Save Refuges, Save Lives

Jane Callaghan, Professor in Psychology, shares her opinion on the proposed cuts to housing benefits and the impact it may have on families fleeing violence.

Women’s Aid today raised the alarm on an issue that has troubled those of us who work in the area of domestic violence and abuse for some time: the potential impact of cuts to housing benefit for families fleeing violence and abuse. The proposed cuts will limit available housing benefit to just £60 a week for all people. Whilst this may seem superficially like a fair deal, treating all claimants equally, this figure fails to take into account the specialist nature of domestic violence provision. Refuges do not just provide housing. They provide a raft of services, including safety, community, professional support and guidance, support for children as they transition between their violent home and their safer future. Refuges offer an important beginning point for many fleeing violence and abuse, offering a safe, one stop shop in which the whole family can be supported in making a new, safer start in life.

For two years, our UNARS research team spent time working closely with children who had grown up in families where domestic violence occurred. Many staff in local authority and government contexts that we spoke to in preparation for this research complained that refuge was ‘old fashioned’, that women lived there in ‘Victorian’ conditions, and that there were better ways to provide safe spaces for women and children. However, speaking directly to children and young people, it was clear that in fact, refuge offered some important elements that couldn’t easily be found in other contexts. Safe houses, bed and breakfasts, target hardened homes — all of these styles of housing can isolate families at the very moment when they need community and support.

Whilst refuges may be imperfect, they offer adult and child victims of domestic violence an important sense that they are not alone. That their experience is not unique. That others have lived with the violence, abuse and humiliation that they have experienced, and that they have survived. For many children in particular, other children who had experienced violence at home were the only ones they trusted to share their stories with. They felt safe with the friends that they made in refuge.

We need to ensure that refuges are supported financially, and that they are enabled to develop, grow and improve. They provide a crucial service for women and children as they take their first steps forwards, out of abuse. Let’s keep them safe?

To take action — see suggestions at SAVE OUR SERVICES.

Articles from the UNARS project can be found on my academia.edu page — https://northampton.academia.edu/JaneCallaghan

Originally published at janeemcallaghan.wordpress.com on September 5, 2016.