Tackling Violence Against Disabled Women and Girls – Group Discussions

In groups we discussed four questions

• What’s going well?
• What are the barriers for disabled women accessing services?
• What are the agency/organisational barriers?
• How can we improve practice and outcomes?

Summary of group feedback

What’s going well?	What are the barriers to accessing services?	What are organisational barriers?	How can we improve practice?
Improved understanding of domestic violence, neglect and abuse	Lack of specific information about disabled women	awareness v training v resources	Appropriate funding
Changed language	Lack of specific provision for access needs	‘interrogation’ process of reporting & gathering evidence	Person-centred practice
Education on domestic violence & hate crimes in schools	Denial of health care	Lack of advocacy workers, no access, not enough workers	1st Question; What are your access requirements?
More work putting service users at the centre	Cultural barriers	Needs to be a priority	Better court support
Holistic approach	Eligibility: needs to complex or not meeting the threshold	Multi-agency working	specialist services
More inclusion	No joined up thinking	Loss of specialist services, especially in terms of marginalised groups	more training accessible in a range of formats
Agencies wanting to be part of raising awarenesss	Isolated, lack of access to information and how to find the right support	Lack of community-based services that can deal with dynamic changes in risk	Being able to link and fund various projects
Collaborative approach	Practitioner preconceptions	3rd sector surviving on short-term funding	Recognising those who are ‘falling under the radar’
Listening to what service users want	Disempowered by professionals	Telephone based work rather than relationship building	Consistency across local authorities, Police and other organisations
Adult safeguarding policies and procedures	Physical access to refuges	Long term services need, but short term processes	Getting women away from perpetrator(s)
More research and increased training in the area	Labels v needs	Lack of resources	Online resources