Partnerships involving young people and their parents or carers,
9 require community participation. All of these complex new provisions add
20111 to previous legislation and policy that require consultation and community
1
involvement (the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act and the production
2
of Community Care Plans, for example). All can potentially be of use in
3
listening to the voices of domestic violence survivors and improving
4
domestic violence provision and services.
5111
6 There can be problems, however, where high-level partnerships duplicate
7 each other’s work and when large amounts of time are spent elaborating
8 lengthy strategies and plans of little practical impact. Difficulties can
9 also arise if management-level interventions are imposed on otherwise
30111 grass-roots participative strategies (Barnes et al., 1999). In one locality that
1 fed information into our study, women survivors’ involvement and a ‘bot-
2 tom-up’ domestic violence forum that had been painstakingly developed
3 over a decade were overlooked in new partnership policy development
4 within the local authority concerned. The forum was then replaced, with
5 no consultation or notice, by a high-level management forum to satisfy
6 new legislation. While the situation was finally reversed, after a time-
7 consuming and draining struggle, it appeared for some time that the careful
8 work of survivor consultation and the development of local policies over
9 many years were to no avail within an over-enthusiastic and ill-informed
40111 embracing of legislation ostensibly based on partnership and user involve-
1 ment. This outcome was a chilling example of organisations ‘on the ground’
2 being overlooked by over eager or messianic policy-makers and managers
3 using ‘consultation’, ‘partnership’ and ‘multi-agency’ as buzz words, rather
44111 than active principles.
94 Survivor participation and consultation

The need for sound policies to address

sensitivities and difficulties
In general, the participation of abused women can be very significant for
policy development because individual accounts may highlight issues –
notably safety – that professionals may underemphasise. However, as can
be seen from the foregoing discussions, consultation (let alone fuller user
involvement) is a difficult thing to do well unless specific sensitivities and
difficulties are recognised and addressed. For the women being consulted,
these obstacles may include, as discussed earlier: safety and confidentiality
issues; the impacts of poverty, of social class and of cultural imperatives
and differences; the silencing and stigmatising effects of domestic violence;
the impact of abuse on self-esteem; and personal difficulties in dealing with
painful memories and remembered traumas.
As we have discussed, seeking service user views can in some cases
result in the exploitation of the woman being consulted and in a type of
‘re-victimisation’ – in this case, by the services concerned, rather than by
the original abuser. In others, the consultation may lead nowhere or may
be skilfully overlooked when the professionals do not want survivors to be
part of a decision:

It is easy for them to overlook you – even if they pretend they are not
doing so! They overlook you when it is an important issue, make the
‘real decisions’ behind your back, call a special meeting you are not
invited to – or ask you to leave at the key moment! So you have to
build it one bit at a time.
(Woman survivor of abuse,
active in consultative roles)

Other service user advocacy organisations and self-organised user groups

have also encountered this difficulty, and agencies in a variety of fields
have a tendency to use management tactics to de-legitimise user groups
when they choose to do so (Barnes et al., 1999). Barnes et al. suggest that
government injunctions to listen to user voices have had some effect in
terms of improving agency attitudes. However, they point out that, as long
as managers see their roles as being to ‘hold the ring’ between a plurality
of stakeholders of whom service users are only one, and all of whom are
regarded equally, it is inevitable that they will continue to attend only selec-
tively to service user voices and will quite likely reduce them to those of
‘consumers’ as opposed to experts in their own lives (ibid.: 107).
In order to overcome these various difficulties, there is an indisputable
need for the use of an agreed and sensitive procedure or mechanism for
consultation with abused women, which agencies are obliged to follow and
which is accepted as an automatic part of policy. The integration of such
 Policies, sensitivities and resources 95

1111 procedures into agency operation is vital, rather than just ‘hoping it will
2 happen’. Nevertheless, we identified examples in our research of inter-
3 agency forums, in particular, adopting the latter approach, especially where
4 there was a refuge involved that might, just by its presence, be assumed
5 by others to ensure that consultation had happened when it had never in
6 reality been mooted as a possibility.
7 Conversely, while an agreed procedure for any participation process is
8 essential, we also found that an overly bureaucratic approach and too much
9 procedure could actually kill it off. Rather, simple and clear steps were
1011 required. To be meaningful and effective, the findings of many other service
1 user movements were echoed in this study in that consultation needs several
2 elements (see Department of Health 1996a, 1996b). These include:
3111
4 • the actual consultation and creative, sensitive ways to carry it out,
5 cognisant of equality and diversity issues;
6 • a mechanism for converting the result of the consultation into real
7 action and policy change;
8 • a mechanism for reviewing this, for making sure it happens and for
9 keeping those consulted apprised of outcomes.
20111
1 Procedures to govern each of these three vital components of effective user
2 involvement are essential for domestic violence services. These may
3
include agreed, specific protocols for multi-agency forums or individual
4
agencies on user participation and on developing service standards to meet
5111
the demands expressed (see also Chapter 10). Ideally, women survivors can
6
participate in the design and planning of policies and protocols, or can set
7
8 up and control mechanisms for involvement and accountability themselves,
9 although this is rarely achieved at present. Self-activity and user control
30111 are a long way down the line in most cases, where typically at present only
1 basic consultation has been attempted.
2 Moreover, many organisations in the domestic violence field, as in others,
3 consult and then fail to do anything with the results. The second and third
4 parts of the process outlined above get overlooked, sometimes because
5 those conducting the consultation run out of steam to take it further or don’t
6 have the power to do so. This outcome is not only dismissive of those being
7 consulted, but could also be said to be ‘setting domestic violence survivors
8 up to fail’. As we have consistently emphasised, there is also a clear differ-
9 ence between simple consultation, on the one hand, and real involvement
40111 or accountability, on the other, in which survivors can make or contribute
1 to decisions and have some actual power in the organisation.
2 There have been attempts in several other user groups to raise issues of
3 genuine accountability. Mental health service users, for example, have
44111 attempted to hold service purchasers and providers accountable:
96 Survivor participation and consultation

‘To put them in the hot seat if you like’, in order to get them to explain
directly to users why they are not providing the service people want.
(Barnes et al., 1999: 93)

Members of the British Council of Disabled People, the longest established

coalition in the country, have the increased accountability of services to
such users as a priority aim. They point out that organisations are not used
to being answerable to service users or having to respond to awkward ques-
tions (ibid.: 99). It is a difficult struggle for user groups to get them to do
so, not only within the fields of disability and mental health, but also in
the domestic violence field.
We need, then, to begin perhaps with consultation strategies, as long as
they are meaningful ones, but always to attempt to engage in – and to move
on to – fuller participatory strategies which lead towards true accountability
of agencies to their users. In embarking on this challenging road, agencies
and inter-agency forums wishing to develop effective user participation
strategies in respect of women experiencing domestic violence, and to
avoid some of the outcomes referred to above, may wish, as a first step, to
make use of the basic checklist in Box 7.1 to assess both their position and
possible ways of improving it. The list can be used to develop participa-
tion mechanisms further in different agencies and inter-agency forums.
Sound policies which address the local situation and which are simple to
understand, non-bureaucratic and transparent can then be evolved, devel-
oped and funded. Such policies may change and develop over time as
conditions change. Thus, the endeavour of survivor participation needs to
be an ongoing process which, rather than coming to completion, needs
constant development and refining in a sensitive way.
Whatever the participation or consultation procedure that is put in place,
all the views expressed need to be heeded. A challenging and somewhat
thorny matter concerns what happens when survivors being consulted
express different views to their representatives or to those of advocacy and
support agencies and feminist activists. What is to be done if ‘they’ –
abused women – do not say what ‘we’ – the feminists – want them to?
While this can be a painful and difficult process, it may be the case that
robust differences of view can lead to the development of more rounded
policy over time, and that those with the most recent experience of abuse
can challenge potential complacency in others who may believe that their
hard work and political analysis have solved problems which, in fact, still
remain.

Safety, representativeness and diversity

Key issues to be addressed in any attempt to involve abuse survivors
in policy or service development include the need for their safety and
 Policies, sensitivities and resources 97

1111
2 Box 7.1 Basic initial checklist
3
• Is your agency already conducting service user consultation with
4 abused women?
5 • Is this consultation resulting in changes in policy and service
6 provision?
7 • Are any resultant changes reviewed regularly with feedback to
8 those consulted?
9 • Do women survivors have any wider influence on your policy-
1011 making?
1 • Do women survivors have any real power to make decisions or
2 to contribute directly to policy-making in your agency or project?
3111
4 • Does your local inter-agency domestic violence forum have
5 mechanisms in place for seeking the views of women service
6 users on its work across the locality?
7 • Are these mechanisms being used and do they work? How do
8 you know that they work?
9 • Is there a women’s refuge organisation, outreach or other
20111 specialist domestic violence service in your area? If so, is your
1 agency able to liaise with it?
2 • Are any refuge or outreach organisations in a position to feed in,
3 or to act as a conduit for, the views of abused women using
4 services to agencies or the forum?
5111 • In your local area, to what extent can women service users
6 contribute to:
7
8 – Inter-agency domestic violence forums or local inter-agency
9 strategy groups?
30111 – Crime and Disorder Partnerships and other partnership
1 groups?
– Local health trusts?
2
– The police and criminal justice agencies?
3
– Local authorities and their departments, e.g. social services,
4
education and housing?
5 – Refuge and support organisations or other women’s advo-
6 cacy projects?
7 – General service and policy development on a single or multi-
8 agency basis?
9 – Any local public education and awareness-raising initiatives?
40111
1 • Are there simple changes by which this could be improved?
• What are the potential barriers to change?
2
• What exists already that could be positively built on?
3
44111
98 Survivor participation and consultation

confidentiality to be paramount at all times, an essential requirement that

can work against transparent consultation processes. Safe methods of
contacting abused women, in particular, must be conducted with great care.
Further, both venues used and transport there and back need to be safe,
anonymous and secure. If the involvement in policy-making of women who
have experienced violence leads to their further abuse and to safety issues
being overlooked, then clearly bad, dangerous or even disastrous practice
has taken place. These matters are of the utmost importance and should
override all other considerations.
Other contentious issues to be considered include the accountability of
those being consulted. Are they in fact answerable to anyone and, if so, to
whom? Commonly accepted democratic structures that ensure representa-
tiveness are not applicable, and highly organised accountable groups may
be impossible to establish in this area of work. This issue is typically raised
against service user groups and, as we suggested in Chapter 3, can become
a barrier to empowerment. Lack of representativeness is frequently used
by agencies and policy-makers as a reason – even an excuse – for not taking
user participation seriously. In the domestic violence field, the difficulty
can be magnified by issues of confidentiality and on occasion the need for
security and an element of secrecy.
Domestic violence service users clearly only represent themselves unless
they are present as members of a survivors’ group. But, bearing in mind
the points made above and in Chapter 3, this may or may not matter. Their
contributions are likely to be less worthwhile:

It’s a representative issue. It’s hard if survivors are told they don’t
represent anyone so ‘are not valid’. Women representing themselves.
The survivors on the forum felt they weren’t accepted, weren’t valid.
That’s how they were made to feel. But, what survivors say is crucial
to inform policy. The answer to ‘how are they representative?’: ‘It
doesn’t matter. They are representing themselves – this is enough in
itself’. Don’t expect survivors to represent anyone except themselves
but that is valuable, it’s enough.
(Worker in an empowerment project who
had facilitated a survivors’ forum)

Representativeness, though, cannot be abandoned altogether. To do so

would open the field to skewed responses where, for example, only
survivors who were personally known to the workers as holding positive
views might be consulted about services in an agency. However, it can
never be perfectly achieved either. Our study findings led to the recom-
mendation that policy-makers engaging in user participation and consulta-
tion exercises should attempt to ensure as democratic a structure as
possible, learning from other service user consultations in process, but
 Policies, sensitivities and resources 99

1111 taking on board the specific sensitivities and traumas of domestic violence.
2 One partial solution is to involve existing support or self-help organisa-
3 tions of survivors, which can give a distilled and collaborative view while
4 also offering support to members. Thus, where support groups and
5 survivors within advocacy projects can be consulted or involved in other
6 ways, the process may be more sympathetic and the outcomes more repre-
7 sentative than in situations where isolated individuals are involved. But, in
8 either case, the voices still plug a gap that professionals can never fill.
9 Users of services can always make specific comments on the service they
1011 have received personally and, if policy-makers feel there has been some
1 attempt at representation, they are more likely to be responsive and to view
2 the consultation positively.
3111 There is a further issue of diversity within representation. We now recog-
4 nise that domestic violence is astoundingly common, probably affecting
5 more than one in four women across a lifetime (Stanko et al., 1998).
6 Women of all backgrounds, social classes, ethnicities, cultures, sexualities,
7 nationalities and degrees of disability can experience it (Davies, 1994;
8 Hague and Malos, 1998). In such a context, complete representativeness
9 can become meaningless. An issue of considerable importance and com-
20111 plexity, then, becomes how to address equality and diversity within
1 survivor representation. Thus, when developing and formalising new
2 policy and practice on domestic violence, it is essential to seek a variety
3 of views from an inclusive sample of abused women (including for
4 example, women from minority communities, disabled women and so on).
5111 It is also of importance to seek views from a wide range of individuals,
6 groups and organisations, including survivors, clearly, but also including
7 advocacy organisations, and other agencies as relevant.
8 Some agencies, however, may be tempted to rely on consultation with a
9 very few survivors who may not represent a sufficiently comprehensive
30111 view of the diverse needs of women who experience domestic abuse.
1 For example, consulting only with refuge residents may not reveal the
2 problems facing those in other forms of temporary accommodation. When
3 policy-makers are desperate to set up, or to be seen to set up, consultation
4 strategies, it can be tempting to involve whoever can be found. This may
5 mean, for example, that only white women participate, even in multiracial
6 localities, or that disabled people are excluded, possibly because it is too
7 troublesome to locate relevant individuals or groups or to facilitate
8 communication for those with visual or hearing impairments. There is a
9 clear need to ensure that domestic violence survivors participating are
40111 drawn from all sections of the community.
1 Formal attempts at quotas to represent different communities do not seem
2 to work well and lead to over-prescriptive responses on occasion, but less
3 formal approaches are possible. Specialist consultation with specific
44111 minority groups can be very helpful in feeding into broader strategies.
100 Survivor participation and consultation

For instance, focused discussions with disabled women’s groups, or with

black women and children, may be able to tap into specific needs and to
raise voices which often go unheard. In one example, the Community
Safety Unit of the Metropolitan Police in the London Borough of Brent
has set up a series of consultation meetings with the long-standing Asian
Women’s Resource Centre, including with survivors of violence, to develop
ways of reaching Asian women suffering abuse and of combating the
assumed under-reporting of domestic violence in their communities
(Hague, 2002). These issues are re-examined in terms of specific, practical
methods in the chapters that follow.

It is work after all: resources and support

What works in developing participative and consultative mechanisms in
the field of domestic violence is a complex matter, as discussed earlier.
Effective processes are likely to be those that deal in a deliberate and careful
manner with all the issues outlined above and that revise and revisit them
regularly. All of this takes time and energy for both workers and service
users. One survivor we interviewed told us that ‘you can’t do it in a hurry
– it takes a while, plus input and resources, but it can be done’. This woman
went on to explain some of the difficulties in this endeavour:

There is a gap between policies and what is happening on the ground.

It is wonderful to empower women but not to set them up to fail. We
need more support and resources to avoid this. Usually it’s hypocrisy,
‘We all listen to survivors.’ People say this but they don’t really mean
it. Then it raises hopes but no one is saying, ‘We will support them to
do this.’ No one is saying, ‘We will take account of what we hear.’ So
it can all just be naivety. Pretence. It’s no good setting it up not to
work. Or setting it up in order to then ignore it. It needs to be resourced
– it’s not a cheap thing and it’s not easy either.
(Survivor active in consultation processes)

Thus, consultation and user participation cannot be done on the cheap.

To be effective, they also need to be embedded in policy development.
For this to happen, they must be an official and accepted part of budgets,
automatically written in and expected in all grant applications and
budgetary plans. Barnes et al. (1999) emphasise that, in general, policy-
makers who are genuinely committed to involving service user groups
in the design, planning and delivery of services need to encourage and
financially support not only their own consultation processes, but also, in
the words of these authors, the self-organisation of users without their being
‘captured by or incorporated into management’ (ibid.: 107). The key issues
 Policies, sensitivities and resources 101

1111 here are independence of operation and financial support. Groups of service
2 users do not often have access to their own resources and may be left
3 wide open to being used by local authorities and other agencies without
4 compensation.
5 In order to avoid the risk of exploiting abused women, our study
6 identified a whole raft of issues around making the ‘giving’ two-way, so
7 that women involved also ‘receive’. Such concerns are clearly recognised
8 and are the subject of detailed recommendations among other service user
9 groups and in Department of Health guidance (see Lindow, 1994; Depart-
1011 ment of Health, 1996a, 1996b). They include the need for resources,
1 compensation of various kinds, training and support, if service users are to
2 be enabled to participate effectively.
3111 In the domestic violence field, then, as in others where service user voices
4 are raised, user participation needs to be sensitive to a complexity of
5 resource issues. Taking part in consultative and participative structures
6 is clearly work for those being consulted, just as it is for the professionals
7 involved. In our study we found that it is quite important to take on
8 board the reality of this statement, but that many agencies do not do so.
9 We need to ask ourselves why service providers who participate in consul-
20111 tation are funded and supported, while abused women are expected to
1
participate in their spare time and out of kindness, goodwill or personal
2
commitment.
3
In general, there is an uncomfortable disjuncture where salaried profes-
4
sionals depend on the unpaid work of service users who have experienced
5111
6 abuse. It is essential that women who have experienced domestic violence
7 and who offer their services in this way should be offered expenses, at the
8 very least, together with transport to and from any meetings and childcare,
9 either directly provided or reimbursed. These are the basics that need to be
30111 in place, come what may, as fundamental core good practice. Better still,
1 proper payment for the work conducted needs to be considered and
2 provided wherever possible, so that participants are recompensed for their
3 labour and effort. Where money is available this is clearly best practice,
4 although few inter-agency forums or agencies have such resources readily
5 to hand and care is required to ensure that payments do not put users’
6 benefits at risk.
7 In fact, this is a new issue in respect to domestic violence services, and
8 the debate about payment is only just beginning. Some domestic violence
9 survivors’ groups feel that, while payment is always a positive option, it is
40111 not necessarily the only way forward, claiming that women participants
1 need to gain something from their participation, but that this can be pay-
2 ment in kind or in increased self-confidence and self-esteem. Other forms
3 of reciprocity can include outings, talks or training courses (although,
44111 arguably, these should be available to all women). These may be able to be
102 Survivor participation and consultation

funded through budgets that do not allow for direct payment of participants.
What is important is that women engaging in consultation or participation
mechanisms are not ‘used’, but how they are recompensed may vary accord-
ing to circumstances and the needs of the women concerned.
Human and financial resources are also needed in other ways. The pro-
vision of interpreting and translation facilities is vital to reach women
whose first language is not English, although care needs to be taken over
confidentiality and the selection of appropriate and sympathetic interpreters
from relevant communities. They should certainly never be the woman’s
children and they need to work to professional standards to ensure accu-
racy and confidentiality. Any meetings held need to be sited in sympathetic
venues, which are also safe and secure for women who have experienced
violence to attend in a way that does not mark them out for attention
and that facilitates a ready alibi if one is required. Venues need to be
accessible and safe in all ways. This may mean, for example, that atten-
tion needs to be paid to how generally safe the locality around the venue
is for women and whether it is known as a racist area. All meetings need
to be conducted with respectful attention to women’s needs, to cultural
differences and to possible discrimination. Thus, cultural sensitivity and
awareness of all equality issues need to form an integral part of consulta-
tion mechanisms, and to include provision for disabled women. The latter
is likely to include ensuring there is good disabled access to venues, as
well as the provision of appropriate transport and the availability of any
necessary documents in large print or on tape, with sign language inter-
preting available on request, all of which have resource implications.
Very probably, agency workers in the field are offered in-service support
and training. The question then needs to be asked as to why women service
users being consulted or contributing to the work of agencies in other
ways usually are not. User involvement as part of policy development can
be extremely problematic and demanding for domestic violence survivors,
and to engage in it without extra training and help can be a negative experi-
ence for the women concerned and damaging, or at least ineffective, all
round. Thus, abused women may need initial induction and training,
support and, possibly, consultancy of their own. This is likely to be particu-
larly the case if they have formed an ongoing group. Training can assist
members of the group to act as effective representatives, to develop their
skills and to overcome management obstacles to user involvement. Workers
in Women’s Aid who were consulted during our study recommended that
users and ex-users participating in management committees or undertaking
volunteer work in refuges could be offered mentoring or ‘buddying’
services and provided with support and training to overcome the complex-
ities and difficulties of switching from a user role to a provider one. Other
agencies could also benefit from this advice.
 Policies, sensitivities and resources 103

1111 To take on all of these issues clearly needs resource input. Again,
2 successful user participation and consultation is something that cannot be
3 done with tiny amounts of money cobbled together at the last minute, as
4 is so often the case in practice. They must be adequately costed into the
5 budget. In fact, our study found that resource shortage is the most likely
6 reason for participation strategies to fail. Which groups are supported
7 financially can also be an issue. Funding for consultative groups that are
8 specially created for the purpose by statutory agencies may be attracted
9 by making coherent arguments for their importance in funding applications.
1011 They can then be built into agency strategic and operational imperatives
1 so that they can be justified in all future budgets. While this can be a posi-
2 tive way forward, the independence of such groups may be compromised
3111 in some ways and they may be manipulated on occasion by powerful
4 organisations or professionals. Self-organised user groups, on the other
5 hand, are likely to be more independent but are known to be chronically
6 unstable in terms of funding (Barnes et al., 1999: 107), which makes
7 them difficult to maintain in the long term. Thus, resourcing for user
8 groups of all types is important in order to facilitate user involvement,
9 and should not be limited to certain types of intervention, given the range
20111 of possible initiatives and variation. Further, the resources need to be
1
adequate to the task. A very small amount of money granted to user consul-
2
tation can be problematic to administer and may take more time to justify
3
and account for than it ‘buys’. The granting of such monies may make
4
agencies look good in terms of appearing to take on the issue, and feel
5111
6 good in terms of their own committedness to an innovative cause, but may
7 make no difference in reality.
8 To reiterate, then – for user participation to be an effective, viable and
9 integrated part of service delivery, it needs to be taken seriously and prop-
30111 erly resourced as an automatic part of funding strategy and of service and
1 policy development, built into budgets and regarded as an essential part of
2 the policy process. Independent advocacy groups can play a particularly
3 valuable role and require more generalised support with finance. Overall,
4 the resources provided need to be adequate to the task if effective outcomes
5 are to be achieved.
6 The Westminster Domestic Violence Forum, which is discussed in
7 Chapter 8, is a model of good practice in this respect. Their survivors’
8 forum, which works alongside the forum as a whole, was integrated into
9 the operation from the very beginning, rather than being something which
40111 was thought about and added on later. The original budget of the forum,
1 though small, had an item built into it for the financial support of consul-
2 tation with women using services. Thus, the involvement of women
3 survivors was an integral, funded part of the project from the start and,
44111 ever since, has been automatically accepted by all participants.
104 Survivor participation and consultation

What works and what does not: individual

survivors attending meetings
As we have noted, our research found that there is no one way of consulting
and involving domestic violence survivors. What evolves in a locality will
clearly depend on local conditions and sometimes on local personalities.
The various innovative methods and strategies currently in use will be
discussed in the ensuing chapters (Chapters 8, 9 and 10).
However, the most common method that has been tried by inter-agency
forums and other projects involves service users attending policy or inter-
agency forum meetings in person. In this approach, one or two survivors
participate in forum meetings to put the ‘survivor view’. This can be useful
for the professionals present to anchor and illuminate discussions, but there
are many difficulties associated with it. Agencies may want the right to
meet together on their own, at least sometimes, to strategise and to support
each other, given how difficult their task is in overcoming the obstacles to
joint working, in putting in place effective interventions and in dealing
with the distressing nature of the subject itself. Thus, it may not always be
appropriate to have service users or ex-users attending forum meetings.
From the survivors’ point of view, individuals placed in this situation may
be overwhelmed or damaged by the experience, although this can be
ameliorated if substantial and careful support is provided.
Our study found that, in reality, this individualised approach to repre-
sentation rarely works (unless remarkable personalities are involved),
especially if everyone else at the meeting attended is representing an agency
and may be quite senior within it, with access to decision-making. If women
users participating in policy meetings are representing a women’s project
or support group, and therefore have a function as representatives of a wider
organisation in common with the other professional participants, this may
work better. In general, though, this type of consultation is a difficult thing
to achieve. Various agencies with whom we talked had tried to make it
work but said that women did not wish to attend, as the agency worker
quoted here explains:

We set up all the procedures and tried to make it comfortable for

women to come but, when they did, they didn’t like it and then, after
that, no one came. So then we tried to set up separate meetings but
women did not want to come to those, either, after we’d spent a long
time organising it. We were disappointed but we will have to think of
something else.

