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Our exceptional ISVA team!

We’re delighted to announce that the RSVP Independent Sexual Violence Advocacy (ISVA) team has been given the Exceptional ISVA Team award at the first Limeculture Limelight awards, a real credit to their tireless work for survivors. The award acknowledged the immense changes that the ISVA team had gone through, including losing a much loved team member Vicky Bardsley, to cancer last year.

Lime Culture are the training establishment who offer a high standard of training to ISVAs around the UK.

The Umbrella sexual health partnership has seen the ISVA team double in size this year and really broaden the scope of advocacy support, developing the profession and what it means to advocate for survivors.

Yvonne Langham, Head of ISVA Services and Margaretta Vauls, Children & Young Person’s ISVA, were there to accept the award along with CEO Lisa Thompson.

“As Head of ISVA Services at RSVP, I am absolutely delighted that our amazing ISVA team has won the Lime Culture LimeLight Award 2016. We had a really lovely day which ended fantastically when we were announced as the most exceptional ISVA team. Wow, I’m still smiling and feeling terribly proud!  The lovely glass trophy I accepted on behalf of the team now sits in our reception area, please take a look when you next pass through.

This award confirms that our staff are truly a remarkable bunch of people, who always go the extra mile and work to the best of their ability to offer support to those who need it. We assist any female or male survivor who needs advocacy support with anything relating to the sexual abuse or sexual violence they have suffered. For example, we can assist with medical appointments, arranging counselling or helping people all the way through the Criminal Justice Process should they decide to report the abuse to the police. There are many ways the ISVA team can assist you, please feel free to ask for a call from one of us if you feel we may be able to help.

Due to prior ISVA commitments such as attending Court or accompanying clients to sexual health screening, getting everyone together for a Team Award picture has proved to be a challenge! I have taken a photograph of each member of the team with the wonderful award.” Yvonne Langham, Head of ISVA Services.

Margaretta was also nominated in the children’s ISVA category, well done Margaretta! The children’s ISVA award was named the ‘Vicky Bardsley award’ in memory of our wonderful friend and colleague. The winner of that award was Helen Leach of RASA Merseyside who has set up a children’s service from scratch.

Thank you to Limeculture, and to those who nominated the team.

You can read more about the ISVA service here

Lisa our Local Leader

We’re so proud of Lisa, our CEO, who recently won a Birmingham-wide Local Leader Award 2016 for her leadership here at RSVP. She received her award alongside other third sector leaders in Birmingham for her excellence in leadership, her commitment to her team, and her contribution to society.

In her video application, Lisa talked about her team being her inspiration, and her job as a leader merely about creating a positive environment for her team to thrive in.

“My job…is to create a nurturing, safe, boundaried environment where my team can get on with their work, utilise their skills and fly. Where they can harness their knowledge and humanity to restore the broken trust of the people we support, and for that I celebrate and salute them.”

We salute you too Lisa, thank you for your great leadership and we look forward to a bright future with you at the helm.

For more information about the Local Leaders Awards see their website here.

LimeLight Award Nominations!

Our amazing team has been recognised once again, this time by LimeCulture – the UK’s leading sexual violence training and development organisation. This year marks LimeCulture’s first ‘LimeLight’ awards, which aims to ‘acknowledge the outstanding contributions and achievements of individual ISVAs, ISVA Teams and ISVA Managers who have demonstrated excellence, dedication and commitment to supporting victims of sexual violence through their work’.

We are honoured to have been nominated for two out of the possible four awards.

Margaretta Vauls has been nominated in the ‘Children and Young People’s ISVA’ category (named the Vicky Bardsley Award after our colleague, who was a children’s ISVA) for her outstanding commitment and contribution to her field of work.

The whole RSVP ISVA team has been nominated in the ‘Award for Exceptional ISVA Team’ category, a real credit to their constant demonstration of excellence in the service of survivors.

We couldn’t be more happy and proud of our ISVA team in being recognised, but also for the incredible work we know that they do everyday, helping survivors to cope and thrive through difficult circumstances. Thank you to LimeCulture for recognising us in this way.

The awards will be announced on 28th September, so keep your eyes peeled for the results!

We just had our AGM…

Our Annual General Meeting took place last night (13th September) in the RSVP offices. It was a great evening looking back and reflecting on the year we have had, and celebrating all we have achieved. Achievements such as supporting over 1000 counselling clients, over 2000 helpline callers, and over 450 adult ISVA clients, meaning that including all our other services, we supported 4,193 clients this year, a 54% increase on last year’s figures. We were also able to celebrate because 82% of our clients reported an increased feeling of confidence, 90% of our ISVA clients felt better informed about police and court processes due to ISVA support, and 100% of clients were more hopeful for their future.

The year has been a huge success, with our office expansion, new services being offered, and new staff being employed. All of this means we are able to do more to see survivors of sexual abuse flourish and live their lives to the full.

