Prynhawn Da/ Good afternoon and thank you to Hafan Cymru for inviting me to speak at your AGM today.
Let me start by thanking Hafan Cymru for being:
- a charitable housing association that provides housing and support to men, women, their children and young people across Wales.
- for primarily working with those escaping domestic abuse, helping them regain their independence.
- And for being committed and passionate about saving lives.
Since its inception in 1989, Hafan Cymru has grown from strength to strength – and according to your website, you currently have over 150 staff delivering a range of services across 16 of the 22 Local Authorities in Wales.
It is commendable that you offer a complete package of support provision to help people with a wide range of often complex or multiple needs – including those who have experienced physical, sexual or psychological abuse; those recovering their mental health; ex-offenders; substance misusers and care leavers.
I understand that today you are showcasing some of your services including Spectrum, Training services, Independent Domestic
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Violence Adviser services – or IDVA- and Men’s Sheds.
I was pleased to visit the Llandudno Men’s Shed earlier this year and to have worked with you over IDVA funding, which I will touch on later.
I have been asked to focus my comments today on the Supporting People Programme and violence against women and the effects this has on children.
The inaugural meeting of the Cross Party Group on Violence Against Women and Children, which I have been asked to Co-Chair, is scheduled for 5th October. This group seeks to raise awareness of violence against women and to enable engagement with specialists in order to investigate all the solutions needed to combat it.
I also Chair the Cross Party Group on Fathers and Fatherhood. The speaker at our meeting on Wednesday was Erin Pizzey, the campaigner against domestic violence who opened the World’s first refuge in Chiswick in 1971.
She told us this was about generational family violence, that we need to look at parenting, that if we don’t intervene, these re the people who will fill our prisons and hospitals - and that both women and men need to be part of the dialogue.
The Supporting People Programme, which provides housing-related support to help vulnerable people to live as independently as possible… “saves £2.30 for every £1 spent, preventing homelessness, preventing spending on Health and Social Care and increasing community safety – minimising the need for high cost interventions and reducing avoidable pressure on statutory
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services”.
The programme, which supports more than 59,000 people each year, aims to prevent problems by providing help as early as possible.
By providing high quality support, Supporting People can prevent greater harm and cost, reducing unnecessary pressures on statutory services.
I am again supporting Community Housing Cymru’s Supporting People Campaign to protect the next Supporting People budget so that it can continue to play a fundamental part in the prevention agenda.
A recent study shows that, after receiving Supporting People services, the use of A&E and GP surgeries falls to a pre-support level.
Questioning the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children in the Senedd of Wednesday, I noted that I had visited a number of Supporting People projects in the summer and quoted people who told me these had saved their lives.
I also emphasised that because these project save money for statutory services, that funding them would help the Welsh Government manage a tight budget settlement.
After the Welsh Government in 2012 threaten not to provide funding for the Independent Domestic Violence Advocate (IDVA) post for Conwy and Denbighshire all the North Wales Independent Sexual Violence Adviser alongside Home Office funding, I called on them to provide the small amount of funding needed -
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Arguing that these posts help prevent domestic abuse, save lives, support victims through the daunting legal process and increased convictions.
When we debated the initial stages of the Violence Against Women, Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Bill in 2015, I stated that “eliminating all forms of violence against women is a human rights issue and that the act of perpetrating violence against women is a human rights violation”.
I continued “last Year Welsh Women’s Aid local member services supported 6,220 female survivors of domestic abuse and 1,007 children, which included 1,306 women housed in emergency refuge accommodation.
The highest conviction rate from CPS Violence against Women prosecutions, 79.4%, was in North Wales.
Of crimes prosecuted across the UK, 85% of victims were women.
This required a Gender Specific approach, but, as the Stage 1 Committee Report recommended, this should ensure that services are tailored to the specific needs of men and women respectively”.
This was not to be.
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However, during the passage of the Bill the three opposition parties of the day worked together to secure concessions from the Minister, to develop healthy relationship education within the school curriculum.
As I stated then “It's vital that this piece of legislation is instrumental in driving change—change in awareness, change in behaviour, change in understanding and, hopefully, a change in the levels of incidences of abuse and violence. It must improve the lives and the wellbeing of women, children and victims generally in Wales”.
I Co-Chaired a session at the May launch of the Co-production Network for Wales with a Flintshire County Council Officer, at which delegates called for change within the Welsh Government, turning the system upside down, challenging people and the systems that restrict in order to tackle deeply rooted problems in communities.
After all, as Co-Production Wales state “When Service professionals, people using Services and their communities work side by side to provide solutions which benefit all, both services and neighbourhoods become far more effective agents of change”.