Even where women can be supported to attend and wish to do so, the
difficulties can be almost insurmountable, especially when the professionals
all have more education and more knowledge about their agencies, about
 Policies, sensitivities and resources 105

1111 service provision and about agency and meeting culture than the service
2 users or ex-users are likely to have. One woman survivor whom we inter-
3 viewed had this to say:
4
5 It’s hard for survivors to attend forum meetings where everyone else
6 is a professional, however welcoming they try to be. You still feel small
7 and as though you shouldn’t be there when they are all professionals.
8 It’s probably best to consult survivors in other ways.
9
1011 Another said:
1
Having women on the committees and doing survivor accountability –
2
yes, good idea but only if the women are confident enough. But they
3111
can be cosmetic. . . . In fact, the survivors on the committee have no
4
power at all. But, if there is a women’s group, rather than being on
5
your own, that is better – you would not be so isolated but would be
6
representing the group.
7
8 It can be seen from these quotes that survivors’ voices are often muted
9 by the official milieu. At worst, abused women who are attending may
20111 be viewed voyeuristically by the professionals and may be placed,
1 even without anyone meaning this to happen, in the category of being a
2 ‘specimen’. This possibility is likely to be extremely upsetting for the indi-
3 vidual survivors involved. Service users attending meetings in this way are,
4 almost by definition, heavily outnumbered and may also feel overwhelmed
5111 by management and agency procedure, confidence and formalities. Such
6 experiences are often distressing and inappropriate for the individuals
7 involved (although involvement of service users in this way has been
8 successful on some occasions). Survivors interviewed in our study reported
9 feeling silenced and patronised or, on occasion, subject to potentially racist
30111 or discriminatory responses from agency workers, even where the agencies
1 or forums concerned were trying hard to avoid these outcomes.
2 Other service users who were interviewed reported constant amazement
3 at the ‘talking shop’ nature of many official meetings and the apparent
4 waste of time involved. One woman put this view as follows:
5
6 They are better than they were, much better. But there is so much talk
7 – conferences, forums, publications, fanfare – but what’s changed? Has
8 it really changed? Not really.
9
40111 She continued succinctly:
1
2 They say in their fancy suits that they are doing all these things at their
3 meetings – the ‘talk culture’ – always the ‘talk culture’ – but for women
44111 it’s not much different, is it?
106 Survivor participation and consultation

Policy-making may be unnecessarily time-consuming, boring and tedious,

and there are also issues to be considered in relation to the use of language
and of alienating ‘meeting culture’ working practices. All of these matters
necessitate the provision of ongoing support and training for abused women
involved in this work. An interviewee pointed out:

Language, you know, ‘middle-class meeting language’. Sometimes it

helps, it is shorthand for something. But usually it is actually unnec-
essary – alienating and intimidating.

Once again, these issues are compounded for ethnic minority women. In
the following quote from a black woman survivor and project worker,
domestic violence forums, strategies and policy-making are tersely char-
acterised by three ‘Bs’:

Bureaucratic . . . big . . . no black people.

In conclusion: a positive experiment

The Westminster Domestic Violence Forum is discussed in the next chapter
and works alongside a survivors’ group called the Phoenix Group. This
group has been meeting for some years and recently came to a point where
the members considered asking to attend the forum meetings directly. The
facilitator discussed this possibility with all concerned, including asking
the main forum members, not only what they thought about the proposal,
but also what they felt about it. The decision by all concerned in this case
was that the participation of members of the Phoenix Group in the full
forum was not the best use of everyone’s resources (although it could be
so in the future). It was decided that it would be more effective if they
worked as members of individual sub-groups of the forum to participate in
and contribute to specific pieces of work in order to make inputs that led
to real changes.
Women from the Phoenix Group now attend the Prevention Strategy
Sub-group which has developed a schools domestic violence prevention
pack, and they spoke at the launch of this pack. The women also attend
the Training Sub-group and participated in the development of a training
pack and the making of a video. They are currently in the process of making
a further video with the police to be used to train frontline police officers
on domestic violence. Through being involved in these constructive
projects, the Phoenix Group members have been able to see directly that
they have an active and practical role to play in these sub-groups and can
contribute in a real way. Their contributions have led to the groups
concerned achieving more than they otherwise would have done. All
involved agreed that the women from the Phoenix Group were there with
 Policies, sensitivities and resources 107

1111 a function and had a real role, rather than being labelled as users or being
2 present merely as tokens. The interaction of agency representatives and
3 women from the group has been particularly creative for everyone involved.
4 Some of the women group members said:
5
6 We’ve been respected at the meetings we’ve attended of the Forum
7 sub-groups . . . we are contributing with our experienced voices to the
8 Forum’s work.
9
1011 Both the Phoenix Group and the main Forum are facilitated particularly
1 sensitively, even uniquely, and this facilitation and support has undoubt-
2 edly helped to achieve such positive outcomes. Nevertheless, other
3111 domestic violence forums may be able to learn from these experiences.
4 In conclusion, our study found that consultation and the involvement of
5 abused women can be an emotionally powerful and passionate process for
6 all concerned, including the policy-makers themselves. It is an essential
7 component of policy and practice in order to keep government, local
8 authority, police and other policy developments on track, and to make
9 services effective and geared towards women and children’s real needs. It
20111 is not an ‘optional extra’.
1 A member of an inter-agency forum that had managed to be successful
2 in incorporating survivor representatives had this to say:
3
4 They [the survivor representatives] are there as a right and have equal
5111 say with anyone else. They can raise any issues and will always be
6 listened to. For example, we took up the anti-discrimination and ‘no
7 men’ policies from survivors’ comments and the need for a helpline
8 came from women and is being actually done now.
9
30111 A survivor involved with a different forum told us that:
1
2 Women should be involved so agencies can be more effective. So
3 women who’ve had all their power taken away can have a voice.
4 Be part of the decision-making process on some level. Not necessarily
5 by attending formal meetings, though. . . . But, when they do it, it
6 results in safer services. Policies that are being agreed are checked on
7 by survivors.
8
9 In summary, the involvement of abused women is clearly a demanding
40111 and sensitive issue to address, although it is also an extremely rewarding
1 and exciting one, especially when it works well. It needs to be carried out,
2 not just as a formality, but according to an agreed procedure which has a
3 real effect and which leads to policy change and action. Our study found
44111 that few agencies and professionals are attempting it at the moment (even
108 Survivor participation and consultation

at the most basic level of consultation), and the individual and collective
empowerment of abused women that it could herald remains principally
confined to the women’s activist movement. There is a clear need for inter-
agency forums and agencies in the statutory sector to pay attention to the
matter, and to put in place effective policies that are properly resourced in
a sensitive and creative way. Consultation and participation are work, after
all, and need to be accompanied by finances, expenses, training and support.
There is no one easy answer, but seeking the views of domestic violence
survivors does offer a challenging and rewarding way ahead.
 Chapter 8
1111
2
Practical ways forward and
3 innovation, including domestic
4
5 violence survivors’ forums
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 The humanness of trying it is what is so important and is often overlooked
4 by boring procedures and doing it because you feel you have to, not
5 because you are committed to it. You need the humanity of it. You need
6 to do it on a deep ‘felt and lived’ level as human beings, as equals in the
7 endeavour. Survivor accountability is a real human thing and it touches
all levels. What we have learned from trying to do it here is that the people
8 who are doing it need great commitment and humanity and depth.
9 (Agency worker)
20111
1
2
3 ‘You need the humanity of it.’ This powerful quote is from an agency
4 employee working with groups of domestic violence survivors to develop
5111 ways of raising their voices and feeding their views into the policy-making
6 process. In previous chapters, we discussed the complex general issues
7 involved in engaging in survivor participation and consultation within
8 domestic violence projects. In the next three chapters, we move on to
9 discuss some of the innovative methods that are currently being tried. While
30111 inter-agency domestic violence forums and specialist projects generally
1 appear at present to have little expertise in how to go about such consul-
2 tation, there are a few pioneers who are experimenting with new and
3 exciting ways forward from which we could all perhaps learn.
4
5 An example: Hammersmith Standing Together
6 against Domestic Violence
7
8 The Hammersmith Standing Together project has developed an innovative
9 multi-agency response to domestic violence, modelled, broadly speaking,
40111 on the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in Duluth, Minnesota. One of
1 its founding principles is ‘putting the survivor at the centre of the change
2 process’ (Standing Together, 2002: 9). Standing Together believes in the
3 empowerment of women and that:
44111
110 Survivor participation and consultation

where agencies plan change, however well-intentioned, without the

involvement of people with current, first-hand knowledge of the issues,
there is a serious risk that the safety of women and children will be
diminished rather then increased.
(ibid.: 9)

The project carried out a detailed consultation with domestic violence

survivors in 2001–2, being repeated in 2003, and conducted by a consul-
tant and assistant experienced in such work. An important innovation which
might be of help to others was the drawing up of a protocol on how the
whole exercise would be carried out. The protocol committed the organ-
isation to working in respectful and supportive ways, and in which the
safety of the women taking part was paramount. This was agreed with all
the relevant agencies and was used to govern the process in a transparent
and clear way, with detailed plans drawn up for each consultation meeting.
An attempt was made to involve as wide a range of survivors as possible
and an additional consultation with black and minority ethnic women was
carried out by a partner agency. Thus, the exercise as a whole reflected
ethnic and other types of diversity in the community. Women were
contacted by letter through the local survivors’ agencies which had been
involved in planning the work. Each woman was invited directly by an
agency she knew, which created a sense of safety and involvement from
the beginning. Meetings were then convened for those interested in taking
part. The venue was carefully selected in a non-conspicuous location with
a warm and welcoming atmosphere and a crèche.
Standing Together staff assisted in drawing up questions and issues to be
consulted on at each meeting in order to provide a framework, but partici-
pants were also able to influence or change the process proactively. Ground
rules were established by the women participants and included that each
woman could choose how much or how little she wanted to say about
herself. The meetings took place over several months and detailed reports
were made on each. The aim was to work towards the establishment of
an ongoing focus group for future consultations.
A crucial element in the success of this consultation was that sufficient
resources were allocated to carry it out properly. Travel costs, childcare,
refreshments and gift vouchers for each woman were provided, and some
of the women were very moved to receive the latter. The employment of
an external consultant who was completely outside the project assisted in
facilitating objectivity, and women were enabled to speak freely about their
experiences of agencies, even where this resulted in the expression of nega-
tive views. This type of distancing can be vital to ensure an accurate
response.
The consultant used had extensive experience of domestic violence work,
so was able to facilitate in a sensitive and supportive way, cognisant of the
 Practical ways forward 111

1111 realities of experiencing abuse and of the need for the women to feel
2 involved in, and committed to, the process. The result was the establishing
3 of warm relationships between the women themselves so that they were
4 able to ‘own’ and to feel invested in the consultation. The creation of
5 the women’s own ‘space’ to consider the issues in question undoubtedly
6 facilitated the process and could be seen as an essential component if
7 consultation is to be effective.
8 Another important element in the consultation was having a facilitator
9 and an assistant (from different ethnic and cultural heritages), working
1011 together to complement each other and to provide support. The expression
1 of emotions was not viewed negatively but was seen as part of the process.
2 In this context, the fact that there were two people available meant that
3111 more intense support could be offered to individuals when required. They
4 also modelled a respectful working relationship and the process was
5 moving for all concerned. The facilitators stated that they felt honoured to
6 be part of the consultation, and both they and the participants ended up
7 changed by the experience. This project could provide a model of good
8 practice and has been documented for others to use (Standing Together,
9 2002). An interesting reflection upon this successful endeavour is that
20111 ‘consultation’ is seen in the user involvement literature (as we discussed
1 in Part 1) as falling at the least emancipatory end of a continuum of partic-
2 ipation, yet it can be highly important and empowering if well conducted
3 and thoroughgoing (perhaps a reflection on how seldom it tends to happen).
4 This particular exercise took place in a specialist project, Standing
5111 Together. It would be good to see statutory agencies following suit, and
6 all agencies building on this foundation to move on and involve users in
7 other ways.
8
9
Innovatory methods now being tried
30111
1 Thus, survivor involvement within domestic violence work is perfectly
2 possible as long as it is thought about carefully, built into funding, and
3 developed with sincerity and commitment. Sometimes, according to our
4 interviewees, it is important to realise that it is nothing to be scared of.
5 Rather, the important thing is to give user involvement a try in the domestic
6 violence field, rather than being frightened of rocking the boat or of what
7 might happen as a result. Our informants emphasised that it does need
8 careful planning and operation, but it can be done. The woman quoted at
9 the beginning of this chapter, who has a great deal of experience of working
40111 on survivor accountability, referred to the humanness of the endeavour, and
1 it is perhaps vital not to lose sight of this under a welter of procedures.
2 This remains the case even though the current emphasis on explicit consul-
3 tative structures with users, which is part of most new policy and
44111 legislation, can be a key tool, as discussed in the last chapter.
112 Survivor participation and consultation

The participation methods presently being tried in various parts of the

country are listed in Box 8.1, and include survivors’ forums or advisory
groups, women’s focus groups and the active involvement of local women’s
organisations, notably Women’s Aid, to represent abused women’s voices
and to act as a conduit for information exchange. Special initiatives may
also be put into place on a one-off basis and many agencies use established,
but perhaps rather arid (non-participative) mechanisms such as exit ques-
tionnaires and user surveys. Liaison with activist groups is also a vital
component of any consultation strategy, and political and feminist com-
munity theatre, art and poetry all have their part to play in raising the voices
of abused women. Campaigns and activism have always involved grass-
roots projects and domestic violence survivors themselves. The anchor has
traditionally been the social movement of women for liberation and justice
and it continues to be so, as discussed throughout this book. In the next three
chapters, we will discuss in turn each of these participation methods in
order to offer ideas for the future. We will also attempt to consider where
these methods fall more into the ‘consultation’ end of the spectrum, where
they include wider involvement and participation, and where they have the
potential to devolve real power to service users and to move towards the
accountability of services and policies to domestic violence survivors.

Box 8.1 New and innovative practice in consultation

with abused women
• Domestic violence survivors’ forums or advisory groups.
• Active involvement of women’s organisations, Women’s Aid,
and other women’s projects to represent abused women’s voices
and to act as a conduit for information exchange.
• General liaison with agencies representing abused women, e.g.
women’s support groups, campaigns and refuge organisations.
• Political and community theatre and arts.
• Women’s focus groups.
• Specific individual mechanisms, e.g. one-off meetings between
abused women and senior managers.
• Questionnaires, surveys and research projects on service user
views.
• Internet consultation.
• Regular feedback and consultation slots at, for example, domestic
violence forum meetings, together with protocols for acting on
them.
• Survivors and ex-service users taking roles as managers, workers
and volunteers.
 Practical ways forward 113

1111 Domestic violence survivors’ forums or advisory

2 groups
3
In the good practice example of the Hammersmith Standing Together
4
project which was described in the preceding pages, one of the aims was
5
to establish a consultative group to look at the practice of the project and
6
7 of its member agencies which would meet several times. In a few cases
8 throughout the country, groups of this nature which are ongoing have been
9 established over a longer period to provide a structured and sensitive mech-
1011 anism for survivors, including service users, to be involved in policy
1 development and multi-agency work.
2 Domestic violence survivors’ forums or advisory groups consisting of
3111 abused women have been established, for example, to work together with,
4 and alongside, some local inter-agency forums. These groups are often also
5 support groups, and can offer an inspirational and moving way forward in
6 which policy-makers begin to be directly accountable to abused women
7 service users. In some cases, existing support groups may set aside time,
8 once a month or so, to look at and comment on the work of the main inter-
9 agency domestic violence forum in the area, as one part of their interaction,
20111 alongside their support function. In other cases, the group may only meet
1 occasionally and may have been specifically convened to make comments
2 on abused women’s needs, on what services are required, on new service
3 and policy initiatives and on progress in combatting domestic violence in
4 the locality in question.
5111 Working with survivors’ forums can be a very effective consultation
6 strategy for inter-agency forums and policy-makers in that there is an
7 existing mechanism for accessing women’s views in a transparent way
8 which can be reviewed to make sure the consultative process happens. But
9 survivors’ forums of this type also have the potential to develop beyond
30111 consultation to involve service users and ex-users more fully in the policy
1 process. At their best, they can become accountability committees that
2 can advise on and monitor service development and have a deciding word
3 on policy.
4 Currently, there are a few of these groups in different local authorities
5 around the country and they are usually actively facilitated by an employee.
6 One of the first pioneers of this approach was in the London Borough of
7 Croydon, which ran a survivors’ forum for several years until membership
8 dropped off and the forum was brought to an end. In the study on which
9 this book is based, we learned as much as we could about the Croydon
40111 initiative, which was flourishing at the beginning of the study but came to
1 an end in 1999. Although ending prematurely, this forum was a pioneer of
2111 its type and a brave step into the unknown for all involved.
3
44111
114 Survivor participation and consultation

Croydon Domestic Violence Survivors’ Forum

In the London Borough of Croydon, the domestic violence forum is one
of the Borough’s Joint Planning Teams, all of which are required to engage
in user consultation. The Domestic Violence Survivors’ Forum (DVSF)
was formed as part of this requirement and was originally set up with a
great deal of community support and with professional help. A sizeable
number of women were involved and the project was professionally
facilitated, as one of four separate community empowerment projects con-
stituting the joint-funded Croydon Empowerment Project. Members of
the group attended the Domestic Violence Joint Planning Team meetings,
which was a difficult experience (as discussed in the last chapter), despite
the efforts of agency representatives on the forum to be as welcoming as
possible. In general, though, running a domestic violence survivors’ forum
was outside the working practices and experience of both the statutory and
voluntary sectors in the locality at the time that it commenced and consid-
erable learning took place.
The DVSF developed well and engaged in much useful work as a robust
force for change and accountability. The women met enthusiastically and
made unique contributions to combatting domestic violence in the area,
with help both from the facilitator and also from the London Borough
of Croydon Equalities Unit and Croydon Welcare. The Survivors’ Forum
began to attract interest from outside the borough, and papers and reports
were written about it to give others inspiration to perhaps try something
similar in their own local authorities. It was later granted a small amount
of money to employ workers to action the project. However, this led to
complications in regards to the need for procedures, committees, budgets
and so on, even though the amount of money was negligible in wider terms
and was certainly not enough to do the job effectively and comprehen-
sively. Two survivors shared the work, which meant that each was working
for only a few hours per week. These employees did the best they could
with very limited time and money. Later, some energy which would have
been devoted to the DVSF was diverted into the formation of the very
successful Croydon One Stop Project which is discussed in Chapter 10.
However, the facilitator continued to put much energy and personal
resources into the project, probably beyond the call of duty.
Towards the end, women survivors requested advice sessions and the
two workers started running these. However, such sessions did not fulfil
the brief of survivor accountability required for the receipt of funding
and the project came to an end. In an unrelated development, the fund-
ing for the Empowerment Project was cut at about the same time, demon-
strating the vulnerability of such projects to changes in funding regimes
unless they are firmly embedded in procedure and in the strategic commit-
ments of the local authority or the relevant partnership or agency concerned.
 Practical ways forward 115

1111 The DVSF had various successes, including input into the formation of
2 community-focused projects, support for legal representation for abused
3 women and the provision of evidence that there was a need in the area both
4 for advocacy for abused women and children and for a layer of support
5 that was not professional. Most of these ideas have since been actioned in
6 Croydon. Thus, the experiment worked well for some time and has certainly
7 acted as a catalyst for other developments, although some interviewees
8 felt that there were problems throughout, particularly around racial and
9 personal differences.
1011 In our study, we concluded that the very small amount of money granted
1 was part of the problem. The project was almost ‘set up to fail’. There was
2 not enough money to run it properly or to keep it going in the long term,
3111 yet its existence caused bureaucratic problems. The lack of payment for
4 members (who at this point were putting in a large amount of time on the
5 DVSF) was another problematic factor. It can be assumed that no one else
6 involved with the domestic violence forum or other Joint Planning Teams
7 was likely to be doing it in their spare time for no pay.
8 It could be argued that the DVSF only reached certain types of survivors
9 (those motivated to go to meetings, for example). However, it is the
20111 agency’s responsibility to conduct survivor consultation successfully, not
1 the survivors’. Thus, there needs to be something ‘in it’ for the women as
2 well as for the agency. Meetings can become boring after a while, and this
3 was the experience in Croydon. To keep such a forum going, there can be
4 a continual need for fresh members to attend to prevent the group becoming
5111 stagnant or turned in on itself. The need to replenish the membership of
6 user groups in general has been widely recognised (see Barnes et al., 1999).
7 Some women who moved on from the work obtained paid employment in
8 the field, yet their previous involvement was sometimes viewed as a conflict
9 of interest, rather than a positive enhancement of their skills. This, again,
30111 constitutes a challenge to professional agencies to accord survivors greater
1 respect and recognition.
2 Ongoing groups of survivors sometimes encounter internal problems,
3 partly due to the traumatic past that members are likely to have experi-
4 enced and the difficulties of keeping any group going in the long term.
5 After a considerable period of success, such difficulties developed to some
6 extent in the DVSF. The lack of resources for support, training and confi-
7 dence-building in the group were key factors, even though the facilitator
8 tried hard to achieve successful outcomes. While she was herself a very
9 skilled groupworker, she faced an almost impossible task, given the fact
40111 that she had four completely different and unrelated projects to ‘empower’.
1 As noted in Chapter 7, local circumstances and the personalities of
2 group members are of key importance, and this was the case in Croydon.
3 The DVSF was an experiment in an untried area, and there were no guide-
44111 lines or previous examples of similar work on which to draw. Other local
116 Survivor participation and consultation

authorities have more recently taken on similar work and have now gone
further with it. However, at the time when the DVSF was functioning, it
was at the very forefront of developments in this area of work and was in
a rather isolated position. Thus the project and the local authority are to be
congratulated on giving it a try. Lone initiators of new policy developments
always, of course, face a difficult and potentially lonely task.

