Their refuge is a purpose built property that offers support services for families and single women who are fleeing in crisis due to domestic abuse and need a safe place to begin their move on after leaving an abusive relationship

They have eight rooms and can offer 25 bed spaces in total. Residents have their own room that they share with their children and the rest of the living is communal (bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, TV room area, and laundry facilities).

There is access to a playroom and we have an outside space for families to use.  As part of the support here we have two women’s support workers, two family intervention workers and a playroom worker.  There is a manager and administrator here also.

The Refuge is staffed during office hours 9am-5pm Monday – Thursday and 9am-4.30pm on Fridays. Outside of these hours it is covered by an on-call service for crisis or emergency support.

The aim of Refuge is to provide a safe place from where the workers can develop a personalised plan with residents to support individual families.
Their ethos is to work with the family as a whole and offer the following services:

• For women, we offer practical support such as accessing housing, support with benefits advice, locating legal services and support through subsequent court cases, as well as emotional support through one to one meetings with workers and also group sessions with other residents. We hold regular ‘house meetings’ when everyone is encouraged to find their voice, to offer ideas and feed into the service for the benefit of all residents.
• For children, we have family intervention work which focuses on therapeutic work including one to one sessions and group work with the children as well as supporting mums and their children together in order to heal and recover from their experiences.

The playroom has an emphasis on fun through many different activities. It’s a place for mums and children to play together as well as for the children to spend time with others staying here. There are structured and therapeutic group play sessions as well as one to one support for families who have decided to take part in therapeutic family intervention as part of their recovery programme.

They are a small and friendly dedicated team who aim to work to keep families safe and promote healthy relationships.