Dear Mr Mortimer
I am the Community
Safety Manager for St Albans & District.
I am also secretary
of the St Albans Domestic Violence Forum, an organisation of agencies
which come into day to day contact with domestic violence. We have
a wide ranging membership from District Council and Police to Probation,
Relate, the Refuge, Health Visitors, solicitors and others. The Forum
is not funded by anyone but does occasionally bid for small amounts
of funding to run things like awareness raising conferences for front
line professionals. It has a very small amount of money in its account
- about £2,500 - which is used to cover admin costs and publicity
materials. We have just awarded £500 to Watford Turnaround to
cover travel expenses of those based in St Albans who wish to visit
the service in Watford thereby hopefully encouraging take up of the
service.
There is a countywide
Domestic Violence Information Line - 08088 088 088 - which is a signposting
service. It receives funding from each of the 10 Crime and Disorder
Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) in Hertfordshire. The CDRPs are based
on District/Borough boundaries. In St Albans District the CDRP contributes
£2,250 per annum. The CDRPs, as you may already know, receive
their funding from the Home Office although this is only guaranteed
until March 2008. Beyond that we wait to see what will happen.
The CDRP does
not fund any help and support groups.
The Probation
Service runs an IDAP (Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme) for men
for whom attendance has been made an order of court. I'm afraid you
would need to talk to Probation about the details of that - I can
give you the number if you wish to pursue.
Watford Turnaround
runs courses for men who self-refer without going through the criminal
justice system. However they are also extremely short of funding currently.
The District Council
supports the Women's Refuge with a voluntary grant, which I think
goes some way to offsetting their Council tax. I can't get that information
for you tonight, but if you need it please come back to me.
Probation and
Watford Turnaround have run/are running confidence building courses
for women victims of DV. Again I would need to refer your request
on to get any further information.
I would assure
you that the St Albans Forum looks at issues of DV across the broad
spectrum - not just men on women. We consider male victims, same sex
couples, elder abuse, forced marriages etc. Regrettably money is not
very forthcoming for this area of work. We do what we can at a local
level.
I attach a link
to the Herts County Council pages on DV, including Watford Turnaround.
You should find quite a lot of useful info on this site.
http://www.hertsdirect.org/comdirectory/comvol/famil2y/fydomv3y/10485273
I would be very
happy to have a chat with you if you think that would be helpful.
Please give me a call next week if you wish.
Regards
Christine Roach
Community Support Manager
St Albans City & District Council
Civic Offices
St Peter's Street
St Albans, Herts AL1 3JE
01727 819568