The Phoenix Group

Current examples of survivors’ forums include the Phoenix Group in the
City of Westminster and Voice for Change in Liverpool, both of which are
currently working successfully and are able to influence policy develop-
ment and the work of their local domestic violence forums. The women
from each have met to facilitate co-ordination, to get to know each other,
to compare notes on developments in the two cities and to have enjoyable
experiences together.
The Phoenix Group is an ongoing group of domestic violence survivors
that has been in operation for several years and acts as a consultative
body to the Westminster Domestic Violence Forum. It is sensitively facil-
itated by the co-ordinator of the wider forum, who is based at a local
Family Service Unit. After its years of operation, the Phoenix Group is
well established, respected, successful and supportive. The group started
off being known as ‘the Survivors’ Group’, but has changed its name
to ‘Phoenix’ to give some idea of the transformations to which it has
contributed, both on a personal level and as regards policy development
in the area. Members say that: ‘we moved from “the Survivors’ Group” to
“the Phoenix Group” because it is more powerful’ . . . ‘we are doing some-
thing practical with our experience’ . . . ‘as a group we have a voice – so
we are heard’.
Part of the Phoenix Group’s success is due to the fact that survivor
involvement was built into the work of the Westminster Domestic Violence
Forum from the very beginning, with funding agreed and attached, and all
members of the forum were committed to it from the outset. This issue was
discussed more fully in the last chapter. Thus, the aims of the main
domestic violence forum always included integrating the views of abuse
survivors and the commitment throughout has been that, without the incor-
poration of these views, the work done is likely to be incomplete and
ill-informed. Members of the forum did not have to be won over to this
position, as is likely to be the case in some other localities. They already
subscribed to such principles and believed that, in the long-term vision of
ending domestic violence, the voices of abused women themselves are key.
However, the forum did not know how to put these principles into prac-
tice at the beginning and has experimented and evolved its practice in
careful and sensitive ways over time.
 Practical ways forward 117

1111 With input from a worker from another agency who was particularly
2 committed to working with service users, the issue was written into the
3 budget at the beginning, as noted, even though the money involved has
4 never been a large amount. With this money reliably put aside for survivor
5 consultation, it was possible to establish the group with a strong commit-
6 ment that the women involved should not be ‘used’ by the forum, but that
7 the experience should be a constructive one for all. The forum has some-
8 times made use of consultants, who have knowledge and expertise in
9 developing accountability of services to their users, in order to take advice
1011 and help from elsewhere to foster the work in Westminster. Learning from
1 the development of the group, it is clear that, for this model to be successful,
2 there needs to be constant, committed and honest feedback, to and fro,
3111 between the main forum and the group, and that this feedback needs to be
4 conducted by a skilled, committed facilitator who is trusted by both sides.
5 The Phoenix Group has commented on, and produced reports and recom-
6 mendations on, service provision in the area. To their credit, the forum and
7 its member agencies have always responded positively and in a serious
8 way to these recommendations and have made changes in their policy
9 as a result. This has included work, for example, on the use of the law in
20111 domestic violence cases, on the needs of black and minority ethnic
1
communities and on public awareness. The group and the forum have also
2
worked on education, policing, training for agency staff, improving links
3
between agencies and on outreach support for abused women and children.
4
The comments and reports by the Phoenix Group have been carefully
5111
6 produced to provide detailed evidence and to raise questions for policy-
7 makers on the reality of living with domestic violence. For example, the
8 group strongly recommended that the forum do prevention work and this
9 led directly to a joint decision by agencies in Westminster to address and
30111 develop work with male perpetrators. It also recommended that work
1 needed to be undertaken in the education system, with the result that a
2 comprehensive training pack has been developed for use in schools. The
3 group participates actively in the various forum sub-groups, as discussed
4 in the last chapter, and has made direct practical contributions to the devel-
5 opment of domestic violence policy and practice in Westminster. It is also
6 able to take on, in a meaningful and careful way, issues of cultural differ-
7 ence and the stigmatising effects of experiencing abuse, within an
8 environment of mutual assistance.
9 The women in the group suggest that: ‘we have support for one another
40111 and understanding as well as hearing our differences’ . . . ‘we’re different
1 women from different cultures and we’re here to support each other’.
2 The group has taken forward the lives of the women and their children
3 through mutual help in ways which would have been unimaginable at the
44111 beginning.
118 Survivor participation and consultation

Voice for Change

Voice for Change is an inspirational group of domestic violence survivors
which has been in operation in Liverpool for more than ten years. It was
established originally by two powerful survivors of violence, one of whom,
a well-known and highly regarded figure in the field locally, has since
sadly died. The two women originally came to the Liverpool Domestic
Violence Forum to tell their stories, because they perceived rightly that
their voices, and the voices of other abused women, were not being heard.
The group has developed from these beginnings to become a powerful
player in the domestic violence field in Liverpool. Unusually for a domestic
violence survivors’ forum, it has no facilitator, although it is supported
and assisted by the invaluable input of the local domestic violence preven-
tion co-ordinator.
At the beginning, the group experienced teething problems, as might
be anticipated (although that stage is far in the past now), and much was
expected of it by professionals, even though it did not have any workers.
Over the years, Voice for Change has been situated within various different
agencies and offices. There was a period when it was exploited by statutory
organisations who would refer on to it many of their own domestic violence
cases, in spite of the fact that the group had no money or resources. In dis-
cussions with other self-organised groups of domestic violence survivors
about this issue during our study, it has become clear that this unfortunate
exploiting of unfunded community groups by agencies that have a respon-
sibility to provide services happens time and time again. Clearly, this is an
outcome to be guarded against by statutory sector bodies, however desper-
ate they may be to deal with all their own referrals, perhaps with scant or
decreasing resources in their own budgets with which to do so.
Voice for Change now has its own premises and runs a variety of projects
and services. It provides support for women survivors, information, consul-
tation for agencies and campaigning. It also comments on policy and has
become a service provider in its own right, running community drop-in
centres. It provides a training opportunity for local counsellors, matching
them to women experiencing violence who want to access counselling
services. The local Crime and Disorder Audit and Strategy included consul-
tation with Voice for Change and the group has also been involved in the
evaluation of local services and campaigns, for example the Zero Tolerance
public awareness campaign which was held in the city. It has provided
comments and recommendations for policy development and has produced
documents on what services abused women and their children need.
Importantly, it has produced a Charter for Change to which various local
agencies have signed up, formally committing themselves to carrying out
the policy and practice reforms proposed in the Charter. Others could,
perhaps, learn from this strategy of getting local organisations to agree to
 Practical ways forward 119

1111 ‘sign up’ to working towards demands and suggestions put forward by
2 survivors. Voice for Change is an outstanding example of a group of this
3 type that has survived and prospered in the long term. This success is a
4 tribute both to the women members and to the background support from
5 the domestic violence prevention co-ordinator who has offered them
6 constant inspiration and stability. The group is a testimony to what domestic
7 violence survivors can achieve together over the long haul.
8
9
Key issues for survivors’ forums
1011
1 The conclusion to be reached from the experience of these various brave
2 experiments is perhaps that, if a project to involve domestic violence
3111 survivors is set up well and facilitated sufficiently carefully, avoiding
4 patronising responses and building towards equality with some sort of
5 emancipatory vision to guide the endeavour, there are real possibilities for
6 creating exciting change. In such a situation, the women involved will
7 undoubtedly gain a great deal, building their confidence and self-respect.
8 Policy development and change will also become possible.
9 In common with other participation strategies, as discussed on a general
20111 level in the previous chapter, there are many issues to be sensitively
1 addressed if abused women are to be able to attend survivors’ forums on
2 a regular basis and if they are to be accountable in some informal way to
3 other survivors. These issues are debated in the rest of this chapter.
4 One key matter to be considered is who is to serve on a domestic violence
5111 survivors’ forum or advisory group. How to constitute these groups to make
6 them at least somewhat representative is clearly an issue, notwithstanding
7 our previous arguments about unrealistic external expectations of repre-
8 sentativeness in user groups more generally. Being able to speak for others
9 is particularly important for an ongoing group of this type which feeds
30111 directly into policy development. There are also important equality issues
1 in terms of ensuring that different communities are not excluded. Formal
2 quota representation does not seem to work well as it imposes too much
3 of a straitjacket on the flexibility and humanity needed, but, equally, diver-
4 sity cannot be ignored. It is all too easy for a survivors’ forum to consist
5 of white women only, for example, to the exclusion of other interests, views
6 and experiences.
7 There can also be a measure of discomfort in an ongoing group, with
8 participants sometimes coming to feel, as time goes on, that their whole
9 life and personality have been reduced to their experience of abuse.
40111 Consultation mechanisms can make it seem as if this is all that anyone else
1 is interested in, so that participating in them can come to feel belittling,
2 demeaning and ‘labelling’. One remedy for this may be consciously and
3 openly to share women’s positive efforts to survive, to resist and to find
44111 effective help, including for their children.
120 Survivor participation and consultation

As for other consultation or participation methods, issues of safety and

confidentiality need to be paramount, and this has implications for choice
of venues, which need to be both accessible and safe, and for transporta-
tion to and from the survivors’ forum meetings. To be a member of an
established group over time can mean a certain measure of public visibility,
and this can be particularly damaging, or even dangerous, for women who
have escaped violent partners and who are either actually in hiding from
them or who do not want their ex-abusers to know where they are.
It is important not to exploit participants in these or other ways, as
discussed previously, especially where the group is expected to meet more
on a long-term basis than on a short-term one. One could also ask why
forum members should keep on attending over time, unless there is positive
feedback and some compensation offered. Barnes et al. (1999) similarly
emphasise that user groups require constant effort to maintain an adequate
level of membership, and this problem is accentuated when the work being
done becomes boring or alienating (as work with a local authority or using
a bureaucratic process can often be) and when there is no recompense for
the effort, energy or commitment being donated.
Payment for participants engaging in such an ongoing and committed
piece of work is always the best option, although, as discussed in the last
chapter, this can be payment in kind or in confidence-boosting possibili-
ties, and may vary with local circumstances. None of the domestic violence
survivors’ forums discussed above have ever paid their participants in
cash, although there has been reciprocity of other kinds, such as training,
esteem-building and support. Few local authorities, partnership groups or
inter-agency forums have resources available for payment of forum
members under current circumstances. This does not mean, however, that
specific resource allocation could not be built into future budgets as a matter
of course, building on local and central government commitments to user
accountability.
While payment is a complicated issue to resolve, reimbursement for
expenses and the offering of other support to facilitate survivors taking
on the tasks is a straightforward matter of agency responsibility. It is
essential that resources are provided for support, training, supervision and
consultancy on the one hand, and for the provision of general expenses,
childcare, transport, translation/interpreting and accessibility policies on
the other, to assist survivors’ forum members to do the job. Working
as a survivors’ forum alongside an inter-agency forum is a complex role
to fulfil and needs support in terms of both resources and, often, pro-
fessional assistance.
An issue to be considered, for example, in an ongoing forum can be
crises and personal difficulties for members over time. Groups and organ-
isations engaged in this enterprise need to experiment and to be willing to
try new approaches which may or may not work. It cannot be done quickly
 Practical ways forward 121

1111 or half-heartedly. This is especially the case because the underlying cause
2 that has brought participants together, namely domestic violence, is such a
3 painful and destructive one. Partly as a result of these traumatic realities
4 and partly because any long-term group is likely to have its ups and downs,
5 there is sometimes, as we have noted, a tendency for groups to encounter
6 difficulties in interactions between members. This may require support,
7 consultancy or some other form of help with conflict resolution.
8 Another issue to be taken on is that, where survivors’ forums have devel-
9 oped, they have often attempted to address issues of alienating working
1011 practices and potentially patronising or unnecessary ‘committee’ language
1 usage by agencies, both of which have been raised by many other service
2 groups (see Chapter 7). In this endeavour, they have not always, however,
3111 met with great success. One woman who had experienced violence and had
4 been involved in many consultation exercises, including a domestic
5 violence survivors’ forum, explained to us that:
6
7 Well, you keep trying. But, half the time, you can’t understand what
8 they are going on about. They seem to talk endlessly in circles. And
9 half of what they say is not relevant or someone else has already said
20111 it and then they turn and smile at you and say ‘what does the survivors’
1 forum think?’ What are you meant to say? But, when it does work and
2 the survivors’ forum says things they listen to, it’s great.
3 (Survivor previously active in a survivors’ forum)
4
5111 Domestic violence survivors’ forums often have to struggle with the off-
6 putting and uninviting nature of the task, and members may ask themselves
7 why they bother. It can be distressing to have to battle with densely written
8 policy documents and official jargon, replete these days with references to
9 performance indicators and seemingly remote partnership groupings, which
30111 may appear to have little relevance to responding to immediate situations
1 of violence. This problem can be exacerbated where there has been an
2 elaboration by inter-agency and statutory organisations of complex strat-
3 egies and protocols, often accompanied by little in the way of implementa-
4 tion or of real change on the ground for women experiencing violence and
5 for their children. To deal with such issues is a hard task, and some among
6 the small number of survivors’ forums or advisory groups which exist
7 emphasise that detailed policy analysis may be unnecessary in any case,
8 especially if the group is principally acting as a consultative one. A better
9 way forward, in many cases, would be for the survivors’ group, instead, to
40111 develop a more overall view with examples of good and bad practice, and
1 information on how both these would feel to women service users. However,
2 this type of approach would clearly not be adequate if the survivors’ forum
3 was engaged in more comprehensive accountability work, checking and
44111 monitoring, for example, the practical initiatives of the wider forum.
122 Survivor participation and consultation

An important element in combatting the alienating and painful impact

that the policy process can have on service users is for the work of
survivors’ forums to contain an element of pleasure. Celebration by groups
of domestic violence survivors and the enjoyment of activities together can
contradict the very ethos of abuse and can be empowering in themselves
for the abused women taking part. Our study found that pleasure and fun
are essential if survivors’ forums are to succeed, given the rather thankless
task of trying to influence domestic violence policy-makers and the range
of difficulties involved.
One of these difficulties which can be particularly disillusioning is how
to get policy groups, forums and agencies to take the process seriously and
to act upon it. Even more so than for one-off groups, ongoing women’s
forums sometimes feel betrayed and side-lined, when their careful contri-
butions, perhaps made over a period of time, are ignored, even when the
reason may be overwork and exhaustion on the part of policy-makers
facing too many demands and scarce resources. In general, working out
participation procedures which are effective and making sure they are not
then overlooked can be a skilful and complex task, as discussed later in
Chapter 10, and considerable commitment to the process is required from
the agencies involved. In the case of survivors’ forums, there needs to be
a recognised way for the views of the forum to feed into the work of the
main forum or agency. Importantly, in best practice, there must be an
agreed protocol for then acting upon them. Interviewees in our study who
had experience of domestic violence survivors’ forums were usually
clear that the exercise was pointless unless it led to constructive change.
Co-ordinators or group representatives need to be able to advocate strongly
on behalf of the survivors’ group, a demanding activity which requires
sensitivity, honesty and often a degree of confidence and skill at intervening
in professional meetings on behalf of the group.
From the above discussions, it can be seen that there is no doubt that the
facilitation or co-ordination offered to survivors’ forums needs to be
extremely skilled and sensitive, to take on the distressing issues involved
in living with domestic violence and the difficulty of getting policy-makers
to listen to women’s views on an ongoing basis in a way in which they
may not be used to doing. Facilitators of any sort of survivor participation
process, including survivors’ forums, certainly need experience and exper-
tise in dealing with domestic violence and with the emotional complications
and sensitivities involved. This is likely to include skills in supporting
survivors, in responding to trauma and in dealing with complex issues of
diversity and equality. Skills and abilities in running and managing groups
and an understanding of group dynamics are also likely to be required,
especially where an ongoing long-term survivors’ forum is involved.
Additionally, facilitators need an understanding of the issues involved in
survivor consultation and an ability to steer issues through the policy
 Practical ways forward 123

1111 process and to understand local authority and other structures. Ideally, such
2 a facilitator would have good links with policy-makers in the field and be
3 able to draw on these to enable the process. Self-advocacy survivors’
4 forums also exist with no facilitator, although often with powerful women
5 participants.
6 Thus, overall, the evidence from the study we conducted is that domestic
7 violence survivors’ forums or advisory groups can be successful, rewarding
8 and even inspirational. But they are only able to grow in this way where
9 they include an element of personal support and enjoyment as well as policy
1011 work, where adequate resourcing is available and, normally, where skilled
1 facilitation is provided by an experienced facilitator who is well versed in
2 domestic violence issues. They offer an innovatory way forward, though
3111 it is important to emphasise that they are worth engaging in only if they
4 are able to influence services and lead to policy development – in other
5 words, where they become more than mere consultation procedures, but,
6 rather, devolve some influence and power to the survivors involved.
7 No one really knows whether survivors’ forums can flourish throughout
8 the domestic violence field, or whether they only do so in a few cases where
9 inspiring or catalytic facilitation, support and commitment are available
20111 from the agencies involved. All involved need to learn as they go along,
1 as these women service users point out:
2
3 You can’t run women’s forums in a hurry – it takes a while, plus input
4 and resources. It is no good trying to do it on the cheap. It needs to be
5111 a basic part of all policy and financed properly if it is to work. You
6 have to work out how to do it and be willing to experiment.
7 (Member of women’s survivor group)
8
9 In some cases, we can learn from developments in other countries. The
30111 Toronto Woman Abuse Council in Toronto, Canada, for example, is a long-
1 standing, senior level inter-agency collaboration, which plays a key role in
2 service and policy development in Toronto. It has dealt with the issue of
3 survivor input and participation very successfully and has, for many years,
4 operated an Accountability Committee. This Committee consists of abuse
5 survivors, and provides input and feedback on all initiatives undertaken.
6 There is no problem, apparently, in attaining a consistent and committed
7 response from survivors on the committee, perhaps indicating the respect
8 in which the Woman Abuse Council is held. Participants are expected to
9 be at a stage in their own recovery from trauma where they are able to take
40111 on the work, although the organisation recognises that this is a complex
1 issue (as discussed earlier) and may vary from woman to woman. Members
2 receive childcare expenses and a small honorarium. The Accountability
3 Committee has also led a project to produce a moving document on
44111 ‘Sharing our Stories’ (Woman Abuse Council of Toronto, 1999). The
124 Survivor participation and consultation

Council is committed to being accountable to this Committee, which makes

deciding comments on all work undertaken and has the final word on
policies to be adopted (Hague et al., 2001a). In these ways, it surpasses
anything we have in this country and provides an interesting model to
work towards. There are other international examples of abused women’s
groups to which policy-makers are directly (but usually informally)
accountable. The Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in Minne-
sota, for example, has developed a complex, co-ordinated community
response to domestic violence, including perpetrators’ programmes, the
tracking of cases through the criminal justice system and community devel-
opment, all responsible to groups of survivors (Pence and Shepard, 1999).
In these examples, services have moved on from basic consultation to being
directly accountable to women survivors.
In summary, in this chapter, we have discussed the innovatory work of
domestic violence forums and advisory groups in the UK and beyond, and
the positives, sensitivities and difficulties involved. They offer a helpful
way forward and are growing in popularity, particularly in regard to
advising inter-agency domestic violence forums and policy groups. While
they can be used as a solely consultative exercise, they also have the poten-
tial to give service users real power in the policy process and to lead
towards accountability of services to survivors, as in the international
examples described above.
 Chapter 9
1111
2
Further innovatory practice
3
4
Women’s Aid and women’s advocacy
5 organisations and campaigns
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 In this chapter, we move on from considering domestic violence survivors’
4 forums to discuss survivor representation through Women’s Aid and refuge
5 groups and through the local, national and international campaigning,
6 advocacy and lobbying of women’s organisations. In the UK, Women’s
7 Aid and other women’s advocacy and support groups work closely with
8 women who have experienced domestic violence and with their children,
9 and have always had policies of raising their voices, as discussed through-
20111 out this book. In terms of both basic consultation and broader participation
1 strategies, there are ways in which the work of women’s organisations and
2 self-activity is particularly pertinent, especially in terms of sharing power
3 between women who are survivors and those who are not.
4 Women’s Aid and other women’s projects employ many domestic
5111 violence survivors and ex-service users as volunteers, workers and
6 managers (as explored in Part 2 and further discussed in Chapter 10). Where
7 ex-service users participate in agencies directly as employees or within
8 management structures, they are likely to have at least some power in the
9 operation of that agency and may also be able to take a policy-making role.
30111 In some senses, then, this can be the most developed type of survivor
1 involvement. Within refuges and outreach projects, women using the
2 service may also take a role in the day-to-day running of the project and
3 in publicity, training and education work, as discussed in Chapter 5, and
4 may be able to impact on, or exert some control over, this work.
5 In terms of influencing wider domestic violence policy-making and the
6 role of statutory and voluntary agencies, Women’s Aid and other women’s
7 projects play a key advocacy role representing abused women’s views.
8 They also conduct campaigning work in which abused women themselves
9 play a crucial role. Further, on a local level, women’s organisations are
40111 engaged in other ways of getting women’s voices heard, for example,
1 within inter-agency forums and partnership groupings. In this area of work,
2 consultation with service users (through refuge organisations) remains the
3 most common method, as for other forms of user involvement, even though,
44111 as we have emphasised throughout this book, it is also the most limited.
126 Survivor participation and consultation

Structured involvement of Women’s Aid and

refuge groups as a ‘conduit’ for survivors’ views
Looking at consultation methods first then, it might seem obvious that
effective ways of involving abused women can usefully take place using
the conduit of refuge organisations and specialist women’s domestic
violence services. In fact, it can appear to be so obvious that, as noted
previously, many domestic violence forums refer to the mere presence of
women’s refuges in their ranks to suggest that consultation with service
users is taking place, even where no such consultation has been suggested,
discussed, agreed or carried out. Just by being there, women’s refuge and
outreach organisations give forums credibility, and inappropriate claims
about survivor involvement may then be bandied about (often in good faith)
by members. In our recent study, we came across repeated examples of
this happening.
Nevertheless, where consultation is actually agreed and carried out
through this route (rather than constituting wishful thinking by the forum
or agency concerned), this can be an effective and efficient way of doing
it. The advantage is that women using projects can be directly and easily
consulted within a familiar environment by skilled refuge and outreach
workers, who are expert in domestic violence work. Workers are then
able to provide support when women being consulted want or need it, as
part of the process. They are also in a good position to feed the results
back to the forum, which they are probably already attending anyway.
A disadvantage is that workers may (often inadvertently) influence their
residents’ views so that results are skewed. It is also the case that such
consultation is unlikely to uncover problems about the refuge provision
itself. Additionally, the only women involved are those who are already in
contact with Women’s Aid or other refuge and outreach projects. This could
mean that women suffering abuse, but not using Women’s Aid, are
excluded from the process and that their voices remain silenced.
Further, many refuge organisations are already stretched to their limits
in terms of running their services, so that passing on women service users’
views to inter-agency forums and to policy-makers may not be a priority
– or may fall off the agenda altogether due to overwork. Indeed, few refuge
workers have the spare time or energy available to enable them to view
this work enthusiastically as an important part of their brief, or to encourage
them to engage in it all. One study found, for example, that, of seventy
women survivors interviewed in various areas of the country, only two had
any knowledge whatsoever of multi-agency domestic violence work in their
own locality. In particular, almost all of those who were living in Women’s
Aid refuges knew absolutely nothing of their local domestic violence inter-
agency forum, even where the refuge organisation itself was active within
it (Hague et al., 1996). The refuge workers had either not thought of
involving their residents or had no time to do so.
 Further innovatory practice 127

1111 However, consultation with women in refuges on specific subjects is

2 now becoming more common (especially through research interviews or
3 surveys of refuge residents, as will be further discussed later). As regards
4 wider liaison with inter-agency forums, a few women’s refuge and outreach
5 organisations have tried to conduct systematic, organised consultation,
6 often by convening special one-off groups of abused women. Such groups
7 may consist of residents, ex-residents, or users of outreach services or
8 helplines, who are then able to comment on policy and service provision,
9 sometimes as a logical extension of the work which refuge organisations
1011 already do in representing abused women’s and children’s views. These
1 groups may discuss very specific local policy and service developments,
2 and may also both comment on the work of the local inter-agency forum
3111 itself and feed ideas into it. While specially convened groups of this
4 nature, established through refuge and outreach services, can take a key
5 role in advising domestic violence forums and agencies, they can be hard
6 to organise in that women residents are likely to be in severe personal crisis
7 and may have little time to engage in such activities, in addition to
8 everything else. However, ex-residents may be able to contribute more
9 easily. Abused women using refuge and outreach services can also advise
20111 on the work of forums and agencies through already existing mechanisms,
1 rather than specially established ones. For example, most women in refuges
2 are expected to attend refuge house meetings which could discuss wider
3 policy issues on occasion and then send the resultant ideas to forum
4 meetings.
5111 Overall, then, Women’s Aid and other women’s support, outreach and
6 refuge organisations are often in a position to represent abused women’s
7 voices in a structured way to other agencies (even if they do so less
8 often at present than they could), and to act as a channel, backwards and
9 forwards, for information exchange. Domestic violence forums or agencies
30111 are thus able to ask groups of survivors directly for their opinions on
1 specific subjects, through the medium of the refuge or women’s group.
2 The views expressed can then be fed back to the forum or agency by
3 Women’s Aid representatives so that the ‘conduit’ process is complete in
4 both directions.
5 This way of reaching abused women is used in various localities by
6 domestic violence services, particularly by multi-agency forums, in order
7 to access abused women’s views. However, Women’s Aid and refuge
8 workers should not be expected to do this work routinely, with no arrange-
9 ments in place to assist them to do so, and no acknowledgement and
40111 recompense for the extra time, effort and energy required. Further, consul-
1 tation of this type may lead to criticisms of funders being voiced by the
2 women consulted, which refuges may not wish to have attributed to them-
3 selves if their financial position is precarious. Thus, this approach needs to
44111 be carefully used. It also needs both to be formally agreed and facilitated
128 Survivor participation and consultation

by the agencies or forums involved and to be properly structured in order

to be successful. Refuge organisations are usually overworked and rarely
have spare time or resources to conduct this work, as noted above. Thus,
it needs to be an agreed and structured principle of operation for the rele-
vant inter-agency forum or project, and for the refuge or women’s group
involved.
This is likely to have resource implications. Women’s organisations
clearly need to be compensated in some way if they conduct consultation
and advisory work on behalf of other agencies. With the current emphasis
on user involvement in legislation and policy development, Women’s Aid
and refuge-based support services that represent abused women’s views
may be asked to engage in one consultative exercise after another. These
days, they may similarly be asked to contribute to one research project
after another, seeking the opinions of refuge workers and abuse survivors,
so that, even with the best will in the world, ‘questionnaire fatigue’ can set
in. With the ongoing lack of secure and comprehensive funding for 24-
hour emergency refuge services (despite the contribution of the Supporting
People programme from 2003) and the general resource shortage in this
field, it is not possible for these services continually to conduct such work
without payment or recognition.

