[WiLT] Fw: Community Groups Treatment Programme

[WiL Admin]

Community Groups Treatment Programme - 5 Jun 2009
Your chance to be a part of the community groups treatment programme

Dear all

The Greater London Domestic Violence Project has recently been funded by Comic
Relief to roll out a community groups treatment programme (cgtp) across London.
This programme is for children, young people and their mothers who have
experienced domestic violence and provides a community based setting for them to
share and talk about their experiences. It is originally a Canadian model and
has been piloted and successfully evaluated in LB Sutton.

Historically, recognition of the needs of children living with domestic violence
in the UK has been largely confined to refuge services. Research in the UK
suggests that the majority of children who have lived with domestic violence
would prefer to talk to other children with similar experiences. For most
children outside of the refuge system this is sadly not an option due to the
severe lack of community-based programmes for children who have witnessed
domestic violence.

The programme runs over a twelve-week period for children aged 4 - 21. Children
are divided into age-specific groups.  Core issues addressed are:
·        validation of the children's experiences;
·        understanding abuse;
·        reducing self blame;
·        safety planning;
·        managing appropriate and inappropriate expressions of emotion.

The programme offers a concurrent component for mothers to also attend a group.
Mothers are supported to understand how the violence has impacted on the child
and how best to help them through the healing process.

Collaboration and commitment across partner agencies has been the absolute key
to success in operating and sustaining the community group programme. The
benefits of such a multi agency approach are huge, as not only do staff increase
their knowledge and skills in this area of work, so too do they make it
transferable to other work settings.  In addition, staff taking part from
specific agencies, bring the expertise from their primary work environment and
utilise that in group to assist children who are encountering difficulties in
other aspects of their lives.  We know from Victoria Climbe, Baby P and other
child protection cases the dangers of failure to work together in practice and
this is particularly true in relation to children living with domestic violence.
Providing a coordinated community programme reliant upon multi agency
collaboration has the potential to improve services to children and women
experiencing domestic violence and to maximise their continual safety and
well-being.

How you can be involved

We have organised an exciting showcase event which we would like to invite you
to.

Date: 17th June 2009
Times: Either 12.30pm - 2.30pm or 3pm - 5pm
Venue: Better Bankside, The Community Space, Great Guildford Street, London, SE1
0SY
Map: http://www.betterbankside.co.uk/map/?x=532115&y=180274&bizid=400&showbiz=1

The showcase will feature footage of some groups that have been previously run
in LB Sutton. You will also have the opportunity to hear a mother speak about
her experiences of attending the groups. There will be a Q&A session and we will
explain the next steps in this exciting project!

Refreshments will also be provided.

Who should attend?

We are offering five places per borough for the showcase event. Therefore it is
important that the right people attend in order to maximise the benefit of the
event. We require most attendees to hold strategic level roles within the
borough as we will be asking each borough to sign up to take part in the
community group's programme. Therefore we will need you to have the ability to
authorise such a commitment. We are also happy to have one frontline
practitioner attending who has prior knowledge about the issues involved in
undertaking group work with children affected by domestic violence.

Please fill in the attached booking form and return to ASAP.
Joanna.sharpen at gldvp.org.uk

You can send it to my email address above, or use the postal address below.
Alternatively, our fax number is: 0207 785 3865.

We will then be recruiting coordinators for each borough and will be offering
free training within the next couple of months. A 'job description' for this
post will be circulated shortly. It would be helpful if you can think about who
may be appropriate to take on this role within your borough, before the showcase
so that we can answer any questions you may have at the event.

Training for coordinators (2 days) will take place in July and training for
facilitators (3 days) will take place in September. These training sessions will
be provided free of charge. The original authors of the Canadian model will be
running this training for us.

GLDVP will also provide monthly support and networking events on key themes (eg:
engaging mothers, working with teens, dealing with disclosures of abuse etc). We
will also hold yearly conferences and an evaluator will be appointed to evaluate
how each borough gets on with running the groups, with the aim of producing an
interim report after 1 year and a full report after 3 years.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Kind regards
Jo

Jo Sharpen
Children and Young People's Services Development Officer
Greater London Domestic Violence Project
1st Floor, Downstream Building
I London Bridge
London
SE1 9BG
0207 785 3866
www.gldvp.org.uk

Working to end domestic violence in Greater London by supporting direct service
providers and promoting joint working.

GLDVP is a project of London Action Trust. Registered Charity No. 1039534.
Limited Company No. 2897056.
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