Last night was also an opportunity to give out our annual ‘Above and Beyond Awards’, presented by our Chair, Sally Plumb. These are to recognise members of staff and volunteers who do so much more than is asked of them in service of our clients. This year’s winners were Emma Jordan (one of our counsellors), Margaretta Vauls (a child and young person ISVA and counsellor), and to the whole RSVP Team as a whole for continuing through this year in the face of a huge office expansion, and the loss of our beloved colleague, Vicky.

If you would like to know more about our year, and the successes we have had, our annual report will be available on here shortly.

BCLC Autumn Quiz Fundraiser!

On Tuesday 18th October, Birmingham Chinatown Lions Club will be hosting their Autumn Quiz in aid of RSVP! The event will take place from 7:30pm at Edmunds Brew House (B3 2ES), and costs just £5 per person to enter – which includes canapes on entry.

If you’re a keen quizzer, or just want to support us in the work that we continue to do, book in a team of up to six people with Lion Stewart, who can be contacted on 07973833519 or stewart@chamberlainssurveyors.co.uk. Thank you in advance for your support, we can’t wait to see you there!

(Click on the image below to take you to our event page for the quiz)

RSVP selected by John Lewis

John Lewis has selected RSVP as one of three Community Matters charities over the next three months at their Birmingham city centre store. £3000 will be shared amongst the three charities, and it’s up to customers to decide how much each charity receives! You can help RSVP raise funds by using a token to select us the charity you’d like to support. You can find the information, and tokens at the Place to Eat, Level 4 and Customer Collections, Level 2.

We’d love it if you could vote for us, and spread the word!

Vicky’s Room

Tuesday 21st June was about a very special person, Vicky. She was our beloved colleague who we lost last year. Since she was one of our children’s advocates, with the blessing of her family, we have created “Vicky’s Room”, a safe welcoming space where we’ll support all the sexually abused children and young people that we see.

Vicky’s Room

On Tuesday we held a launch event for her children, family, friends and colleagues. It was an emotional day but a great success too. We had lovely feedback about the special space that we’ve created as Vicky’s legacy. For everyone who attended it was both a proud day and a sad one at the same time.

We are pleased to share these images with you and let you know that Birmingham now has a special place to support children who’ve been sexually abused. Our thanks also go to:
-Vicky’s family, friends and loved ones, including those who gave to Vicky’s appeal last year

-the funders and businesses who donated to us

– to the builders who helped create our newly expanded premises.

To you all, we could not have done it without you. Vicky would feel so excited about the warm colourful space that traumatised children can now be safely supported in, so they can grow and thrive after sexual abuse. Just the sort of thing that Vicky helped so many children achieve.
Lisa, CEO.

Infinity Stage Company make RSVP their charity of the year!

We’re delighted to be Infinity Stage Company’s charity of the year for the next academic year. Charlie from Infinity has written this guest blog, as an introduction to the group, and explaining why the members chose to support RSVP.

Some of the members of Infinity Stage Company

The University of Birmingham’s Infinity Stage Company produce roughly six shows a year, specialising in contemporary theatre. However, what sets us apart from other drama societies at the university is that, every year, we choose a new charity to which we donate the proceeds from our shows. This allows us to combine our dedication to high quality performances with a contribution to charities and causes that we consider important. This year, we put the decision of choosing a charity down to a poll by our members and RSVP was chosen.
It isn’t difficult to understand why so many felt so passionate about supporting this local charity. As students, most of us are living alone and away from home for the first time in our lives. While this is obviously an exciting new chapter in so many ways, the flip side of this new independence is a new vulnerability. There are new dangers that we have to deal with and it means a great deal that there are institutions, such as RSVP, in place to help us if the worst should ever happen. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that RSVP should resonate so profoundly with Infinity.

The University of Birmingham and its Guild of Students have always taken an unwavering stance against sexual harassment, as shown by its #NotOn Campaign, which has mobilised students to challenge and prevent sexual violence wherever they find it. We hope that, by supporting and promoting this cause, we will not only encourage people to donate and contribute to the great service that it provides, but also raise awareness that, if you should ever need it, help is available. We plan to be actively involved in RSVP in whatever way possible, in order to benefit the
charity as best we can.

Enormous thanks to all the members at Infinity for supporting RSVP, watch this space for future updates on fundraising activity.

Steve wins Volunteer of the Year!

We are delighted that Steve Tallett, who volunteers as a counsellor for us at RSVP (as well as volunteering with many other fabulous organisations too) has won ‘Towergate’s Volunteer of the Year’ award. Read more about the Care Awards on their website here. Well done Steve!

Our expansion is complete

Part of our new reception area

One of our new counselling rooms

The building work to our new office space is finally finished and a week ahead of schedule as well!  Thanks to all at Orton Estates for making the transition as painless as possible for everyone here at RSVP, and for our clients too.  It all looks amazing and the comments we have received have been very complimentary.  We have two more counselling rooms, another kitchen for the groups, and a further office.  Our new training room now has windows, and our old training room has been divided into two, to become a filing/stationery room, and staff room.  The ISVA office has increased in size to accommodate our growing ISVA team.  And we have Vicky’s Room, our new children’s room, which will be decorated with the kind help from Vicky’s family.

Before the work began

Putting up the stud walling