Campaigning, community arts and general liaison

with agencies representing abused women
Structured and agreed consultation through refuge organisations is just
one aspect of the more general consultative, lobbying and advising role
carried out by the Women’s Aid federations, and by women’s groups and
other agencies that represent domestic violence survivors, including black
women’s advocacy and advice organisations, for example the Asian
Women’s Resource Centre in the London Borough of Brent. Women’s
Aid, in particular, and other refuge projects represent and advocate on
behalf of abused women and their children locally and nationally, and have
done so with increasing frequency and influence over recent years (see
Women’s Aid, 2001/2). In fact, liaison with agencies that represent women
and children experiencing domestic violence has been identified by the
Home Office and by research studies on multi-agency domestic violence
work as vital to effective inter-agency practice and policy development
(see Hague et al., 1996; Harwin et al., 1999; Home Office, 1999; James-
Hanman, 2000). Importantly, this work includes liaison with women
service users. Women’s services and the activist women’s movement in
general now occupy a key role in facilitating policy and service develop-
ment across the board.
Throughout the country, Women’s Aid and other national organisations
collect, collate, produce and publicise information about domestic violence
 Further innovatory practice 129

1111 and abused women’s views on both a local level and also in the national
2 and international arena. The Women’s Aid federations across the UK are
3 able to commission or conduct research surveys of users accessing their
4 networks of services nationally, and they produce many publications,
5 reports and briefing papers. Thus, while women’s refuge, support and
6 advocacy organisations represent abused women’s views locally, the feder-
7 ations and other nationally based women’s organisations represent these
8 voices and needs on both a local and a wider level, through national
9 networks, conferences and sub-groups, and through policy and advisory
1011 work with local and central government. A variety of other organisations
1 are also able to represent abused women’s views nationally and inter-
2 nationally and to advocate on their behalf. Imkaan, for instance, works with
3111 the national network of Asian women’s refuges, producing briefing papers
4 and conducting research on issues of relevance.
5 A powerful way to raise voices otherwise unheard is through direct
6 campaigning, and many distinctive women’s campaigning organisations
7 exist. An example, as we have noted previously, is provided by Southall
8 Black Sisters, which represents abused women in both the local and the
9 national arena and conducts campaigning and awareness-raising work on
20111 behalf, particularly, of women and children from minority ethnic communi-
1 ties facing abuse. The campaigning messages of Southall Black Sisters
2 also contribute to international initiatives and their pioneering work is
3 known in a variety of other countries (see, for example, in relation to the
4 new South Africa, Park et al., 2000). Thus, campaigns are an important
5111 way to access the voices of abused women, particularly, in this case, those
6 demanding justice and improvements in services and policy. Some of the
7 best and most successful campaigns on domestic violence have been
8 mounted over the years to fight for justice for individual domestic violence
9 survivors, for example Balwant Kaur, Kiranjit Ahluwalia, Sara Thornton
30111 and Emma Humphreys, all of whom have taken an active part in the
1 campaigns where possible. A variety of campaigns against rape have been
2 conducted over the years, all with many members who are rape survivors
3 themselves.
4 Campaigns may use traditional methods of demonstrations, petitions,
5 letter-writing and so on. However, relevant organisations may extend
6 beyond activist women’s projects and make use, more widely, of com-
7 munity action involving members of the public and local women who have
8 experienced violence. Community theatre, art and poetry workshops can
9 provide a creative and imaginative way to reach abused women as part of
40111 awareness-raising and training for professionals, or as a technique for
1 campaigning and for influencing policy-makers. Drama can work particu-
2 larly powerfully in this context. For example, ‘Legislative Theatre’ groups,
3 connected to the ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ movement of Agusto Boal,
44111 sometimes engage in innovative dramatic collaborations, where skilled
130 Survivor participation and consultation

actors work with community groups to construct pieces of drama which

are then used to influence policy-makers and to feed directly into policy-
making (as practised, for example, by Them Wifeys with women in
Newcastle). In another example, we were told in our study of community-
based projects in which young domestic violence survivors in a locality
were developing presentations through local theatre groups that powerfully
challenged community norms.
Overall, there are many creative routes for the voices of survivors to feed
into activist or campaigning approaches (when these are defined in the
broadest sense). The movement against violence against women is a wide-
ranging and complex one (see, e.g. Dobash and Dobash, 1992), operating
on many different levels. In general, it is characterised by active cam-
paigning by women for women and, as discussed previously, has always
attempted to involve grass-roots organisations and survivors. It has well-
developed theories and understandings of the empowerment of women
experiencing violence and of the collective strength of abused women and
children.
Campaigning and lobbying work of this nature extends not only nation-
ally, but also internationally. After so many years of inaction on violence
against women, the voices of survivors now inform initiatives across the
globe. These voices are frequently raised – and heard – at international
gatherings on violence against women and, via grass-roots activity, feed
into global work through the United Nations and other bodies (see, e.g.
Davies, 1994; UNICEF, 1997). For example, the 1998 classification by the
United Nations of rape in war as a war crime followed intensive grass-
roots activity by women’s groups and by women who had experienced
abuse throughout the world, but particularly in developing countries and in
areas experiencing conflict.
Thus, in this chapter, we have discussed ways of using Women’s Aid
and other women’s organisations to act as a conduit for abused women’s
views. This is a way of conducting consultation and advisory work which
can be particularly beneficial and we have considered the advantages and
disadvantages of the approach. Certainly, our study found that it can be
very effective as a way of getting women’s voices heard although it still
fits into the ‘consultation’ end of the spectrum of survivor participation,
rather than moving towards user power and control. We have also discussed
wider ways to involve survivors including women’s advocacy and
campaigning organisations, women’s direct campaigns and activity in the
activist movement, and abused women taking a role as employees or
managers in women’s services, specifically. (The latter issue is discussed
in a more general way in the next chapter.)
 Chapter 10
1111
2
Other methods of survivor
3 participation and getting
4
5 agencies to take action
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 In the last two chapters, we have discussed some of the new methods being
4 tried out to achieve survivor representation. These include domestic
5 violence forums or advisory groups, structured representation through
6 women’s projects and the role of national and local campaigning and
7 lobbying organisations in representing abused women’s views. However,
8 there is a wide variety of other methods which are currently in use. We
9 discuss these in this chapter and also consider how to convert the results
20111 of participation processes into action and policy change.
1
2 Women’s focus groups
3
4 We hear a great deal about focus groups these days, even though the term
5111 is rarely defined properly or used in its original sense (Greenbaum, 2000;
6 Krueger, 2000). For the present Government, their use has become some-
7 thing of a mantra. Focus groups are a popular policy option in attempting
8 to gather diverse views to inform policy-making of all types. Thus, it is
9 almost inevitable that they should also be used in domestic violence work.
30111 In the past few years, focus groups of domestic violence service users
1 have been convened in a few local areas to represent women’s views within
2 the policy process. Such groups can be used to consider various aspects of
3 policy or inter-agency work, to comment on specific policy developments
4 and to advise on survivors’ groups in general and on how to improve
5 consultative mechanisms. They can also comment on wider developments
6 in the domestic violence field. However, they are firmly positioned within
7 the ‘consultation’ end of the range of user involvement strategies and rarely
8 move beyond this.
9 A recent example of focus groups being used in this field is provided by
40111 the London Borough of Newham, which has conducted a domestic violence
1 consultative process of this type. A few other localities have carried out
2 general focus group consultation on behalf of inter-agency forums and, in
3 others, specialised focus groups with, for example, black and minority
44111 ethnic women have also been held to identify specific relevant issues, gaps
132 Survivor participation and consultation

in service, attitudes to refuges and other services and areas for policy
improvement.
Focus groups on domestic violence issues can be hard to organise, partly
because of the security and safety issues involved. Transport to and from
the meetings and the use of accessible and safe venues are vital, so that
the women participating are not placed in any danger from past or present
violent partners. Groups need to be conducted regularly, for example for a
day or half-day once every six months, and there needs to be attention to
diversity of membership. Focus groups in the true sense consist of women
who do not know each other, so that careful and expert group leadership
is likely to be required due to the sensitivity of the issues being addressed.
The evidence from our research and from localities where such groups
have been attempted is that they need to be conducted by skilled facili-
tators, who have been carefully briefed and who are aware of – and
experienced in dealing with – domestic violence issues (as discussed in the
chapter on survivors’ forums (Chapter 8)). From our study, it was clear
that such groups work best where they are tied in with local authority
equalities units, domestic violence forums or women’s projects in the
voluntary sector in some way, rather than with private companies commis-
sioned to undertake market research. Certainly, if other external agencies
are involved, it is preferable for focus groups of this type to be conducted
by commissioned researchers from the public arena who specialise in abuse
issues, rather than being run by commercial, profit-making concerns, partly
because safety and confidentiality must remain to the fore.
Additionally to the use of transport and of safe and accessible venues,
payment for the women attending is a priority in this case, as for other
types of focus groups. Similarly, the provision of childcare, expenses and
interpreting or translating facilities where required is essential (in the same
way as for survivors’ advisory forums). As for other types of consultation,
too, the experience of participating needs to be rewarding and enjoyable,
and there also need to be processes in place whereby support can be
provided if traumatic memories are evoked for the women. All the various
methods that are in use for raising abused women’s voices need a mechan-
ism for feeding into the policy-making process, and this is equally the case
for translating focus group results into action and policy. Agencies may
already have such mechanisms in place in regard to other professionally-
run groups (for example, for wider consultation by Crime and Disorder and
other partnerships, all of which require community involvement and are
then expected to feed the results back into policy).

Special mechanisms
In this section, we consider some of the various individually tailored possi-
bilities that exist for involving abused women in policy and service
 Agencies taking action 133

1111 development, rather than the more general methods discussed previously.
2 In some local areas, specific mechanisms for hearing service users’ views
3 have been tried out with considerable success. For example, the chairperson
4 or other officers of the local domestic violence forum in some localities
5 have held consultation meetings with women’s support groups or refuge
6 residents. In such situations, women are able to feed in their views directly
7 within a fairly sympathetic environment, and officers who have conducted
8 such consultations are often deeply moved by the testimonies and experi-
9 ences related. Being brought face to face with ‘reality’ in this way has, in
1011 various cases, led to the professional taking up the issues concerned with
1 renewed and informed commitment and zeal.
2 Similarly, regular or one-off public meetings of abused women with
3111 senior local managers and policy-makers may be held, where the latter
4 are held to account for the quality and delivery of services, and may also
5 seek participants’ views on possible improvements. Our study found that,
6 where such meetings have been held, they have apparently been powerful
7 occasions in which senior or chief executives have been asked in a
8 constructive way by service users to account for, and justify, detailed
9 aspects of service delivery.
20111 Specialised consultation can also be carried out with particular groups
1 of survivors, such as women from specific minority ethnic communities,
2 as a structured and agreed project of the forum or agency. The domestic
3 violence forum may need, for example, to be informed about the needs of
4 Chinese or Turkish women in a locality, or there may be a specific new
5111 piece of policy on which it is vital to obtain women’s views and which
6 will affect certain minority groups differentially. In best practice, such
7 meetings should be carefully and constructively conducted in a forward-
8 looking manner, rather than as a necessary formality. Several London
9 forums have sought views on domestic violence from different groups,
30111 for instance of black, refugee or asylum-seeking women. One way to
1 do this is to hold meetings between the inter-agency forum or indivi-
2 dual agency and local women’s advocacy organisations, who may then
3 set up a special meeting, often on their premises, with women abuse
4 survivors. This type of exercise clearly must be carried out in culturally
5 sensitive ways, with interpretation and translation available, and meetings
6 needto be held in venues that are sympathetic to the issue. Facilitators
7 ideally need to be of a similar ethnic or community background to
8 participants, and preferably able to speak the appropriate community
9 languages.
40111 Great care needs to be taken in organising such meetings as regards issues
1 of confidentiality, safety and the dominant view of domestic violence
2 among the community in question. It is often good practice to carry out
3 consultation with a specific community group but, in the case of intimate
44111 family matters and domestic violence, it has to be recognised that to raise
134 Survivor participation and consultation

these matters, and to name the existence of violence, may cut across the
views and wishes of some community leaders (see Southall Black Sisters,
1990). One acceptable way round this problem, which has been utilised by
a number of projects, can be if domestic violence issues are brought up in
the context of other services (e.g. a drop-in morning with crèche provision
or a general meeting on women’s safety). These complex issues need
careful handling by women from the communities concerned who speak
the locally used languages and who perhaps can draw personal support
from other specialist women’s groups also familiar with the relevant
community and cultural issues. In part, these complexities are due to the
ongoing marginalisation of many minority ethnic communities and to
potential racism in service delivery and in UK society as a whole. These
painful realities further complicate cultural issues that are already very
complicated, especially for translocated cultural groups (see James-
Hanman, 1995; Mama, 1996).
For disabled women who are abuse survivors, issues of full accessibility
and safety will be paramount in any form of user involvement. It is all too
easy for non-disabled policy-makers and practitioners to overlook issues of
disability in the participative strategies they adopt, although things are
perhaps improving in this respect currently. Again, focused consultation
with specific groups or organisations, including those for deaf women, can
be useful, but it is important to remember that disabled women also need
a voice in all user participation, of whatever type, as an automatic part of
good practice. Disabled respondents in our study warned against specialised
consultation with disabled women that results in their being ‘ghettoised’
into a specialised area, and often then subjected to marginalisation. Issues
of confidentiality, sensitivity and accessibility (in its broadest sense)
exist across the board, for instance for lesbian groups. In all these instances,
the safety and protection of the specialised group of women who are
participating must be paramount.

Surveys, questionnaires and research projects

Agencies and inter-agency forums sometimes make use of exit question-
naires for service users who have finished using the service. These can play
a key part in project evaluation, now requested for most funded organisa-
tions. Similarly, organisations may seek user views through the routine
monitoring of service use required by funders and managements, but
possibly expanded and developed more fully. Consultation is also possible
through the medium of user surveys, satisfaction questionnaires and so on,
as is standard practice for other types of services and consultative struc-
tures. In this way, services can at best be effectively (rather than
cosmetically) evaluated, by those who have used them and who thus have
the opportunity to give their views privately and confidentially.
 Agencies taking action 135

1111 However, the results of service user evaluations of this type still need to
2 be fed into the planning and development process within the organisation
3 in question so as to lead to improved practice. Thus, as for all types of
4 participation, a method needs to exist to translate the results of surveys and
5 questionnaires into action. Very often, though, an implementation strategy
6 is lacking, so that surveys and other research with service users and ex-
7 users may lead to the production of a report, but frequently go no further,
8 thus negating the effort of all those involved. This issue is currently
9 receiving considerable attention, for example by specialist umbrella groups
1011 dedicated to research dissemination, such as Making Research Count,
1 Research in Practice and SCIE (the Social Care Institute for Excellence).
2 The latter has user knowledge as an equal part of the input it values, along-
3111 side formal research findings and audit information. Domestic violence is
4 on the agenda for all these organisations.
5 Specialised research projects to seek specific women’s views have been
6 conducted in some London boroughs looking at the needs of black or dis-
7 abled women (James-Hanman, 1994; Greenwich Asian Women’s Project,
8 1995; Brent Asian Women’s Resource Centre, 2000/1), and this type of
9 survey approach can enhance consultation with such groups, as discussed
20111 above. Broader research studies of abused women’s views and wishes
1 may also be conducted, across a locality or nationally, by local authorities,
2 health trusts, Crime and Disorder or other partnerships, or Women’s
3 Aid. Such studies may also be commissioned from university and other
4 research groups. One example is the previously cited Routes to Safety
5111 research recently conducted for Women’s Aid nationally by the Centre
6 for the Study of Safety and Well-being at the University of Warwick
7 (Humphreys and Thiara, 2002). Specialist ‘violence against women’
8 research groups and researchers now exist in a variety of higher education
9 establishments. These research centres or individual researchers have
30111 developed expertise in domestic violence issues and in interviewing
1 survivors of abuse. The use of researchers with this expertise to conduct
2 research with domestic violence service users is helpful, due to the sensi-
3 tivity of the task and the need for mature researchers able to deal with
4 issues of violence.
5
6
Internet consultation
7
8 A new way of seeking the views of domestic violence survivors which we
9 will undoubtedly hear more about in the future is via the Internet. Electronic
40111 discussion with women who have experienced domestic violence is a new
1 and developing area (in the United States, for example). It offers advan-
2 tages of privacy and confidentiality, to a large extent. Names and postal
3 addresses do not have to be revealed and consultation can take place over
44111 a wide geographical area, although safety issues exist for women living
136 Survivor participation and consultation

with their abusers or for those who are using computers (either public or
private) which are not secure. Access to the website concerned also needs
the highest level of security, but this is usually in place.
Women’s Aid, the Hansard Society and the All Party Parliamentary
Group on Domestic Violence held the first consultation by means of the
Internet with women experiencing domestic abuse in the UK in 2000 (see
Bossey and Coleman, 2000). This exercise is discussed further in a con-
tribution by Nicola Harwin, the Director of the Women’s Aid Federation
of England, included in the Epilogue to this book. This is now being
followed up by other consultations, including one with children who have
experienced domestic violence, in 2003. The latter consultation is also
being organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Domestic
Violence in conjunction with the major children’s charities and is funded
by the BBC. Additionally, at least one Internet site (moderated by sur-
vivors) now exists for those who have been abused. This site is both a
supportive chat room and a forum that can be used for discussion of policy
issues.

Feeding into effective policy development: regular

feedback, service standards and protocols
Most of the methods for involving abused women that have been discussed
in this chapter have concentrated principally on consultation, rather than
more thoroughgoing participation. Consulting with and getting informa-
tion from service uses can be achieved by one of the methods discussed
above. However, for domestic violence survivors to have any power in the
policy process, their views need to lead to action, as we have constantly
reaffirmed. And effectively feeding women’s perspectives and the results
of participation exercises into the policy process can be problematic.
Survivors interviewed for our study were critical of participation
processes which led nowhere at all. One woman had this to say:

It’s not good unless consultation with women translates into actual
policy and change. . . . So often views are sought and then – what do
the agencies do with the views you’ve sought out? Ignore them. With
real participation/accountability – things actually change as a result.
The power of survivors needs to be real, real power. And it’s tough to
do for everyone. We don’t have the answer yet.
(Woman survivor)

One standard method of attempting to make sure women’s voices are

heard and acted on is through the incorporation of a regular feedback and
consultation slot at decision-making meetings, which can then become a
standard feature of all policy development. Thus, feedback from, and
 Agencies taking action 137

1111 responses to, service users can be made an agreed part of agendas at offi-
2 cial meetings of agencies at management and policy-making level, and at
3 inter-agency forums. With an agreed procedure for reporting information
4 from domestic violence survivors, the basics have been provided for agen-
5 cies then to act on this information. However, clear issues have to be
6 addressed about how such feedback is conducted and by whom.
7 In some localities, survivors may be able to influence their local forum
8 and agencies directly by attending or by sending representatives. But, as
9 discussed in Chapter 7, it may not be appropriate for individual service
1011 users to attend agency meetings, although this will vary with circumstances.
1 Feedback can be conducted by development workers, forum co-ordinators
2 or other specialist officers instead. In one example, members of an inter-
3111 agency forum that contributed to our research had developed an effective
4 system in which workers reported back to the forum on survivors’ behalf,
5 as follows:
6
7 Frontline staff represent the views of abused women in a principled
8 way. In our experience, many abused women do not wish to be labelled
9 as such and wish issues to be carried forward on their behalf whilst
20111 they pursue their own lives. The forum seeks to ensure that all
1 community groups and agencies which represent survivors are invited
2 to meetings and feed in and are kept fully informed as well.
3 (Inter-agency forum member)
4
5111 Workers or group facilitators may be able to report back in this way
6 extremely effectively and, in so doing, bring reality and clarity to the
7 resulting work. However, this method can be patronising in that service
8 users are ‘spoken on behalf of’ rather than speaking for themselves. Where
9 issues of ethnicity, sexuality and disability are concerned, this can be a
30111 particularly inappropriate outcome. And, sometimes, the outcome in any
1 case seems to play into the ‘meeting ethos’ of agencies rather than to
2 contribute to action and change.
3 While service user views can be introduced into policy development by
4 one of the methods discussed above, or by a combination of several,
5 the next stage of using the information (that has been successfully fed in)
6 to achieve change can be even harder to achieve. One way to raise the
7 profile of survivors’ voices can be to establish agreed procedures that
8 policy-makers are required to abide by (as we discussed in Chapter 7), so
9 that input from women users is expected, is given authority, substance and
40111 official ‘space’ – and is then routinely acted upon. Forums and agencies
1 may develop specific protocols that embed such processes into their
2 procedure and working practice, for example. Protocols of this type need
3 to provide not just for feedback at meetings, but for effective use of that
44111 feedback in policy-making, with agreements in place to govern this and to
138 Survivor participation and consultation

make sure that it happens. The agencies in the Liverpool Domestic Violence
Forum, for example, have ‘signed up’ to agree to abide by recommenda-
tions from the survivors’ group, as we discussed previously. Other inter-
agency forums have agreed protocols to govern their activities, including
overall standards and details of the involvement of survivors. Individual
agencies may have such standards written into their service level agree-
ments or other working policies.
In our study, we found a variety of examples of policy-makers and
managers acting on information from survivors in a committed way, even
where protocols to do so had not been developed. Members of one forum
described listening to women and children and responding to their identi-
fied needs as a most empowering process in which they saw their own
commitment as key. They described their work as follows:

For example, survivors said that the forum must work with perpetra-
tors if domestic violence is to be prevented in the long term. So we
took on to do this in a principled way. Or survivors said all women
experiencing domestic violence need to be told how well they’re doing
to build up their self-esteem and confidence. This is now incorporated
into the DVF emotional support guidelines. Black and minority ethnic
women have told us that domestic violence sounds like physical
violence on its own in some other languages so now we are addressing
that . . . it’s all a dynamic, backwards and forwards process.
(Agency manager and forum co-ordinator)

Another forum development worker discussed setting up a Users’ Action

Group, which had strongly influenced the forum to emphasise the urgency
of appropriate responses from all the agencies involved and to provide
appropriate training. This had enabled them to produce a crisis support
pack for frontline practitioners, together with publicity information listing
emergency contact numbers, safety preparation and legal advice. In yet
another forum, the members stressed that user accountability is:

a crucial part of our strategy. User involvement and being accountable

is vital to our work, otherwise the forum’s strategy becomes a mean-
ingless exercise.

