Counselling evaluation report

Over the past two years we’ve been working with the team at Merida to independently evaluate our counselling services for adults who have been subjected to sexual violence and abuse. In November 2019 we published the interim report, and now the final report is ready to share.

Counselling services are our busiest services. Though we offer more than 200 counselling sessions a week to adults, 7 days a week, survivors of abuse are having to wait months for their counselling to begin. This is part of a national crisis in the sector, but we want to reflect on what we can do locally as an organisation to reduce waiting times while still offering trauma-informed, survivor-centred support. You can read the report by clicking the link below.

Some of the findings:

Survivors face a confusing landscape when seeking support, as sexual assault referral centres, health services, mental health services and charities all offer different types of support with varying levels of accessibility.

In January 2019 the demand pressures on RSVP’s services had grown to such an extent that the waiting list for adult counselling was increasing rather than decreasing. This led to consultation on and implementation of service changes, including reducing the number of weeks of counselling from 24 to 16 (from April 2019).

In the research period, adult counselling at the city centre and outreach locations combined grew from 179 sessions per week to 227 per week ( this has since grown and with children’s counselling too we offer more than 300 sessions a week).

The expansion of outreach counselling has been successful in
extending the reach of the adult counselling service to people who were unable to access the city centre site.

Average waiting times reduced from 7 months to 5 months in January 2020, (though waiting times vary significantly depending on where the services is accessed).

The future of the service

Though huge progress has been made in reducing waiting times, the impact of Covid-19 will be felt for some time. Many people who were accessing the service in March put their sessions on hold because they were unable to, and did not want to, continue their sessions by phone during lockdown. When face to face services resume, social distancing will limit the numbers of clients who can be at the premises at one time and some outreach locations will open later than others.

We’re pleased that we’ll continue to work with Merida to evaluate the service, including the impact of Covid-19, counselling in a social distanced environment and new ways of accessing counselling (i.e. online platforms).

If you have any comments on the report, please contact Sarah Lafford sarah@rsvporg.co.uk