This forum was in the process of developing consultative groups of abused

women on a county-wide basis. These groups were participating in the
implementation of awareness-raising and service development and were also
developing consultative work with children. In a further locality, abused
women met regularly with a Community Initiatives Worker, and all policy
development was done with women’s input. For example, when the local
forum had wanted to produce publicity, women experiencing violence were
 Agencies taking action 139

1111 asked what they thought should be emphasised and, when the social services
2 department was drawing up good practice guidelines, they directly involved
3 the women service users. In both cases, the outcomes were then acted upon.
4 Where such mechanisms have become an automatic part of good
5 practice, some workers pointed out to us that there can be sensitivities
6 to take on board in terms of an overenthusiasm for the task. For example,
7 co-ordinators of two domestic violence forums to whom we spoke
8 explained that the first issue is to find out whether survivors want to be
9 involved in the first place and, if so, at what stage. They compared this
1011 process to buying a washing machine, where what you want is good,
1 reliable service, not to have to go out and be consulted about it. Most people
2 probably expect to receive a good service of this type in other areas of
3111 life also – and then be done with it. Again, then, it is vital that abused
4 women are not pressured or forced to be involved unless they want to be.
5 Agencies and forums need to be aware of the dangers of pushing service
6 users into feeling that they must be available for consultation duties, for
7 example, even when they are trying to do so sensitively. The power of
8 agency workers as gatekeepers can never be overestimated. For service
9 users, feeling pressed into consultative roles is a likely outcome if service
20111 provision and delivery appear to be in any way dependent on this
1 happening. Even subtle pressure can result in abused women feeling forced
2 to help out in order to receive services.
3 However, while the forum workers quoted above were adamant about
4 these issues, they also considered that:
5111
6 On the other hand, we do believe all services must be founded on
7 service user involvement but remembering that what we believe isn’t
8 always what service users believe. In order to be accountable to abused
9 women, we need to set standards for all agencies, with penalties for
30111 non-compliance.
1
2 Agreed protocols for converting consultation and participation methods into
3 policy, and the development of service standards as a result, are key.
4 Protocols and standards that all member agencies abide by, and joint under-
5 standings of the importance of survivor involvement and consultation,
6 carried out in a principled way, are important ways forward for the future.
7 Multi-agency forums and agencies can usefully embed these principles into
8 their policies and operation – and also into their hearts and minds.
9
40111
Doing the work: abused women as workers,
1
managers and volunteers
2
3 There are many other ways in which domestic violence service users
44111 or ex-users and other abuse survivors can participate in the provision of
140 Survivor participation and consultation

services and take an active part in their development, management, opera-

tion and delivery. A few of these possibilities are explored here.
Importantly, women’s self-organisation is a vital way forward in which
abused women control their own projects, where appropriate. Self-help
groups and advocacy projects consisting solely of abuse survivors exist in
various localities, but few have a powerful role in local policy-making.
Similarly, it is vital that women survivors are in a position actually to
propose and design services and also to participate in, or control, the design
of consultative and other strategies to involve service users, rather than
have these imposed from above. It is significant that most of the mechan-
isms which are currently being tried and which we have discussed in this
book were designed by professionals, sometimes with some input from
service users and other survivors, but usually not. Survivors have been the
‘object’ of the exercise, not its ‘subject’ or guiding hand. This is a telling
lack.
One of the most important ways in which domestic violence service
ex-users and other abused women can be significantly involved in the work
of agencies and policy-makers is as managers or workers. Many domestic
violence survivors work for organisations which deal with domestic vio-
lence and they may feel able to speak out about their experiences, as we
have suggested throughout this book. It was repeatedly pointed out to us
in our study that survivors are represented in almost all relevant agencies,
multi-agency forums and committees.
As far as users and ex-users of services are concerned, many are also
involved in the management of projects, sit on management committees
and take on management roles, as we have noted previously, where their
understandings of the issues at hand can add depth to the process and may
complement the skills of other members. While these methods are used
most extensively in the voluntary sector, statutory organisations are also
beginning to be receptive to mechanisms to involve user or ex-user repre-
sentatives in management structures. This issue is somewhat contentious,
however, as was discussed in some detail in Chapter 5, but offers a way
forward for involving survivors in policy formulation. Women service users
and ex-users may also be in a position to contribute to the day-to-day
running of projects and agencies. While this is clearly the case for women’s
refuge and outreach services, where abused women often take an active
role in the running of the project as volunteers, it can also be the case for
other agencies, where their expertise and knowledge about domestic
violence can be a useful resource on which the agency can draw on an
everyday basis. The employment of domestic violence survivors or ex-
service users as workers or volunteers means that they can sometimes
contribute directly to the wider policy process.
In some projects, survivors of abuse may take on a more formal role as
trained volunteers. The Croydon One Stop Partnership, for example, was
 Agencies taking action 141

1111 fronted in the past by women ‘friends’ who were survivors of abuse, and
2 this system will be continued in a revamping and relaunching of the project
3 that are underway at the time of writing. The organisation brings together
4 all the relevant agencies so that women and children experiencing abuse
5 do not have to travel from one office to another in the quest for help. The
6 expanded project will include three new specialist support workers and will
7 be sited in larger and improved premises. It will encompass a successful
8 advocacy project for domestic violence survivors, presently funded by the
9 Home Office Crime Reduction Programme on Violence Against Women.
1011 An education support group for women will also be launched.
1 During our study, the friends welcomed women approaching the agency
2 for help and conducted initial interviews with them, sometimes over cups
3111 of tea. Women we spoke with who had used this service said that they
4 had found it deeply supportive to arrive, possibly nervously, at the project,
5 only to be welcomed by someone with whom they could immediately
6 identify. The friends then referred each woman on to the appropriate service
7 (the police, housing, a solicitor and so on), all of which were under the
8 same roof in a safe venue. This set-up will continue in the new, larger
9 project.
20111 The friends are crucial to the success of the project, which has attracted
1 some acclaim. Attention has been specifically focused on the provision of
2 support and considerable amounts of training for them, and on team and
3 group building, which has enabled the workers to develop their professional
4 skills and extend their expertise. Childcare, support and expenses are avail-
5111 able. In the words of two of the friends, whom we interviewed, they form
6 the ‘glue’ or the ‘building blocks’ of the project, holding it together. The
7 friends both strongly supported the project at the time of the study and
8 were proud of the work that they were conducting.
9 Women who have experienced domestic violence can also feed into
30111 specific or single pieces of work that an agency or forum is doing, as
1 indicated previously, rather than having to be involved all the time.
2 For example, there may be a one-off project on the go, which survivors
3 can become part of for a specified period of time. Abused women often
4 contribute to the production of leaflets, booklets, posters and other publi-
5 city materials (as already noted in specific relation to Women’s Aid
6 projects). They may sometimes, for instance, comment on samples of
7 possible designs, suggest or advise on content and decide between different
8 possibilities. In some cases, abused women and children have designed
9 materials themselves completely, or have controlled the content produced
40111 by professional designers. In the Wearside Women in Need project, for
1 example, women survivors of violence have written, designed and over-
2 seen the production of publicity materials. A particularly active forum also
3 told us about a public awareness campaign they had run, during which
44111 survivors had played an active role in media interviews with the local and
142 Survivor participation and consultation

national press, radio and television. They explained that, in doing this, they
had recognised the importance of protecting the women involved and said
that they had:

succeeded in retaining an unusual amount of editorial control to ensure

that the women were comfortable with the articles and programmes
involved.

Similarly, women experiencing violence have frequently contributed to or

designed domestic violence awareness training for professionals in
conjunction with trainers. They may also deliver it directly. Where abused
women do this kind of work, it is of course of some importance that they
are themselves trained and compensated, and are not exploited as unpaid
labour. Women survivors of domestic violence are often also able to
contribute to conferences and seminars, to give speeches and testimonies
about their experiences, to participate in theatre pieces and to give talks to
agencies.
Women who have experienced violence or used relevant services and
who have taken on these types of duties may go on to engage in professional
training and career development as a result, as discussed previously. Some
in the field regard this as unwelcome professionalisation, as we have noted,
in that survivors often then enter the very world they may previously have
criticised as service users. However, the empowering possibilities for the
individuals concerned and the authenticity of the resultant practice
responses are clearly enhanced.

Which methods work for which agencies?

Most of the participation and consultation methods that have been discussed
can be used both by inter-agency forums and by individual statutory
agencies and partnerships, although some are more suitable for one arena
than others. For example, ongoing domestic violence survivors’ forums or
advisory groups are most used by inter-agency forums and partnership
groupings. Mechanisms for seeking user views on specific services offered
(for example, exit questionnaires and user satisfaction surveys) are self-
evidently most used by service provider agencies. General liaison by the
statutory sector with agencies representing abused women (e.g. women’s
support groups, campaigns and refuge organisations) is to be recommended
across the board.
In terms of specific policy development, the active involvement of
Women’s Aid and other women’s services to represent abused women’s
voices and to act as a conduit for information exchange is important for all
levels of involvement, and needs to be agreed, and if possible resourced,
as discussed previously. Women’s focus groups and other specialised
 Agencies taking action 143

1111 groups (e.g. of older or disabled women) are also increasingly used within
2 consultation processes by statutory organisations, and the future may bring
3 a much-increased use of Internet methods.
4 For refuge and women’s support and outreach services, the issues are
5 rather different. They are more often the agencies being consulted than the
6 agencies doing the consultation, and their involvement in raising survivors’
7 voices is of key importance to policy-makers in general. In almost all refuge
8 groups, on an overall level, it is true to say that women who have experi-
9 enced domestic violence are represented as professionals among volunteers,
1011 staff or management and can sometimes speak on behalf of other survivors.
1 As we have discussed throughout, refuge groups have always attempted
2 to involve women residents and ex-residents in the running and manage-
3111 ment of their projects. There is some evidence that this has decreased
4 slightly in recent years, with greater professionalisation and administra-
5 tive demands, and it may be helpful for refuge projects to consider devel-
6 oping new methods to achieve the full involvement of service users, as we
7 discussed in Chapter 5. In general, however, refuge organisations and
8 women’s advocacy and support groups continue to offer a creative and
9 radical approach to this painful subject, supported by the loose-knit global
20111 movement (Dobash and Dobash, 1992; United Nations, 1995), which, to
1 different degrees in every nation and region of the world, challenges men’s
2 violence to women and works towards a world where such violence will
3 have disappeared into the past.
4
5111
Professionals who have experienced domestic
6
violence
7
8 Finally, an issue which emerged over and again in the study and to which
9 we have constantly returned throughout this book, is the indisputable fact
30111 that considerable numbers of practitioners, managers, policy-makers and
1 activists working on abuse issues have personal experience of domestic
2 violence, either as adults or as child witnesses of such violence in their
3 original families. This is a painful and emotive issue that has rarely attracted
4 attention or acknowledgement until now.
5 This book therefore seeks to highlight the contribution that has been
6 made throughout the development of domestic violence provision over the
7 last thirty years by relevant practitioners and managers who are themselves
8 survivors of domestic abuse, whether disclosed or (very often) undisclosed.
9 Professionals in this situation appear to be part of almost all inter-agency
40111 forums, statutory agencies, advocacy groups and domestic violence pro-
1 jects. The fact that they may not have felt able to be open about their status
2 as survivors reinforces the disturbing point we have made throughout, that
3 women continue to be silenced about their experiences of domestic
44111 violence. They may be regarded negatively if considered to be still ‘in the
144 Survivor participation and consultation

experience’, or speaking from that experience rather than from professional

expertise.
Overall, domestic violence survivors have made very significant, often
pivotal, contributions to the development both of the women’s movement
against male violence and of services and policies to protect abused women
and to hold perpetrators accountable. Often quietly and without fuss, over
the years, women who have suffered abuse themselves have done what-
ever they can to assist other women in the same situation. Without their
work, it is unlikely that policy and practice development would have
reached the point it has. We draw this book towards a close by acknow-
ledging this dedicated and often unsung contribution.
 Chapter 11
1111
2
Conclusion
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 We have described in this book the complex picture which emerged from
4 our research as to the stage reached by user involvement in the domestic
5 violence arena. Looked at from a historical perspective, it was abused
6 women themselves who developed this whole field, both of study and of
7 policy and practice intervention. However, in recent years, most efforts
8 towards change in the domestic violence field have concentrated to a large
9 extent on top-down policy development, while an increased focus on the
20111 impact on children and the need to tackle perpetrators has tended to render
1 women ‘invisible in their own issue’.
2 There is a bit of a disjuncture here which this book has attempted to
3 address. Our aim has been to raise survivor voices, and to put them centre
4 stage. To underpin this, we have theorised about the way in which women
5111 are typically excluded from conceptualisations of new social movements
6 and abused women service users are rarely seen as a service user group in
7 their own right. Despite the activities of the activist women’s movement
8 and the enormous increase in services in recent years, abused women
9 continue to be excluded and overlooked, reinforcing the stigmatisation and
30111 silencing that often blight the lives of survivors of violence.
1 It goes without saying that women’s organisations serving the needs of
2 abused women, continue to have the best record of any agencies in listening
3 to service users and in giving them a voice in the wider inter-agency context
4 (although we also identified ways in which they may have retreated to some
5 extent from their previous commitment to the involvement of service users
6 and ex-users in the running and management of services). Both statutory
7 sector agencies and those organisations that have come more recently on
8 to the scene, and for which domestic violence represents only one part of
9 their work, have a substantially poorer record, while inter-agency domestic
40111 violence forums represent the meeting-point of both traditions and fall
1 somewhere between the two. The findings of our study have shown that,
2 while almost half of domestic violence inter-agency forums consult service
3 users (as compared to 90 per cent of refuges), there is evidence that many
44111 such forums appear to claim that they have a better record at involving
146 Conclusion

women service users than women’s refuge and outreach projects in their
areas consider they do. Thus, all agencies are closer to ‘user involvement’
than to ‘user control’, but multi-agency forums may be underachieving and
sometimes, perhaps, over-claiming within this.
Among all agencies, there is more rhetoric than action – intentions are
more advanced than practice. Indeed, feedback from women service users
themselves suggests that they are relatively unaware of opportunities that
do exist to become involved and that often they feel silenced by agencies.
Above all, the challenge of enabling abused women to participate in real
decision-making, as opposed to possibly cosmetic consultation, has only
been met in a handful of locations. The most striking result of this short-
fall is the failure of agencies, even after a decade of increasing levels of
intervention, to help abused women feel safe in the community – the one
thing that survivors have been consistently asking for over all that time,
and long before.
More optimistically, there are some examples of best practice in giving
a voice to service users and in teasing out common elements that make
this work. There is not one, universally applicable, way of doing it. Rather,
pioneers are trying out various possibilities and the issue is edging
towards becoming expected as standard good practice. Methods being used
include the translation of ideas from domestic violence survivors into
policy change; the adoption of effective mechanisms for consultation and
involvement; and confidence-building and empowerment among survivors
themselves on both an individual and a collective level. For user and
survivor participation to be an effective and integrated part of service
delivery, this book has argued that it needs to be taken seriously and prop-
erly resourced (including, for example, the provision possibly of payment
or other recompense, and certainly of childcare and expenses, plus support,
training, interpreting and access as required). Confidentiality and survivor
safety also emerged as vital issues to be considered, as well as representa-
tivness and diversity. There needs to be a commitment to translating the
results of consultative procedures into action, to reviewing this process and
to feeding back the results to those consulted. Without protocols in place
to guarantee that consultation and participation are converted into mean-
ingful policy and change within the agency or forum concerned, we have
argued that it can be pointless to engage in it. Cosmetic exercises are no
help to anyone, least of all abuse survivors.
It is important to note that the study found that isolated survivor partici-
pation in domestic violence forums, or attendance at forum and other
meetings, is generally ineffective (although it can be successful on occa-
sion, especially if support is provided). As an alternative, innovative good
practice ideas are currently being tried in various parts of the country.
These attempts vary from carefully designed consultation strategies (which
are hard enough in themselves to put into place and to sustain) to more
 Conclusion 147

1111 far-reaching participatory methods and moves towards making services

2 genuinely accountable to service users. At best, abused women are able
3 to have real power in the design and delivery, both of services, and also
4 of participation and consultation exercises themselves. Methods currently
5 being tried include domestic violence survivors’ forums or advisory groups
6 feeding into local inter-agency forums, and the active involvement of
7 Women’s Aid and of women’s support and advocacy projects to represent
8 grass-roots views. Other methods include regular focus groups, question-
9 naires, user surveys and service evaluations, Internet consultation, Best
1011 Value reviews and the use of other existing consultative structures such as
1 Crime and Disorder audits and strategies. An important way forward is
2 for ex-service users and other domestic violence survivors to undertake
3111 roles as workers, managers and volunteers, and to participate in the oper-
4 ation of projects. Further, community theatre, poetry workshops and other
5 community arts and campaigns can play a part in influencing policy-
6 makers. All of this can feed into, or be part of, campaigning and activism
7 and the long-nurtured aim of the women’s movement to raise abused
8 women’s voices.
9 A vital element of the complexity of the picture – one which perhaps
20111 marks out domestic violence work from most other sites of ‘user empow-
1 erment’, and a key proof that power does not operate simplistically in a
2 ‘top-down’ direction – is that a good number of professionals in relevant
3 statutory and voluntary agencies, and many activists in this field,
4 have themselves been abused. Hence, unlike the field of learning difficul-
5111 ties, for example, there is not the traditionally clear-cut divide between
6 service users and practitioners, between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The study revealed
7 that the presence of abuse survivors in inter-agency and other meetings is
8 currently one of the key ways in which users gain a voice – both directly
9 and indirectly when they speak out themselves or support other women
30111 in doing so.
1 We have referred throughout this book to the role played by such
2 professionals who are themselves survivors of domestic abuse in almost
3 all domestic violence forums and projects. Many have not felt able to be
4 open about their status as survivors, reinforcing the point that women
5 continue to be silenced about their experiences of domestic violence and
6 that they may be regarded negatively if they speak from within that ex-
7 perience rather than solely from professional expertise. It is time to acknowl-
8 edge and value their contribution, as part of increasing our willingness
9 to respect and listen to survivors of domestic violence. Professionals in
40111 this situation have worked tirelessly on behalf of other abused women
1 over many years and service provision has been transformed by their
2 dedicated contributions.
3 The insights offered in this book are potentially relevant to policy
44111 and practice in a range of contexts, and particularly in a climate where
148 Conclusion

government thinking and public expectations increasingly stress consulta-

tion and user participation at the local level. It is clear that emancipatory
models of exercising accountability to service users in relation to domestic
violence can be made a reality, and are worth pursuing, but that they are
currently taking considerable effort to achieve. There is a vision here – of
services and policy on domestic violence that are truly responsive to abused
women’s views and are co-ordinated, effective and sensitively informed by
their voices. If this can be achieved, domestic violence survivors, policy-
makers, service providers and others in society can move forward together
towards making the abuse of women a thing of the past. This book is aimed
at playing a part in that process and vision.
 Running head 149

1111
2
3
Epilogue
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111
4
5
6
7
8
9
20111
1
2
3
4
5111
6
7
8
9
30111
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
40111
1
2
3
44111
 Running head 151

1111
2
Words from women survivors
3 of violence
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 In the Epilogue, we present the words of various women who have experi-
4 enced domestic violence with whom we spoke during our study, in order
5 to add to the quotations we have used throughout this book. Their words
6 add richness and texture to the arguments, which, under the guidance of
7 the service users and other abuse survivors who have assisted us, we have
8 developed and presented here. We also include a few comments from
9 agency workers.
20111 The epilogue concludes with an account of the innovative Internet project
1 on seeking survivor views that we discussed in Chapter 10. This pioneering
2 consultation was conducted by the Hansard Society and Women’s Aid for
3 the All Party Parliamentary Group on Domestic Violence. The account of
4 it presented here has been kindly contributed by the Director of the
5111 Women’s Aid Federation of England.
6
7 Excerpts from an interview with a domestic
8 violence survivor active in policy work
9
30111 — I have been on all sorts of committees and my experience is that
1 having survivors on a policy committee can be an uneasy situation
2 between everyone. It helps if someone can explain about the power
3 structures and how they work so you can understand them. Then
4 you can understand it better. Otherwise it can be overwhelming
5 . . . But, if you can get them to listen properly, then it can be
6 wonderful. The good side is that survivors can then influence
7 policy. Having survivors on the committee can feed in issues about
8 mental health and the effects of domestic violence, or the need for
9 counselling, or the shortfall in services, or whatever it is that is
40111 needed.
1 — But they can be cosmetic – they don’t have power, do they.
2 — I have been on a committee in the past and had no power at all. I
3 felt on my own on this committee. Others are behind my voice,
44111 I know, and I felt I had a responsibility to speak for other women,
152 Epilogue

but then I felt so isolated and on my own, I felt I couldn’t do it.

And that I was being prevented from doing it by the structures.
— But, more recently, I have been listened to more and taken seri-
ously and I feel I have been making a difference. I know I can
speak for others now. But if there is a women’s group and you are
representing that – you would not be so isolated but would be
representing the group and others voices more formally. So that
can be a help . . . Although, even then, they ignore you if they want
to, like I said – even if they pretend they’re not doing! They decide
behind your back, quietly without telling you, or when you are not
there.
— So it takes so long to build it – I do feel that you can do it but it
takes a long time to build it up. You have to build it.
— You need the humanness of it.
— And it is about not having any power and not being listened to.
And you need to do it on a deep level as human beings, as equals
in the endeavour. That’s what is so important and is often over-
looked by boring procedures and doing it because you feel you
have to, not because you are committed to it.

Excerpts from an interview with an agency

worker involved in direct work with survivors
— There is a gap between policies and what is happening on the
ground. It is wonderful to empower women but not to set them up
to fail. And we need more support and resources to avoid this hap-
pening. Usually, in my experience, it is hypocrisy. People pretend
to listen to survivors’ voices and raise everyone’s hopes. But
usually the agencies are not intending to put energy or resources
into actually supporting the women to be part of it or to really take
account of what the women say. Not really. So it can be naive or
just a smokescreen. It is no good setting it up not to work.

The need for induction, support, self-help and training

This interviewee spoke extensively of the need for training and support in
order to conduct advisory work for agencies:

— To do it, you need:

• Self-help – support and warmth between the survivors who are
participating so they can help each other as well as doing the
agency work.
• Induction and ongoing training – language and structures are
alienating to non-professionals. It doesn’t have to be like
 Words from women survivors 153

1111 that, but it is. So survivor representatives need to be trained,

2 ‘buddied’, supported, offered debriefing or preparation sessions,
3 all that.
4 • It is very skilled work – it’s not easy, it takes a lot of time and
5 care to empower women. And the workers concerned need if
6 possible to have had experience of domestic violence groups
7 and work.
8 — If you don’t provide all this and don’t do it properly, you reinforce
9 the stereotypes of what abused women do and think. And the
1011 survivors who are put in this position feel a failure, it reinforces
1 our original experience of abuse, so it is doubly victimising. It can
2 be very damaging, feeding into women’s feelings that we can’t do
3111 anything properly. But the only reason why they couldn’t do it was
4 in fact because of agency barriers and constraints.
5 — In some situations, survivors who become trained volunteers can
6 pass on their training to others. Then my view is that they could
7 build up their training portfolios and then perhaps get basic coun-
8 selling training and get certificates for their portfolios and a certifi-
9 cate in domestic violence awareness training – to build their
20111 personal CVs, not just ‘help-out’. That’s what I tried to do. Survi-
1 vors often give their time for free so they should get some payback.
2 — In general, I think it is important:
3
4 • To support women into having a voice in a way which is not
5111 too huge a transition.
6 • To make it meaningful.
7 • To give something back and to be sure you are not merely
8 taking from the women.
9 • To assist in the setting up of survivors’ groups and forums to
30111 provide choices and possibilities and autonomy.
1 • To be more proactive in promoting minority groups (for
2 example, specialist facilities for Asian women’s groups).
3
4 Excerpts from an interview with a statutory
5 agency worker who is a survivor
6
7 — I’ll list off some of the issues to be aware of:
8 • It is important to provide support and confidence-building and
9 training, to treat survivors with respect and equality.
40111 • The wrong personalities can stop it working – you can get
1 some real bust-ups but I suppose that happens everywhere.
2 • Adequate resources are essential, otherwise you might as well
3 not do it. Providing very small amounts of money can just
44111 make it worse.
154 Epilogue

• It’s important to try to reach certain group of survivors and not

to only talk to survivors who are motivated to go to meetings
and turn up.
• It can be a stepping stone to professionalisation for women and
that can be good – get some qualifications and get on in life.
• It is important to keep it going. It’s OK as long as more women
come and it doesn’t become stagnant. You need fresh women
all the time. A problem if it is always the same women year
after year is that they gradually become more remote from the
experience.
• Survivors being consulted don’t really represent anyone else.
• It can be a boring and tedious thing to have to keep on doing.
Maybe there needs to be more things pulled in – for example,
assertiveness training, having fun. To get something out of it.
Perhaps women could learn new skills.
— It is vital not to forget the rich and profound contribution of
survivors who are professionals, whether or not they talk about it.

Excerpt from an interview with a statutory

agency worker who is not a survivor
— While users’ perspectives are appreciated in general, this is really
a job for professionals, don’t you think so?

A selection of individual quotes from different

survivors

How things have always been

— Yes, there’d be problems and practical things like looking after
children, trying to find a job and somewhere to live. But who’d
want us? All of them women are in good jobs, with cars, pensions,
nice clothes and there’s little old us, no good at anything and the
charity shop’s best friend. They’d just look down on us! We’re
nothing, just scum to most people around here. Who cares what
we think? Who cares what we feel? We’re just out and out losers.
— Nothing changes, people in charge probably don’t even listen or
read what victims think and just carry on in their own sweet way.
— If there were things concerning survivors (discussed on the
domestic violence forum), survivors would be the last to know –
there is a gap between forum and survivors – a lack of informa-
tion, lack of communication.
— We are not neurotic and unstable so don’t label us and destroy our
self-respect and confidence.
 Words from women survivors 155

1111 — I think we all get treated the same because that’s how people see
2 us – ‘The thems’.
3
4
Beginning to make changes
5
6 — Initially I didn’t feel I had a right to be there – there were others
7 above my level. I was out of my depth, excluded from networks.
8 I feel better about it now.
9 — The involvement of survivors could be a . . . ‘a double-edged
1011 sword’ – brings up painful memories, but also realising it was not
1 (my) fault, I didn’t deserve or cause it. Being involved could bring
2 it all up all the time. But then you wouldn’t be alone. It would be
3111 easier if it was a long time ago rather than ongoing.
4 — Women’s Aid has the expertise to do it, to consult with survivors
5 and that is helpful because they can do it in a proper way. The
6 disadvantage here is it only reaches some women and it would
7 have to be reorganised, structured, compensated for.
8 — They are beginning to listen, they are beginning to try. That is a
9 really big thing, isn’t it, the fact that they are finally willing to at
20111 least try.
1
2
Difficulties and weaknesses to be overcome
3
4 — Women often need support after meetings because they can bring
5111 on flashbacks and can be very traumatising. Also meetings are long
6 and boring and they use lots of jargon and are often on about things
7 that, like, you know nothing about. Making grant applications, for
8 example. I mean, how are you expected to know about something
9 like that!?
30111 — I didn’t feel part of the meeting even though I was prepared and
1 they tried really hard. They tried so hard! And it was still so tedious
2 – all talk, no action. It didn’t change anything. The big meetings
3 of the policy people are all talk and the forum was no different –
4 all talk. Talk, talk, talk.
5 — Why should we do it really? I mean, really? Everyone wants to
6 take from us. When I had a burglary in the Lake District they didn’t
7 ask me to give advice to the police!
8 — Why should women disclose it or talk about it? Why should they?
9 — The memories, they hurt, you want to get away from it all. A
40111 reminder of bad times, flashbacks, prolonging the misery.
1 — The shame, embarrassment, stigma – being singled out as
2 ‘different’ and ‘labelled’.
3 — Safety and confidentiality issues, they are the most important
44111 things, plus time to do it.
156 Epilogue

— It is a good idea but the issues can be too complex for amateur
volunteers. Seriously. And I’d hate to see it lead from a good posi-
tive thing to being compulsory, like conditional to getting benefits.
Like the unemployed now have to go on courses or do voluntary
work or lose their benefit. It must stay voluntary as it clearly
wouldn’t appeal to all survivors. After all, who likes meetings?
Do you?
— Some women find it difficult talking to men, even if it is in an
agency.
— Meetings! – What a turn-off!! Ugh. Also, I haven’t the time.
— There’s a lack of local contact points and meetings. Any get-
togethers of women must be easily accessible for volunteers. It is
also a trouble if we often move away for housing and lose contact
– survivors have to be on the move. You cannot stay in one place
so that makes it hard to be involved.
— It could hold you back. It is more important to move on and keep
looking ahead, not back over your shoulder to hell on earth.

Good practice
— We do our best on this by listening and encouraging women and
paying expenses. Finding a time, a date and venue to suit a group
of women is very, very difficult, especially as professional workers
only want daytime meetings, which isn’t always easy for women,
but neither are evenings unless they own a car. It’s tough to get it
right. (Interview with professional who is also a survivor.)
— Practical help – transport, crèche, childcare, expenses; an advisory
or attendance fee you get for doing it – but you would need to
ensure women went along for the right reasons, not just for the
cash; letting women know it is happening and being actually
invited to participate! Otherwise, how do you get there? Also, a
‘sitting-in’ type of apprenticeship. Maybe go with a refuge worker,
or another worker until you know the ropes. It’s a bit over-
whelming to think about doing it, though! Not on your own.
— You go and you’re learning more about meetings and how to
behave there before you actually go and that helps.
— Yes, they have to take on equalities issues, of course they do. Like
racism, like you said. Sexuality – I wondered when you’d ask. I
bet you assumed I was in a heterosexual relationship.
— When it works, it helps you overcome things – hear other
people’s experiences. Learn to stay away from situations that could
lead to trouble. Speaking out helps yourself and others – gives you
confidence.
 Words from women survivors 157

1111 — The way it helps is by making them know what it’s really like and
2 what help you need at the time. They learn what women really
3 want and can tell others. It gives back a bit of power.
4 — The women act as a check and monitor on any proposed changes
5 in services. Also as advisors, putting forward their ideas. It’s great,
6 and the agencies really do listen now. (Interview with professional
7 who is also a survivor.)
8 — We are there as a right and have equal say with anyone else. We
9 can raise any issues and will always be listened to. For example,
1011 the forum took up the anti-discrimination and ‘no men’ policies
1 from survivors’ comments and the need for a helpline came from
2 women and is being actually done now.
3111 — Being involved in agencies uses women’s own experience. What
4 happened to you is actually important. It can be therapeutic for
5 women – a chance to meet and share with others who know what
6 domestic violence is like. Learn you are not alone.
7 — Survivor representation – they still haven’t got it right on involve-
8 ment of survivors, have they? But it can help to co-ordinate and
9 improve local provision, so it’s bound to be good for survivors.
20111 I’ve seen it help in practice. Although it can be intimidating unless
1 you are a strong woman like me.
2 — For women who have experienced violence to meet, you need:
3 • To be listened to, to have a voice.
4 • Transport and a crèche or other childcare and expenses.
5111 • Practical help with doing it.
6 • More advertisements.
7 • Support and confidence-building in public speaking.
8 • A slot reserved in the meeting for survivors only to speak.
9 • Training, leading on to paid work.
30111 • To make it interesting and fun, not boring.
1 • More invitations to join in from the agencies.
2 • Suitable times and places for meetings.
3 • Anonymous places to meet, not in buildings with ‘domestic
4 violence’ plastered all over doors!
5 • Shorter meetings – seriously!’
6 (From a group interview with survivors who have been active in policy
7 work.)
8
9
40111 Women’s needs
1 — Some women need social services but the main needs are for the
2 police to take it seriously and act quickly, and for housing and
3 benefits to be available so you’ve got somewhere to go and some
44111 money to do it.
158 Epilogue

— We need prompt action and to be listened to, and for the services
to be available, not cut back all the time. What we need is a lot
more refuges. Services are still so inadequate.
— You need early intervention. Shouting and threatening and being
restricted is devastating. And it always gets worse – a crescendo.
Getting out early is what you need. Mother and toddler groups
could discuss it and the effects on children – discuss it in all sorts
of places, so women know what to do.

Improvements survivors would like to see (summarised

from various interviews)
• The employment of more survivors in agencies concerned with
domestic violence.
• More information, more 24-hour helplines, more information on TV.
• More information for abused women in the community (rather than
only available in refuges).
• Outreach projects.
• More support for women who have left a refuge and been rehoused.
• Advocates who can be a bridge between women and different agen-
cies.
• Members of staff specialising in domestic violence in agencies like the
Benefits Agency.
• Asking women if they would like to become involved in domestic
violence forums on exit questionnaires; asking women what they think.
• More severe penalties for perpetrators.
• Fewer delays in bringing cases to court.
• Teaching schoolchildren about domestic violence.
• More resources for domestic violence and an end to pushing two-
parent, two-children families.

A group of survivors made the following list of general improvements they

would like to see:

• More awareness.
• Better posters.
• To be believed.
• To be listened to.
• Language difficulties and cultural issues taken on.
• More training and understanding from police.
• A more reliable service from the police.
• More safety and security.
• Confidentiality.
• Refuges and outreach – more of them.
 Words from women survivors 159

1111 • More support groups.

2 • More helplines and one stop shops.
3 • Publicity in supermarkets, TV and so on.
4 • Making sure no workers overlook safety issues.
5 • Speedy responses which are proactive and safe.
6 • Services which improve things for children who get dragged around to
7 all the interviews and agencies.
8 • Making women and children safer.
9 • Making services more responsive.
1011
1
Issues for Women’s Aid
2
3111 — Women have the right in Women’s Aid, yes, but Women’s Aid
4 doesn’t do that so much now as it used to. You still have it but
5 . . . Now it’s all policies and management and protocols and not
6 much time for the women. Refuges tend to have a full-time
7 manager who never works with the women, so it’s not much of a
8 collective any more. They’ve forgotten about empowerment a bit.
9 (Interview with Women’s Aid worker who is a survivor.)
20111 — The old policy of trying to offer jobs to suitable ex-residents in
1 Women’s Aid was great. Women’s Aid don’t do that so much now.
2 Now you need qualifications and to be good on computers. It’s not
3 so hands on any more.
4 — Yes, Women’s Aid is great. Women are there automatically, as a
5111 right. You just feel that you are important and they will listen to you.
6 — It would be good if refuges could talk to women and then pass on
7 what we think. If it was done properly. But refuge workers don’t
8 have time to do it. They don’t even have time to go to meetings –
9 how could they consult with women as well? They need time and
30111 resources if they are to do that. The other agencies need to realise.
1
2
A final word
3
4 One woman ended a general discussion of survivor participation by saying:
5
6 Do you know what made it really good? Knowing change was a real
7 possibility. Being actively sought out as survivors. Encouraged and
8 made to feel we were valued and listened to. It’s a problem when
9 nothing happens about things women suggest – they feel ignored and
40111 may not know about all the practical real reasons why services are slow
1 to change. So women need training and encouragement, assertive
2 training, that sort of thing. The policy people need to reach out to
3 women in domestic violence situations because they feel isolated and
44111 see no way out. Help to make them more positive.
160 Running head

Womenspeak
A parliamentary Internet consultation
with domestic violence survivors
Nicola Harwin CBE, Director, Women’s Aid
Federation of England

In 1999, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Domestic Violence was

formed as a cross-party network of MPs and peers who were concerned
about violence against women. This Group worked in partnership with the
Hansard Society and with Women’s Aid in March 2000 to conduct the first
ever on-line consultation with survivors of domestic violence. The aim was
to offer an opportunity for survivors of domestic violence to share their
experiences and concerns directly with parliamentarians through the
Internet, and for this to inform parliamentarians in their work to develop
appropriate laws and policy.
The project was an innovative consultation, using new interactive tech-
nology, with the aim of enabling socially excluded citizens to input their
views and concerns into a parliamentary debate. It was also part of a new
movement for pushing forward the progress of e-democracy in the UK, and
set an example for more widespread e-consultation, citizen involvement
and feedback as part of the political process at national and local level.
For some of the women who participated, the potential of information
technology was opened up for the first time. Prior to the month-long consul-
tation, the project co-ordinator, based at the Hansard Society, worked with
national staff from the Women’s Aid Federation of England and with local
Women’s Aid refuge organisations for several months to plan and promote
the process. Complicated, but necessary, systems were established to enable
password access to the site but also to ensure anonymity and safety. Local
resources for Internet access were set up, and provision for personal support
for participants from refuge services, outreach services and the wider
community was established.
Throughout one month, MPs from the All Party Group also encouraged
local organisations to join in the debate and to contribute individually. In
Luton, the constituency of Margaret Moran MP, Chair of the All Party
Parliamentary Group on Domestic Violence, the first women to log on were
a group of Irish women travellers, many of whom could not read or write,
but who, with assistance, were able to contribute their own experiences
and their views on government policy towards domestic violence. In some
 Womenspeak 161

1111 areas, local community centres were made available for survivors who
2 wished to use the Web for free, and assistance was organised for those who
3 had never used the Internet before.
4 Hearing the direct experiences of women survivors is a powerful tool
5 in making informed decisions on domestic violence. There were almost
6 a thousand contributions to the site from women who have lived with
7 domestic violence during the course of the month-long consultation.
8 Many women discussed their experiences for the first time, secure in the
9 anonymity that on-line discussion provides. Many contributors simply
1011 sought help and found this easy using the link to the Women’s Aid website,
1 the Women’s Aid National Domestic Violence Helpline and the UK-wide
2 network of local refuge services. There was a strong call for the site to
3111 be continued as a forum for support and discussion and for consultation on
4 best practice. (The i-village exploring abuse website was set up subse-
5 quently and helped meet some of that need.)
6 The results of the consultation showed clearly that there was a very piece-
7 meal response to domestic violence by many agencies across the country
8 and that there was a lack of common standards for good practice. Survivors
9 were also asked to contribute to a wish list of ‘What women want’, a
20111 summary of the results of which are reproduced below. Since the con-
1 sultation, the results and the evidence that it provided about the problems
2 still faced by women and children experiencing domestic violence, as well
3 as their recommendations for change, have been used to take forward the
4 work programme of the Parliamentary Group and of relevant agencies.
5111 Women’s Aid, which provides secretariat support to the All Party Group
6 on Domestic Violence, has worked with the Group to evaluate the findings
7 and wish list against the measures identified in the government report
8 Living Without Fear (Cabinet Office, 1999), and also against the recom-
9 mendations set out in Families Without Fear, the Women’s Aid National
30111 Agenda for Action (Women’s Aid Federation of England, 1998). This has
1 helped to identify areas of policy and practice where more rapid progress
2 needs to be made.
3 In particular, the work of the All Party Group since 2000 has focused
4 on three key areas identified by survivors:
5 • The need for changes to the Children Act 1989 – reflecting concerns
6 about the safety of women and children in child contact arrangements
7 with violent fathers.
8 • Policy and practice relating to immigration law and forced marriages.
9 • The impact of proposals in Supporting People on the funding of essen-
40111 tial refuge and outreach services.
1
2 Many of the findings of the Womenspeak consultation with survivors
3 confirmed the evidence from research and from Women’s Aid, building
44111 on work with survivors over the past thirty years. They have also been
162 Epilogue

reconfirmed by subsequent research into survivors’ experiences, Routes to

Safety, which was commissioned by Women’s Aid and recently published
(Humphreys and Thiara, 2002).
The stories of abused women, which were included in the Womenspeak
report, highlight how they had faced difficulties, often in relation to ongoing
problems that lasted many years. The consultation demonstrated clearly
how domestic violence is not a one-off event and how it is not something
that only occurs when relationships split up, but, rather, is part of a pattern
of ongoing controlling behaviour, which can be life-threatening and which
can affect all aspects of the lives of abused women and their children. The
findings clearly point to the need for proactive responses by all agencies
to name the problem and to take responsibility for providing an effective
response to protect the safety and rights of survivors.
It is now two years since Womenspeak, and it is heartening to note that
there has been more progress in developing effective responses by national
government and by some statutory agencies in that time. In particular, there
has been significant progress in criminal justice responses and, at the time
of writing, new proposals for legislative change. Nevertheless, the voices
of many of those survivors who contributed to Womenspeak are still
waiting to be heard, and their wish list is still as relevant and current as it
was in March 2000.

Summary of Womenspeak findings

What women want

• Positive action by all agencies.
• More resources for refuge and outreach services.
• Equal support for women from minority groups and help for all abused
women regardless of immigration status.
• More publicity and information.
• Domestic violence to be treated as a crime, and better protection.
• Mandatory training of legal professionals and courts to prioritise the
safety of the survivor.
• Changes to child contact law and protection from post-separation
violence.
• More specialist services for children to help deal with their experi-
ences.
• More flexible housing options.
• Better legal protection to help women stay safe in their own homes.
• Help to protect possessions and pets if they have to leave.
• Access to benefits and economic independence, e.g. fast track benefits
system in an emergency; better access to Social Fund payments;
training opportunities; storage for existing possessions.
 Running head 163

1111
2
Bibliography
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1011
1
2
3111 Abrahams, C. (1994) The Hidden Victims: Children and domestic violence, London:
4 NCH Action for Children.
5 Abrahams, H. (forthcoming) ‘A long hard road to go by: A study of support needs
6 in Women’s Aid refuges’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Bristol.
7 Adams, R. (1996) Social Work and Empowerment, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
8 Anderson, J. (1996) ‘Yes, but IS IT empowerment? Initiation, implementation and
9 outcomes of community action’, in Humphries, B. (ed.) Critical Perspectives on
20111 Empowerment, Birmingham: Venture Press.
1 Aris, R., Hague, G. and Mullender, A. (2003) ‘Defined by men’s abuse: the “spoiled
2 identity” of domestic violence survivors’, in Stanko, E. A. (ed.) The Meanings of
3 Violence, London: Routledge.
4 Baistow, K. (1994) ‘Liberation and regulation? Some paradoxes of empowerment’,
5111 Critical Social Policy 42: 34–46.
Barker, I. and Peck, E. (1987) Power in Strange Places: User empowerment in mental
6
health services, London: Good Practices in Mental Health.
7
Barnes, M. (1997) Care, Communities and Citizens, Harlow: Addison Wesley
8
Longman.
9
Barnes, M. (1999) ‘Users as citizens: collective action and the local governance of
30111 welfare’, Social Policy and Administration 33(1): 73–90.
1 Barnes, M. and Bowl, R. (2001) Taking Over the Asylum: Empowerment and mental
2 health, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
3 Barnes, M., Harrison, S., Mort, M. and Shardlow, P. (1999) Unequal Partners: User
4 groups and community care, Bristol: The Policy Press.
5 Barnes, M., Harrison, S., Mort, M., Shardlow, P. and Wistow, G. (1996) Consumer-
6 ism and Citizenship among Users of Health and Care Services, End of Award
7 Report to the ESRC (Award No. L311253025), Birmingham: University of
8 Birmingham.
9 Barnes, M. and Oliver, M. (1995) ‘Disability rights: rhetoric and reality in the UK’,
40111 Disability and Society 10(1): 111–16.
1 Barnes, M. and Warren, L. (eds) (1999) Paths to Empowerment, Bristol: The Policy
2 Press.
3 Batsleer, J. and Humphries, B. (eds) (2000) Welfare, Exclusion and Political Agency,
44111 London: Routledge.
164 Bibliography

Batsleer, J., Burman, E., Chantler, K., McIntosh, H., Pantling, K., Smailes, S. and
Warner, S. (2002) Domestic Violence and Minoritisation: Supporting women to
independence, Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University.
Baumgartner, F. and Leech, B. (1998) Basic Interests: The importance of groups in
politics and political science, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Begum, N. (1992) ‘Disabled women and the feminist agenda’, in Hinds, H., Phoenix,
A. and Stacey, J. (eds) Working Out: New directions for women’s studies, London:
Falmer.
Bennett, G. and Kingston, P. (1993) Elder Abuse: Concepts, theories and interven-
tions, London: Chapman and Hall.
Beresford, P. (1997) ‘Towards an empowering social work practice: learning from
service users and their movements’, in Empowerment Practice in Social Work:
Developing richer conceptual foundations. Conference Papers, 24–6 September
1997, Toronto: University of Toronto, Faculty of Social Work.
Beresford, P. (2001) ‘Service users, social policy and the future of welfare’, Critical
Social Policy 21(4): 494–512.
Beresford, P. and Campbell, J. (1994) ‘Disabled people, service users, user involve-
ment and representation’, Disability and Society 9(3): 315–25.
Beresford, P. and Croft, S. (1995) ‘It’s our problem too! Challenging the exclusion
of the poor people from poverty decisions’, Critical Social Policy 44/5.
Beresford, P. and Croft, S. (2001) ‘Service users’ knowledges and the social construc-
tion of social work’, Journal of Social Work 1(3): 295–316.
Binney, V., Harknell, G. and Nixon, J. (1981) Leaving Violent Men: A study of
refuges and housing for abused women, Leeds: Women’s Aid Federation of
England.
Bossey, J. and Coleman, S. (2000) Womenspeak: Findings of the parliamentary
domestic violence Internet consultation, Bristol: Women’s Aid Federation of
England.
Boushell, M. (1994) ‘The protective environment of children: towards a framework
for anti-oppressive, cross-cultural and cross-national understanding’, British
Journal of Social Work 24: 173–90.
Brandon, D. (1991) Innovation Without Change: Consumer control of psychiatric
services, London: Macmillan.
Braye, S. (2000) ‘Participation and involvement in social care: an overview’, in
Kemshall, H. and Littlechild, R. (eds) User Involvement and Participation in Social
Care: Research informing practice, London: Jessica Kingsley, pp. 142–3.
Brent Asian Women’s Resource Centre (2000–1) Asian Women’s Resource Centre:
Twenty-one years of providing for her, for you, for a better community, Brent:
Asian Women’s Resource Centre.
Bridge Child Care Consultancy Service (1991) Sukina: An evaluation of the circum-
stances leading to her death, London: Bridge Child Care Consultancy Service.
Cabinet Office (1999) Living Without Fear, London: Women’s Unit of the Cabinet
Office.
Campbell, J. and Oliver, M. (1996) Disability Politics: Understanding our past,
changing our future, London: Routledge.
Campbell, P. (1996) ‘The history of the user movement in the United Kingdom’, in
Heller, T., Reynolds, J., Gomm, R., Muston, R. and Pattison, S. (eds) Mental
Health Matters, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
 Bibliography 165

1111 Chamberlin, J. (1988) On Our Own: Patient-controlled alternatives to the mental

2 health system, London: MIND.
3 Charles, N. (2000) Feminism, the State and Social Policy, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
4 Cheshire Domestic Abuse Project (2002) Qualitative Survey of Women’s Aid Service
Users (unpublished).
5
Cooper, L., Coote, A., Davies, A. and Jackson, C. (1995) Voices Off: Tackling the
6 democratic deficit in health, London: Institute for Public Policy Research.
7 Coote, A. and Campbell, B. (1987) Sweet Freedom: The struggle for women’s liber-
8 ation, 2nd edn, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
9 Croft, S. and Beresford, P. (1996) ‘The politics of participation’, in Taylor, D. (ed.)
1011 Critical Social Policy: A reader, London: Sage. (Originally published in Critical
1 Social Policy 35(Autumn): 20–44.)
2 Croft, S. and Beresford, P. (2002) ‘Service users’ perspectives’, in Davies, M. (ed.)
3111 The Blackwell Companion to Social Work, 2nd edn, Oxford: Blackwell.
4 Cross, M. (1999) ‘Review of domestic violence and child abuse: policy and practice
5 issues for local authorities and other agencies’, in Greater London Action on
Disability (eds) Boadicea, London: Greater London Action on Disability.
6
Cull, L. and Roche, J. (eds) (2001) The Law and Social Work, Buckingham: Open
7 University Press.
8 Dalton, R. J. and Kuechler, M. (1990) Challenging the Political Order: New social
9 and political movements in Western democracies, Oxford: Oxford University
20111 Press.
1 Davies, M. (1994) Women and Violence: Realities and responses worldwide, London:
2 Zed Books.
3 Davis, K. (1994) ‘What’s in a voice? Methods and metaphors’, in Feminism and
4 Psychology 4(3): 353–61.
5111 Department of Health (1996a) Community Service Users as Consultants and
6 Trainers, Leeds: The NHS Executive Community Care Branch. (Produced by
Vivien Lindow on behalf of the National User Involvement Evaluation Group.)
7
Department of Health (1996b) Encouraging User Involvement in Commissioning: A
8 resource for commissioners, Leeds: The NHS Executive Community Care Branch.
9 (Produced by Jenny Morris on behalf of the National User Involvement Evaluation
30111 Group.)
1 Department of Health (2000) Domestic Violence: A resource manual for health care
2 professionals, London: Department of Health.
3 Department of Health (2001) Valuing People: A new strategy for learning disability
4 for the 21st century, London: The Stationery Office.
5 DETR (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions), Department of
6 Health, Department of Social Security, HM Treasury, Home Office, Scottish Office,
7 Welsh Office and Women’s Unit (1998) Supporting People: A new policy and fund-
ing framework for support services, London: Department of Social Security.
8
Dobash, R. E. and Dobash, R. P. (1980) Violence Against Wives: A case against the
9 patriarchy, Shepton Mallet: Open Books.
40111 Dobash, R. E. and Dobash, R. P. (1992) Women, Violence and Social Change,
1 London and New York: Routledge.
2 Dobash, R. E., Dobash, R. P. and Cavanagh, K. (1985) ‘The contact between battered
3 women and social and medical agencies’, in Pahl, J. (ed.) Private Violence and
44111 Public Policy, London: Routledge.
166 Bibliography

Dobash, R. P. and Dobash, R. E. (1981) ‘Community responses to violence against

wives: charivari, abstract justice and patriarchy’, Social Problems 28(5): 563–81.
Dobash, R. P., Dobash, R. E., Cavanagh, K. and Lewis, R. (2000) Changing Violent
Men, London: Sage.
Dominy, N. and Radford, L. (1996) Domestic Violence in Surrey: Developing an
effective inter-agency response, Guildford: Surrey County Council/Roehampton
Institute.
Dowson, S. (1997) ‘Empowerment within services: a comfortable delusion’, in
Ramcharan, P., Roberts, G., Grant, G. and Borland, J. (eds) Empowerment in
Everyday Life: Learning disability, London: Jessica Kingsley.
Dullea, K. and Mullender, A. (1999) ‘Evaluation and empowerment’, in Shaw, I. and
Lishman, J. (eds) Evaluation and Social Work Practice, London: Sage.
Edwards, R. and Ribbens, J. (1998) ‘Living on the edges: public knowledge, private
lives, personal experience’, in Ribbens, J. and Edwards, R. (eds) Feminist
Dilemmas in Qualitative Research, London: Sage.
Edwards, S. (2001) ‘New directions in prosecution’, in Taylor-Browne, J. (ed.) What
Works in Reducing Domestic Violence? A comprehensive guide for professionals,
London: Whiting and Birch.
Eschle, C. (2001) Global Democracy, Social Movements and Feminism, Boulder,
CO: West View Press.
ESRC Violence Research Programme (1998) Taking Stock: What do we know about
violence?, Uxbridge: Brunel University, ESRC Violence Research Programme.
Figueira-McDonough, J. (1998) ‘Toward a gender-integrated knowledge in social
work’, in Figueira-McDonough, J., Netting, F. E. and Nichols-Casebolt, A. (eds)
The Role of Gender in Practice Knowledge: Claiming half the human experience,
New York and London: Garland Publishing.
Forbes, J. and Sashidharan, S. (1997) ‘User involvement in services: incorporation
or challenge?’, British Journal of Social Work 27(4): 481–98.
Foucault, M. (1979) The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An introduction, trans. Robert
Hurley, London: Allen Lane.
Freeman, J. (1972–3) ‘The tyranny of structurelessness’, Berkeley Journal of
Sociology 17: 151–64.
Freeman, M. (1979) Violence in the Home, Farnborough: Saxon House.
Gelb, J. (1990) ‘Feminism and political action’, in Dalton, R. J. and Kuechler, M.
(eds) Challenging the Political Order: New social and political movements in
Western democracies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gillman, M. (1996) ‘Empowering professionals in higher education’, in Humphries,
B. (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Empowerment, Birmingham: Venture Press.
Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity, Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Gondolf, E. (1998) ‘Multi-site evaluation of batterer intervention systems: reliability
and validity of outcome measures for batterer intervention evaluation’. Online.
Available at www/mincava.umn.edu/arts/asp.
Grace, S. (1995) Policing Domestic Violence in the 1990s, HORS Report No. 139,
London: Home Office.
Grant, G. (1997) ‘Consulting to involve or consulting to empower?’, in Ramcharan,
P., Roberts, G., Grant, G. and Borland, J. (eds) Empowerment in Everyday Life:
Learning disability, London: Jessica Kingsley.
 Bibliography 167

1111 Grant, W. (2000) Pressure Groups and British Politics, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
2 Grant, W. (2002) ‘Direct action, when it works, may stifle political action’, The Times
3 Higher Education Supplement, 19 April: 20–1.
4 Greenbaum, T. (2000) Moderating Focus Groups: A practical guide for group facil-
itation, 2nd edn, London: Sage.
5 Greenwich Asian Women’s Project (1995) Asian Women and Domestic Violence:
6 Information for advisers, London: London Borough of Greenwich.
7 Grotberg, E. (1997) ‘The International Resilience Project’, in John, M. (ed.) A Charge
8 Against Society: The child’s right to protection, London: Jessica Kingsley.
9 Hague, G. (2000) ‘What works? Multi-agency initiatives’, in Home Office (eds)
1011 Reducing Domestic Violence: What works?, Briefing Notes, London: Home Office.
1 Hague, G. (2001) ‘What works in reducing domestic violence: multi-agency initia-
2 tives’, in Taylor Browne, J. (ed.) What Works in Reducing Domestic Violence?
A comprehensive guide for professionals, London: Whiting and Birch.
3111
Hague, G. (2002) Domestic Violence in Brent: Needs, strengths and gaps: An assess-
4 ment of domestic violence services, London Borough of Brent: Community Safety
5 Team.
6 Hague, G. and Malos, E. (1998) Domestic Violence: Action for change, 2nd edn,
7 Cheltenham: New Clarion Press.
8 Hague, G. and Wilson, C. (1996) The Silenced Pain, Bristol: The Policy Press.
9 Hague, G. and Wilson, C. (2000) ‘The silenced pain’, Journal of Gender Studies
20111 9(2): 157–65.
1 Hague, G., Malos, E. and Dear, W. (1996) Multi-agency Work and Domestic
Violence, Bristol: The Policy Press.
2
Hague, G., Kelly, L., Malos, E., Mullender, A. and Debbonaire, T. (1996a) Children,
3 Domestic Violence and Refuges: A study of needs and responses, Bristol: Women’s
4 Aid Federation of England.
5111 Hague, G., Mullender, A., Aris, R. and Dear, W. (2001) Abused Women’s Perspec-
6 tives, End of Award Report to the ESRC (Award No. L133251017), Bristol:
7 University of Bristol.
8 Hague, G., Kelly, L. and Mullender, A. (2001a) Challenging Violence Against
9 Women: The Canadian experience, Bristol: The Policy Press.
30111 Hague, G., Mullender, A. and Aris, R. (2002) Professionals by Experience: A guide
to service user participation and consultation for domestic violence services,
1 Bristol: Women’s Aid Federation of England.
2 Hanmer, J., Itzen, K., with Quaid, S. and Wigglesworth, D. (eds) (2000) Home Truths
3 about Domestic Violence: Feminist influences on policy and practice, London:
4 Routledge.
5 Harding, S. (1993) ‘Rethinking standpoint epistemology’, in Alcoff, A. and Potter,
6 E. (eds) Feminist Epistemologies, London: Routledge.
7 Harding, T. and Beresford, P. (1996) The Standards We Expect: What service users
8 and carers want from social services workers, London: National Institute for Social
9 Work.
Harding, T. and Oldman, H. (1996) Involving Service Users and Carers in Local
40111 Services, London: National Institute for Social Work; Thames Ditton: Surrey
1 Social Services Department.
2 Harwin, N. (1999) ‘New opportunities, old challenges: a perspective from Women’s
3 Aid’, in Harwin, N., Hague, G. and Malos, E. (eds) The Multi-agency Approach to
44111 Domestic Violence: New opportunities, old challenges?, London: Whiting and Birch.
168 Bibliography

Harwin, N., Malos, E. and Hague, G. (eds) (1999) The Multi-agency Approach to
Domestic Violence: New opportunities, old challenges, London: Whiting and
Birch.
Hastings, A., McArthur, A. and McGregor, A. (1996) Less than Equal: Community
organisations and estate regeneration, Bristol: The Policy Press.
Healy, K. (2000) Social Work Practices: Contemporary perspectives on change,
London: Sage.
Hen Co-op (1993) Growing Old Disgracefully, London: Piatkus.
Hen Co-op (1995) Disgracefully Yours, London: Piatkus.
Henderson, S. (1997) Service Provision for Women Experiencing Domestic Violence
in Scotland, Edinburgh: Scottish Office Central Research Unit.
Hester, M. and Pearson, C. (1998) From Periphery to Centre: Domestic violence in
work with abused children, Bristol: The Policy Press.
Hester, M., Pearson, C. and Harwin, N. (2000) Making an Impact: A reader, London:
Jessica Kingsley.
Hill Collins, P. (1991) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, consciousness and the
politics of empowerment, New York: Routledge.
Hoff, L. A. (1990) Battered Women as Survivors, London and New York: Routledge.
Home Office (1990) Circular 60/90: Domestic violence, London: HMSO.
Home Office (1991) The Citizen’s Charter, London: HMSO.
Home Office (1995) Inter-agency Circular: Inter-agency coordination to tackle
domestic violence, London: Home Office.
Home Office (1999) Multi-agency Guidance for Addressing Domestic Violence,
London: HMSO.
Home Office (2000) Reducing Domestic Violence: What works?, Briefing Notes,
London: HMSO.
Home Office (2000a) Domestic Violence: Revised circular to the police, London:
Home Office, Policing and Crime Reduction Group.
Homer, N., Leonard, A., and Taylor, P. (1984) Private Violence, Public Shame: A
report on the circumstances of women leaving refuges, Middlesborough: Cleveland
Refuge and Aid for Women and Children.
Humphreys, C. (2000) Social Work, Domestic Violence and Child Protection:
Challenging practice, Bristol: The Policy Press.
Humphreys, C. and Mullender, A. (2002) Children and Domestic Violence,
Dartington: Department of Health Unit.
Humphreys, C. and Thiara, R. (2002) Routes to Safety: Protection issues facing
abused women and children and the role of outreach services, Bristol: Women’s
Aid Federation of England.
Humphreys, C., Hester, M., Hague, G., Mullender, A., Abrahams, H. and Lowe, P.
(2000) From Good Intentions to Good Practice: Mapping services working with
families where there is domestic violence, Bristol: The Policy Press.
Humphries, B. (ed.) (1996) Critical Perspectives on Empowerment, Birmingham:
Venture Press.
James-Hanman, D. (1994) Domestic Violence: Help, advice and information for
disabled women, London: London Borough of Hounslow.
James-Hanman, D. (1995) The Needs and Experiences of Black and Minority Ethnic
Women Experiencing Domestic Violence, London: London Borough of Islington
Women’s Equality Unit.
 Bibliography 169

1111 James-Hanman, D. (2000) ‘Enhancing multi-agency work’, in Hanmer, J., Itzen, K.,
2 Quaid, S. and Wigglesworth, D. (eds) (2000) Home Truths about Domestic
3 Violence: Feminist influences on policy and practice, London: Routledge.
4 Kelly, L. (1988) ‘How women define their experiences of violence’, in Yllo, K. and
Bograd, M. (eds) Feminist Perspectives on Wife Abuse, London: Sage.
5 Kelly, L. (1999) Domestic Violence Matters: An evaluation of a development project,
6 Home Office Research Study 193, London: Home Office.
7 Kelly, L. and Humphreys, C. (2000) ‘What works in reducing domestic violence?
8 Outreach and advocacy approaches’, in Home Office (eds) Reducing Domestic
9 Violence: What works?, Briefing Notes, London: Home Office.
1011 Kelly, L. and Humphreys, C. (2001) ‘Supporting women and children in their
1 communities: outreach and advocacy approaches to domestic violence’, in Taylor-
2 Browne, J. (ed.) What Works in Reducing Domestic Violence? A comprehensive
guide for professionals, London: Whiting and Birch.
3111
Kelly, L., Burton, S. and Regan, L. (1996) ‘Beyond victim or survivor: sexual
4 violence, identity and feminist theory and practice’, in Adkins, L. and Merchant,
5 V. (eds) Sexualizing the Social: Power and the organization of sexuality,
6 Basingstoke: Macmillan.
7 Kirkwood, C. (1993) Leaving Abusive Partners: From the scars of survival to the
8 wisdom for change, London: Sage.
9 Krueger, R. (2000) Focus Groups: A practical guide for applied research, 3rd edn,
20111 London: Sage.
1 Law Commission (1995) Mental Incapacity, London: HMSO.
Leonard, P. (1997) Postmodern Welfare: Reconstructing an emancipatory project,
2
London: Sage.
3 Lindow, V. (1994) Self-help Alternatives to Mental Health Services, London: MIND.
4 Lindow, V. (1994a) Purchasing Mental Health Services: Self-help alternatives,
5111 London: MIND.
6 Lindow, V. (1995) Service User Involvement: Synthesis of findings and experience
7 in the field, York: York Publishing Services.
8 London Borough of Lewisham’s Community Safety Team in conjunction with the
9 Lewisham Domestic Violence Forum (1998) Survey of Domestic Violence Services
30111 in Lewisham, London: London Borough of Lewisham.
Lovenduski, J. (1993) Contemporary Feminist Politics: Women and power in Britain,
1 Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2 Lukes, S. (1974) Power: A radical view, London: Macmillan.
3 Malos, E. and Hague, G. (1993) Domestic Violence and Housing: Local authority
4 responses to women and children escaping violence in the home, Bristol: Women’s
5 Aid Federation of England and University of Bristol.
6 Mama, A. (1996) The Hidden Struggle: Statutory and voluntary sector responses to
7 violence against black women in the home, London: Whiting and Birch. (First
8 published in 1989.)
9 Maynard, M. (1985) ‘The response of social workers to domestic violence’, in Pahl,
J. (ed.) Private Violence and Public Policy: The needs of battered women and the
40111 response of the public services, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
1 Maynard, M. and Purvis, J. (eds) (1994) Researching Women’s Lives from a Feminist
2 Perspective, London: Taylor and Francis.
3 McGee, C. (2000) Childhood Experiences of Domestic Violence, London: Jessica
44111 Kingsley.
170 Bibliography

McIntosh, M. (1996) ‘Feminism and social policy’, in Taylor, D. (ed.) Critical Social
Policy: A reader, London: Sage.
McWilliams, M. and McKiernan, J. (1993) Bringing It Out in the Open: Domestic
violence services in Northern Ireland, Belfast: HMSO.
Means, R., and Smith, R. (1996) Community Care and Homelessness: Living with
domestic violence, London: Whiting and Birch.
Members of Women First (2002) ‘Women First: A self-directed group for women
with and without learning disabilities – our experiences 1990–99’, in Cohen,
M. B. and Mullender, A. (eds) Gender and Groupwork, London: Routledge.
Mirrlees-Black, C. (1999) Domestic Violence: Findings from a new British crime
survey self-completion questionnaire, Home Office Research Study 191, London:
Home Office.
Mooney, J. (1994) The Hidden Figure: Domestic violence in North London, London:
Middlesex University.
Mooney, J. (2000) Gender, Violence and the Social Order, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Morley, R. (2000) ‘Domestic violence and housing’, in Hanmer, J., Itzen, K., Quaid,
S. and Wigglesworth, D. (eds) Home Truths about Domestic Violence: Feminist
influences on policy and practice, London: Routledge.
Morris, J. (1991) Pride Against Prejudice: Transforming attitudes to disability,
London: The Women’s Press.
Morris, J. (1994) The Shape of Things to Come? User-led social services, Social
Services Policy Forum Paper No. 3, London: National Institute of Social Work.
Morris, J. (ed.) (1996) Encounters with Strangers: Feminism and disability, London:
The Women’s Press.
Mullender, A. (1995) ‘Review article: towards mental health for women’, Issues in
Social Work Education 15(2): 81–9.
Mullender, A. (1996) Rethinking Domestic Violence: The social work and probation
response, London: Routledge.
Mullender, A. and Burton, S. (2000) ‘What works in reducing domestic violence:
perpetrator programmes’, in Home Office (eds) Reducing Domestic Violence: What
works?, Briefing Notes, London: Home Office.
Mullender, A. and Burton, S. (2001) ‘Dealing with perpetrators’, in Taylor-Browne,
J. (ed.) What Works in Reducing Domestic Violence? A comprehensive guide for
professionals, London: Whiting and Birch.
Mullender, A. and Hague, G. (2000) ‘What works in reducing domestic violence:
women survivors’ views’, in Home Office (eds) Reducing Domestic Violence:
What works?, Briefing Notes, London: Home Office.
Mullender, A. and Hague, G. (2001) ‘Reducing domestic violence: what works?
Women survivors’ views’, in Taylor-Browne, J. (ed.) What Works in Reducing
Domestic Violence? A comprehensive guide for professionals, London: Whiting
and Birch.
Mullender, A. and Morley, R. (1994) Children Living with Domestic Violence:
Putting men’s abuse of women on the child care agenda, London: Whiting and
Birch.
Mullender, A. and Ward, D. (1991) Self-directed Groupwork: Users take action for
empowerment, London: Whiting and Birch.
Mullender, A., Kelly, L., Hague, G., Malos, E. and Imam, U. (2000) Children’s
Needs, Coping Strategies and Understandings of Woman Abuse, End of Award
 Bibliography 171

1111 Report to the ESRC (Award No. L129251037), Coventry: University of Warwick,
2 Department of Social Policy and Social Work.
3 Mullender, A., Hague, G., Imam, U., Kelly, L., Malos, E. and Regan, L. (2002)
4 Children’s Perspectives on Domestic Violence, London: Sage.
O’Hagan, M. (1993) Stopovers on My Way Home from Mars: A journey into the
5
psychiatric survivor movement in the USA, Britain and the Netherlands, London:
6 Survivors Speak Out.
7 Okun, L. (1986) Woman Abuse: Facts replacing myths, Albany, NY: State University
8 of New York Press.
9 Oliver, M. (1990) The Politics of Disablement, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
1011 Pahl, J. (1985) Private Violence and Public Policy: The needs of battered women
1 and the residents of refuges, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
2 Park, Y., Fedler, J. and Dangor, Z. (2000) Reclaiming Women’s Spaces: New
3111 perspectives on violence against women and sheltering in South Africa, Lenasia,
4 SA: Nisaa.
5 Pease, B. (2002) ‘Rethinking empowerment: a postmodern reappraisal for emanci-
patory practice’, British Journal of Social Work 32(2): 135–47.
6
Pease, B. and Fook, J. (eds) (1999) Transforming Social Work Practice: Postmodern
7 critical perspectives, London: Routledge.
8 Pence, E. and Shephard, M. (eds) (1999) The Co-ordinated Community Response:
9 The Duluth experience, London: Sage.
20111 Pleck, E. (1986) Domestic Tyranny: The making of American social policy against
1 family violence from colonial times to the present, Oxford: Oxford University
2 Press.
3 Plotnikoff, J. and Woolfson, R. (1998) Policing Domestic Violence: Effective organ-
4 isational structures. Police Research Series Paper 100, London: Home Office,
5111 Policing and Reducing Crime Unit.
6 Priestley, M. (1999) Disability Politics and Community Care, London: Jessica
Kingsley.
7
Radford, L., Sayer, S. and AMICA (1999) Unreasonable Fears? Child contact in
8 the context of comestic violence: A survey of mothers’ perceptions of harm, Bristol:
9 Women’s Aid Publications.
30111 Rai, D. K. and Thiara, R. (1997) Re-defining Spaces: The needs of black women and
1 children in refuge support services and black workers in women’s aid, Bristol:
2 Women’s Aid Federation of England.
3 Rai, D. K. and Thiara, R. (1999) Strengthening Diversity: Good practice in deliv-
4 ering domestic violence services to black women and children, Bristol: Women’s
5 Aid Federation of England.
6 Ramcharan, P., Roberts, G., Grant, G. and Borland, J. (1997) ‘Citizenship, empow-
7 erment and everyday life: ideal and illusion in the new millennium’, in Ramcharan,
P., Roberts, G., Grant, G. and Borland, J. (eds) Empowerment in Everyday Life:
8
Learning disability, London: Jessica Kingsley.
9 Rhode, D. L. (1989) Justice and Gender: Sex discrimination and the law, Cambridge,
40111 MA: Harvard University Press.
1 Ribbens, J. (1998) ‘Hearing my feeling voice?’, in Ribbens, J. and Edwards, R. (eds)
2 Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research, London: Sage.
3 Ryan, B. (1992) Feminism and the Women’s Movement: Dynamics of change in
44111 social movement ideology and activism, London: Routledge.
172 Bibliography

Saunders, H. (2001) Making Contact Worse? Report of a national survey of domestic

violence refuge services into the enforcement of contact orders, Bristol: Women’s
Aid Federation of England.
Sayce, L. (1999) From Psychiatric Patient to Citizen: Overcoming discrimination
and social exclusion, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Schechter, S. (1982) Women and Male Violence: The visions and struggles of the
battered women’s movement, Boston: South End Press.
Scott, A. (1990) Ideology and New Social Movements, London: Unwin Hyman.
Scott, J. (ed.) (1994) Power: Critical concepts, London: Routledge.
Scottish Women’s Aid (1998) Young People Say, Edinburgh: Scottish Women’s Aid.
Servian, R. (1996) Theorising Empowerment: Individual power and community care,
Bristol: The Policy Press.
Shakespeare, T. (1993) ‘Disabled people’s self-organisation: a new social move-
ment?’, Disability, Handicap and Society 8(3): 249–64.
Shaping Our Lives (undated) The Outcomes We Want and How We Can Achieve
Them, leaflet, London: National Institute for Social Work.
Sheridan, A. (1980) Michel Foucault: The will to truth, London: Tavistock.
Sissons, P. (1999) Focus on Change: Report on consultation carried out with women
survivors of domestic violence, London: Lewisham Domestic Violence Forum.
Smith, L. (1989) Domestic Violence: An overview of the literature, Home Office
Research Study 107, London: Home Office.
Social Care Institute for Excellence (2002) SCIE: Social Care Institute for
Excellence, leaflet, London: SCIE.
Southall Black Sisters (1990) Against the Grain: A celebration of survival and
struggle, London: Southall Black Sisters.
Southall Black Sisters (2000) Southall Black Sisters: Annual report, London: Southall
Black Sisters.
Squires, J. and Kemp, J. (1997) Feminisms, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stacey, J. (1993) ‘Untangling feminist theory’, in Richardson, D. and Robinson, V.
(eds) Introducing Women’s Studies, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 49–73.
Standing Together against Domestic Violence (2002) Survivors Speak: A report
on the findings of consultations with survivors of domestic violence 2001–2002,
London: Standing Together.
Stanko, E. A., (2003) The Meanings of Violence, London: Routledge.
Stanko, E. A., Crisp, D., Hale, C. and Lucraft, H. (1998) Counting the Costs:
Estimating the impact of domestic violence in the London Borough of Hackney,
London: Crime Concern.
Stanley, L. and Wise, S. (1983) Breaking Out: Feminist consciousness and feminist
research, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Stanley, L. and Wise, S. (1993) Breaking Out Again: Feminist ontology and episte-
mology, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Stewart, M. and Taylor, M. (1996) Empowerment and Estate Regeneration, Bristol:
The Policy Press.
Swain, J., Finkelstein, V., Oliver, M. and French, S. (eds) (1993) Disabling Barriers
– Enabling Environments, London: Sage.
Taylor-Browne, J. (ed.) (2001) What Works in Reducing Domestic Violence? A
comprehensive guide for professionals, London: Whiting and Birch.
Tutty, L. M., Bidgood, B. A. and Rothery, M. A. (1993) ‘Support groups for battered
women: research on their efficacy’, Journal of Family Violence 8: 325–43.
 Bibliography 173

1111 UNICEF (1997) The Progress of Nations, New York: UNICEF.

2 United Nations (1995) Beijing Declaration and Platform for Global Action, Adopted
3 by the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, New York: United Nations.
4 User-Centred Services Group (1993) Building Bridges Between People Who Use and
People Who Provide Services, London: National Institute for Social Work.
5
Violence Against Lesbians in the Home (1998) Lesbians’ Own Accounts, JJ
6 Publications. (Place of publication not cited.)
7 Walker, L. E. A. (1977–8) ‘Battered women and learned helplessness’, Victimology
8 2(3/4): 525–34.
9 Wallerstein, N. (1992) ‘Powerlessness, empowerment and health: implications for
1011 health promotion programs’, American Journal of Health Promotion 6(3):
1 197–205.
2 Welsh Office (1983) All Wales Strategy for the Development of Services for Mentally
3111 Handicapped People [sic], Cardiff: Welsh Office.
4 Williams, F. (1992) ‘Somewhere over the rainbow: universality and diversity in social
5 policy’, in Manning, N. and Page, R. (eds) Social Policy Review 4: 200–19.
Williams, F. (1996) ‘Postmodernism, feminism and the question of difference’, in
6
Parton, N. (ed.) Social Theory, Social Change and Social Work, London:
7 Routledge.
8 Williams, O. (2003) ‘Developing the capacity to address social context issues: group
9 treatment with African American men who batter’, in Cohen, M. B. and Mullender,
20111 A. (eds) Gender and Groupwork, London: Routledge.
1 Williamson, E. (2000) Domestic Violence and Health: The response of the medical
2 profession, Bristol: The Policy Press.
3 Wolf, N. (1993) Fire with Fire, London: Chatto and Windus.
4 Woman Abuse Council of Toronto (1999) Finding Our Voice: Healing thoughts from
5111 survivors of woman abuse, Toronto: Woman Abuse Council.
6 Women’s Aid Federation of England (1989) Breaking Through: Women surviving
male violence, Bristol: Women’s Aid Federation of England.
7
Women’s Aid Federation of England (1998) Families Without Fear: Women’s Aid
8 agenda for a national strategy, Bristol: Women’s Aid Federation of England.
9 Women’s Aid Federation of England (2001–2) Women’s Aid Annual Report, Bristol:
30111 Women’s Aid Federation of England.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
40111
1
2
3
44111
 Running head 174

Index

Abrahams, H. 83 Asian women 45, 51, 66, 100, 129, 135,

Abused Women’s Perspectives project 3; 153
commitment of services to user Asian Women’s Resource Centre 100,
involvement 61, 62–73; and funding 29, 128, 135
103; innovatory practice 113, 115; asylum seekers 133
practicalities of consultation 93, 95, Australia 38
103, 104–8; user involvement 16, 26,
30, 83, 84, 85, 132, 133, 139, 141–2, Baistow, K. 29
145, 146; women’s views 43, 55–7, Barnes, M. 94, 96, 100, 120
151–9 Batsleer, J. 49, 51
activist movement 1, 4, 20, 40, 44–6, 62, BBC 136
70, 83, 108, 112, 128, 144, 145, 147; benefits 157, 162
early history 7–9; as new social Benefits Agency 56, 158
movement 9–13; see also refuges; Beresford, Peter 13, 14, 17, 22, 27, 28, 31,
Women’s Aid; women’s organisations 33–4, 35
advisory work 4, 50, 112, 113–24, 128, Best Value Framework 23, 92, 147
142, 147 Binney, V. 46, 52
advocacy 16, 23, 24, 158 bisexuals 49
advocacy organisations 33, 44, 57, 62, 94, black men, and relational power 37
96, 97, 99, 103, 128, 130, 133, 140, black women: innovatory practice 128;
143; innovatory practice 125, 129, 147; user involvement 32, 33, 39, 66, 100,
women’s views 63, 68, 73, 158 106, 110, 117, 131, 133, 135, 138;
African Caribbean women 66 views on services 20, 48–9, 50, 51
African-centred theory 17 Boal, Agusto 129
ageing see older people Braye, S. 14–15
Ahluwalia, Kiranjit 129 Brent 100, 128, 135
All Party Parliamentary Group on British Council of Disabled People 96
Domestic Violence 136, 151, 160–2 bureaucracy 28–9, 31, 91, 94, 106, 115
All Wales Strategy for the Development
of Services for Mentally Handicapped Cabinet Office 161; Women’s Unit 47
People 32 campaigning 9, 10, 45, 125, 128–30,
Ambassador One Stop Project 67 141–2, 147
Anderson, J. 29 Campbell, B. 9
Arabic-speaking women 66 Campbell, J. 33–4
Area Child Protection Committees Campbell, P. 39
(ACPCs) 66 Canada: innovatory practice 123–4;
Aris, Rosemary 3, 80 refuges 8
 Index 175

1111 Charles, N. 11, 13 other women’s organisations 125,

2 Cheshire Domestic Violence Outreach 126–8, 130, 155; women’s focus groups
Service 47 131
3
child-centred research 18 consumerist model 23, 24, 27, 28, 94;
4 children 145; consultation 48, 136, 138; collective, of new social movements 10
5 contact arrangements 36, 161, 162; Coote, A. 9
6 decision-making role 72; protection Crime and Disorder Act (1998) 92
7 20–1, 24, 45, 52, 59; theory 18; views Crime and Disorder Audits and Strategies
8 on outreach services 57 21, 92, 118, 147
9 Children Act (1989) 161 Crime and Disorder Partnerships 92, 97,
Children and Young People’s Strategic 132, 135
1011 Partnerships 93 criminal justice system 18, 22, 45, 51, 56,
1 Children’s Services Plans 21 97, 124, 158, 162
2 Chiswick Women’s Aid 8, 9 Croft, Suzy 13, 14, 17, 22, 27, 28, 31, 35
3111 Citizen’s Charter 23, 27 Croydon: consultation 92; innovatory
4 civil justice system 18, 56 practice 113–16; One stop shops 67
5 class 8, 10, 13, 14, 85, 94 Croydon Domestic Violence Survivors’
collective advocacy 16, 33 Forum 79, 113–16
6 collective empowerment 27, 83, 84–5, 86, Croydon Empowerment Project 114
7 108, 114, 130; Women’s Aid 159 Croydon One Stop Partnership 67, 114,
8 collective organisation 12–13, 23, 27, 31, 140–1
9 33, 34, 39, 63, 72 culture 85, 94, 102, 117, 133–4, 158
20111 community action 33, 79, 129–30
1 community arts projects 129–30, 147 deaf women 49, 134
community care 27, 28, 31, 59 Dear, Wendy 3
2
Community Care Plans 21, 23, 93 democracy 7, 27
3 community development 59, 124 Department of Health 22, 52, 101
4 community drop-in centres 118 developing countries 130
5111 Community Strategies 93 difference 25, 38, 40, 63, 85, 94, 102,
6 confidentiality 19, 20, 23, 24; consultation 117; see also diversity
7 and 94, 98, 102, 135; electronic disability 137; social model of 16, 17
8 consultation 135; user involvement disability movement 2, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18,
79, 85, 120, 132, 133, 134, 146; 20, 58, 81, 96
9 women’s views 53, 155, 158 disabled women 39, 49, 50, 100, 102,
30111 consciousness-raising 8, 10, 16, 26 134, 135
1 Conservative governments 27, 28 diversity 25, 38, 40, 63, 122, 146;
2 consultation 27, 34, 145–6; difficulties inadequate services 48–50; and
3 involved in individual survivors representativeness 99–100; see also
4 attending meetings 104–6; electronic difference
68, 135–6, 143, 147, 160–2; funding Dobash, R. E. 46
5 and resources 100–3; innovatory Dobash, R. P. 22
6 practice 109–12, 113, 116, 130; need Domestic Abuse Intervention Project,
7 for sound policies 94–6; optimum Duluth, Minnesota 109, 124
8 methods 142–3; practical issues for domestic violence: definition 1; incidence
9 creating effectiveness 89–108; in UK 2, 9
40111 representativeness of domestic violence Domestic Violence and Minoritisation
survivors 98–100; translation into (Batsleer) 49, 51
1 action 65, 95, 146; user involvement Domestic Violence Bill 54
2 28, 31, 50, 52, 59–60, 65–6, 67–8, 69, domestic violence forums 3, 4, 30, 45,
3 72, 77–88, 110, 133, 134, 135, 136, 60–1; good practice in consultation
44111 139, 145, 146, 148; Women’s Aid and 103, 106–7; optimum methods 142;
176 Index

protocols for user involvement 95, emancipatory 8, 27, 35, 38, 119, 148
137–8; user involvement 32, 40, 61–8, empowerment 18, 24, 58, 152, 153;
69, 79, 86, 90, 97, 106–8, 133, 137, activist movement 16, 44, 70, 108, 130,
143, 145–6, 147, 158; women’s 159; conflicting models 26–8; obstacles
organisations and Women’s Aid 125, to 26–40, 82, 98; professionalisation of
126, 127, 128 29–31, 70, 159; user involvement 31,
domestic violence survivors 1, 2–3, 4; 59, 61, 62, 69–70, 73, 83–6, 90, 109,
autonomy 16–17; becoming empowered 142, 146, 147; women’s movement 44
18 (see also empowerment); celebration environment 11
122; collective organisation 12–13; equality issues 8, 49, 102, 119, 122, 156
desired improvements 53–4, 158–9, Eschle, C. 11
162; differences from members of other ethnicity 85, 137; see also minority ethnic
user movements 19–20, 24; communities, women from; racism
disadvantages of not being regarded as
a user movement 22–4; economic facilitation 107, 110–11, 122–3, 132,
problems 12, 94, 157, 162; gaining a 137
voice 16, 24, 26, 44, 58, 125; Families Without Fear (Women’s Aid)
generating theory 18; identity 81–2, 85; 161
individual participation 104–6, 137, feminism 2, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17–18,
146; opinions on women’s needs 44, 83, 96; and power 35, 36, 38, 40;
157–8; as professionals 19, 64, 72, 82, see also Women’s Liberation
86–7, 142, 143–4, 147, 154; Movement/women’s movement
psychological barriers to involvement focus groups 33, 131; women’s 65, 112,
32, 94; rejection of negative labels 131–2, 142–3, 147
15–16; representativeness and forced marriages 161
accountability 33–4, 98–100, 119, 138, Foucault, Michel 37–8, 39
146; self-esteem 83, 84, 85, 94, 101, funding 46, 59, 100–3, 146, 152, 153,
119, 138, 154; as service users 7–25; 158; innovatory practice 110, 114, 115,
silencing and stigmatisation 19, 20, 24, 120, 123; women’s focus groups 132;
47, 74, 80–3, 94, 117, 143–4, 145, 146, women’s organisations 4, 9, 29, 45, 49,
147, 155; training 87, 102, 106, 152–3, 57, 70, 92, 127, 128, 161, 162
159; views on services 43–57, 151–9;
see also user involvement gay and lesbian relationships 1; see also
domestic violence survivors’ forums 79, lesbians
112, 113–24, 142, 147; key issues gender, NSM theory 12
119–24 gender discrimination 2, 8; user
Dominy, N. 52 involvement 33
Dowson, S. 30, 34 Gillman, M. 29
drama 129–30, 147 Goffman, Erving 31, 81–2
Dullea, K. 17–18 Gondolf, E. 22
good practice 50, 103, 113, 139, 146;
Economic and Social Research Council: electronic consultation 161; excerpts
Children 5–16 Years Research from interviews 156–7
Programme 48; Violence Research government policy 23, 24, 27, 28, 47, 53,
Programme 3, 43 54; and consultation 91–3; electronic
economic issues 12, 94, 157, 162 consultation with survivors 160–2
e-democracy 160 grand theories 38
educational work 45, 106, 117, 158; see Grant, G. 31, 32
also public awareness Grant, W. 10
electronic consultation 68, 135–6, 143, Greenwich Asian Women’s Project 135
147, 160–2 Grotberg, E. 84
 Index 177

1111 Hague, Gill 3, 43, 50, 53, 54, 63, 126, 128 learning difficulties, people with 17, 23,
2 Hammersmith, Standing Together against 30, 147; services for women 51
Domestic Violence 109–11, 113 legislation 52, 91–3, 128, 162; and
3
Hansard Society 136, 151, 160 housing 52–3
4 Harding, S. 38 ‘Legislative Theatre’ groups 129–30
5 Harding, T. 32 lesbian theory 17
6 Haringey 92 lesbians 32, 39, 49, 50, 134
7 Harwin, Nicola 128, 136; report on Lewisham 50
8 Womenspeak Internet consultation Lindow, V. 34
9 160–2 Liverpool Domestic Violence Forum 118,
Health Improvement Programmes 138
1011 (HImPs) 23, 93 Liverpool, innovatory methods 116,
1 health services 23, 45; user involvement 118–19
2 59, 92–3, 97, women’s views on 52, 56 Living Without Fear (Cabinet Office)
3111 helplines 4, 44, 157, 158, 159, 161 161
4 Henderson, S. 50, 51, 53 local authorities 22, 45, 53; and
5 Home Office 92, 128; Briefing Notes consultation 50, 91–3, 97, 132;
43–4, 47; Crime Reduction Programme innovatory practice 114–16; see also
6 on Violence against Women 47, 67, social services; social work
7 141 Local Government Act (2000) 93
8 homophobia 11, 49, 50 London: special mechanisms for user
9 homosexual relationships 1; see also involvement 133, 135; see also Brent;
20111 lesbians Croydon; Hammersmith; Haringey;
1 housing 44, 52–3, 56, 57, 59, 67, 92, 157, Lewisham; Newham; Westminster
162 Lukes, S. 35–6
2
Humphreys, Cathy 50, 52, 54–5, 56–7, 72, Luton, electronic consultation 160–1
3 135, 162
4 Humphreys, Emma 129 Making Research Count 135
5111 Malos, E. 50, 53, 54
6 identity 10, 13–14, 31, 81–2, 85 Mama, Amina 48, 51, 54
7 Imkaan 45, 129 managerialism 28–9, 34
8 immigrant women 45, 85, 162; see also market research 33
minority ethnic communities, women Maynard, M. 23
9 from mental health service users 29–30, 95–6;
30111 immigration law 161 see also psychiatric survivors
1 information 9, 50, 158, 162 mentoring 102
2 inter-agency initiatives see multi-agency Metropolitan Police, Community Safety
3 initiatives Unit 100
4 international activism 130, 143 migrant women see immigrant women
Internet 68, 135–6, 143, 147, 160–2 minority ethnic communities, women
5 Irish women travellers 160–1 from 45; empowerment 84, 85;
6 innovatory practice 128, 129; user
7 James-Hanman, D. 48, 128, 135 involvement 33, 39, 106, 110, 117, 131,
8 133–4, 138; women’s views
9 Kaur, Balwant 129 48–9, 51, 54, 153, 162; see also black
40111 Kelly, Liz 16, 51–2, 56 women
modernisation agenda 28
1 labelling 119; rejection of negative 15–16 Moran, Margaret 160
2 language issues 102, 121, 132, 133, 158 Morley, R. 53
3 law: requirement of user involvement 59; Mullender, Audrey 3, 17–18, 21, 40, 43,
44111 user involvement in work on use of 117 50, 52, 53
178 Index

multi-agency initiatives 39, 53–4; 127, 128, 142–3; difficulties of

innovatory practice in Hammersmith individual survivors attending meetings
109–11; women’s focus groups 131; 104–6; effective development 136–9;
see also domestic violence forums innovatory practice 113, 116, 117, 118,
119, 122, 124, 130; optimum methods
National Health Service see health 142–3; user involvement 2, 43, 47, 50,
services 59–60, 62, 64, 65, 66, 69, 84, 86–8,
National User Involvement Project 22 94–6, 100, 108, 136–9, 140, 144, 146,
National Women’s Aid Federation 9 148, 157; women’s focus groups 131;
National Women’s Liberation Conference women’s views 68, 151–2, 159
(1978) 8 politics 10, 13–14
networking 10, 92 postcolonial theory 17
Newcastle 130 postmodernism 34, 37, 39, 63
Newham, women’s focus groups 131 post-structuralism 37, 39
New Labour 28 poverty 94
New Right 27, 28 power 28, 29, 30, 34–9, 40; and
new social movements 2, 7, 33, 59; as consultation 89–90; as domination
forerunners of service user movements 35–6; relational 37–9; user involvement
13–14; neglect of female contribution 63–4, 65, 69, 72, 78, 105, 112, 124,
in NSM theory 11–13, 24; women’s 125, 136, 146, 147; see also
movement as 9–11 empowerment
NHS see health services practice 4, 145; critical 38; protocols 95,
NHS and Community Care Act (1990) 110, 137–8, 146; see also good practice
93 prevention work 106, 117, 138
Northern Ireland Women’s Aid 9 Priestley, M. 17
NVQ courses 87 professionals and professionalism:
consultation 94, 105; and
older people 14, 18; women 15, 39 empowerment/power 29–31, 33, 39, 70,
Oldman, H. 32 159; excerpts from interviews 152–4,
Oliver, M. 13 156, 157; survivors as 19, 64, 72, 82,
One stop shops 67, 159 86–7, 142, 143–4, 147, 154; and user
Open Service Project 22 involvement 61, 70–1, 78, 86–7, 115,
outreach services 4, 44, 50; user 121; women’s views 50
involvement 68–72, 125, 143; women’s psychiatric survivors 13, 14, 15, 18, 19,
views 56–7, 158, 162 20, 58
public awareness 9, 117, 118, 129, 138,
Pahl, J. 52 141–2
partnerships 50, 63, 92, 93, 125, 132, 135, public meetings 92, 133
142
patriarchy 35, 37, 38 Quality Protects guidance 23
peace movement 11 queer theory 17
perpetrator programmes 22, 62, 117, 124, questionnaires 112, 134–5, 142, 147, 158
138, 145
personal and political 11, 12, 13, 15, 39 racism 11, 32, 37, 48, 49, 51, 102, 134,
Phoenix Group 77, 106–7, 116–17 156
Pizzey, Erin 9 Radford, L. 52
police 45, 50; consultation 100, 106; user radical feminists 8
involvement 67, 97; women’s views Rai, D. K. 49, 51
51–2, 55, 56, 157, 158 rape 129, 130
policy 4, 145; contribution of Women’s rape crisis centres 20
Aid and women’s organisations 125, Refuge 9
 Index 179

1111 refugees 66, 133 Shaping Our Lives disability project 18

2 refuges 4, 20; children’s role 48; shelters see refuges
collective motivation 13; and Sheridan, A. 37
3
consultation 92, 97, 160; early Social Care Institute for Excellence
4 organisation 8–9, 10, 36, 44; (SCIE) 23, 135
5 empowerment 16, 83; innovatory social class see class
6 practice 125–8; representativeness 99; social inclusion and exclusion 25, 89
7 training for service users 87; user socialism 7, 39
8 involvement 40, 45, 62, 67, 68–72, 119, socialist feminists 8
9 133, 143; women’s views 49, 50, 51, social justice 7
53, 56–7, 158, 161, 162; see also social policy 45
1011 Women’s Aid social services 22; women’s views 52, 56,
1 Research in Practice 135 157
2 research projects 127, 128, 134–5 social work 20–1, 23–4, 45, 87
3111 resistance 34, 37, 39, 40 Southall Black Sisters 45, 48, 129
4 resource mobilisation theory (RMT) 12 spoiled identity 31, 81–2
5 revolutionary feminists 8 standpoint approaches 39
Rhode, D. L. 38 statutory agencies 4, 20; excerpts from
6 Routes to Safety (Humphreys and Thiara) interviews 153–4; exploitation of
7 54–5, 56–7, 135, 162 survivors 118; optimum methods
8 142–3; user involvement 40, 61–8,
9 safe houses see refuges 70, 73, 103, 108, 140, 142, 143, 145;
20111 safety 19, 146; electronic consultation women’s views 46–7, 56
1 135–6; user involvement 23, 79, 85, 94, structuralism 39
96, 98, 102, 110, 120, 132, 133, 134, subjectivities 38
2
146; women’s views 2, 50, 53, 57, 60, Supporting People programme 57, 92,
3 146, 155, 158, 159 128, 161
4 Scotland: domestic violence 22; women’s surveys 92, 112, 127, 134–5, 142, 147
5111 views on services 50 survivors’ forums 79, 112, 113–24, 142,
6 Scottish Women’s Aid 9, 48 147; key issues 119–24
7 second-wave feminism see Women’s
8 Liberation Movement/women’s Thatcherism 27, 28
movement ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ movement
9 self-advocacy 16, 60, 123, 140 129–30
30111 self-help 21, 99, 140 Them Wifeys 130
1 Servian, R. 31, 32, 35 Thiara, R. 49, 51, 54–5, 56–7, 135, 162
2 services 3; accountability 4, 16, 59, 60, Thornton, Sara 129
3 61, 78, 79, 80, 90, 95–6, 112, 124, 133, tokenism 24, 29, 33, 40, 89
4 147, 148, 162; benefits of listening to Toronto, refuges 8
women 21–2, 25; extent of commitment Toronto Woman Abuse Council 123–4
5 to user involvement 58–74; optimum travellers 160–1
6 methods 142–3; participation of Tutty, L. M. 51
7 domestic violence survivors see user
8 involvement; respect for survivors 52, United Nations 130
9 107, 110, 111; women’s views 43–57, United States: electronic consultation 135;
40111 117, 158–9; see also good practice; multi-agency projects 109, 124; refuges
user movements 8; reporting abuse 22; support groups
1 sexism 35 51
2 sexual assault, services for women 51 University of Warwick, Centre for the
3 sexuality 137, 156 Study of Safety and Well-being 54, 135
44111 Shakespeare, T. 13 User-Centred Services Group 22
180 Index

user control 2, 16–17, 27, 31, 34, 40, 63, Women and Equality Unit 47
95, 130, 140, 146 Women’s Aid 4, 45, 47; children’s role
user involvement 2, 4, 16, 24, 26, 88, 48; early organisation 8–9, 10;
139–42, 144, 145–8; attitudes to being electronic consultation 136, 151, 160,
‘in the experience’ 3, 73–4, 85, 143–4; 161; empowerment 83; innovatory
barriers to 31–4; basic initial checklist practice 125–30, 147; user involvement
97; benefits of listening to women 21, 63, 65, 68, 70–2, 102, 112, 135,
21–2, 25; excerpts from interviews 141, 142, 147, 155; women’s views 50,
151–9; gendered hierarchy 33; good 51, 54, 155, 159; see also refuges
practice 50, 103, 113, 139, 146, 156–7; Women’s Aid Federation of England 4, 9,
innovatory practice 109–24, 146–7; key 87, 151, 161
issues 96, 98–100; in multi-agency Women’s Aid National Agenda for Action
forums and statutory agencies 61–8; 161
and power 34–9, 89–90; reasons for women’s focus groups 65, 112, 131–2,
58–61; representativeness and 142–3, 147
accountability 33–4, 98–100, 119, 138, Women’s Liberation Movement/women’s
146; special mechanisms 132–4; movement 2, 37–8, 112; early activism
women’s refuge, support and outreach 7–9, 36; as a new social movement
services 68–72; see also consultation; 9–11, 12; resemblances between aims
professionals and professionalism and those of user movements 15–18,
user movements 1–2, 39, 59, 63, 94; 24; see also activist movement
absence of women 2, 14–15, 24, 43; women’s organisations 3, 4, 20, 44–5,
accountability 95–6, 98; differences 132, 140, 145–6; empowerment 83;
between abused women and others innovatory practice 125–30, 147;
19–20; disadvantages to abused women women’s views 50–1; see also
of being disregarded 22–4; new social advocacy organisations; outreach
movements as forerunners 13–14; services; Women’s Aid; women’s
reasons for absence of women 20–1; support organisations
resemblances between aims and those Womenspeak 160–2; summary of findings
of women’s movement 15–18 162
women’s support organisations 44, 45,
Valuing People White Paper 23 50–1, 57, 62; and consultation 92, 96,
Violence Against Lesbians in the Home 51 97, 99; and empowerment 83–4; user
Voice for Change 116, 118–19 involvement 62, 68–72, 73, 113, 129,
133, 143, 147; women’s views 49, 57,
Walker, L. E. A. 16 158, 159
Wearside Women in Need project 141 Women’s Unit of the Cabinet Office
Welsh Women’s Aid 9 47
Westminster Domestic Violence Forum
103, 106–7, 116 Young People Say (Scottish Women’s
Westminster, innovatory methods Aid) 48
116–17 young women: innovatory practice 130;
Williams, F. 14, 23 services for 51