We’re here for you

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

Survey for online sex workers – how can we better meet your needs?

The Red Project is a specialist service run by RSVP, providing practical and emotional support to female sex workers. Through the Red Project we largely support women working in venues and in ‘red light districts’. We know that a growing number of sex workers are working mainly or entirely online and we want to understand better how our service can meet the needs of online sex workers. If this is relevant to you, please see details below from Jane Pitcher and Rosie Campbell, who are independent researchers.

“We are independent researchers carrying out research on behalf of the Red Project to find out how they can better promote and improve their services to women working in the online sector. This research is funded by the Feminist Review Trust, which has approved the ethical statement for the study. The Trust has previously funded other projects related to sex work, including the Sex Worker’s Opera.

If you are a sex worker who advertises online (including working in escorting, webcamming, BDSM or fetish work, adult film or sexual massage), and if you work or have worked in Birmingham or Solihull, or live in the West Midlands and think you may have need of the services of the Red Project at any time, please help us and complete a short survey, which is anonymous and confidential here https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/0FJDDS/. The survey should take you no more than 5 minutes to complete. The data from the survey will only be used to inform future services delivered by the Red Project, in order to ensure you are getting the services you need and want.

As a way of saying ‘thank you’ for participating in the survey, we are giving the option to take part in a prize draw, with a first prize of a Love2Shop online voucher worth £100 and 5 runner up prizes of vouchers worth £50 each. If you would like to take part in the prize draw, please leave your email address at the end of the survey. We will not link this to the data from the survey and will not keep it after the prize draw is completed. The data we receive from the survey is held on UK servers; we do not get information about your IP address or any other digital trace. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact Jane Pitcher on pitcherjane02@gmail.com, or Rosie Campbell on rosiecampbelluk@gmail.com. 

We are also doing a small number of confidential telephone interviews, in addition to the survey. If you would like to take part in an interview, please email Rosie Campbell on rosiecampbelluk@gmail.com. The interviews will take approximately 30 minutes and a Love2Shop online voucher of £40 is offered to everyone who takes part in these.”

COVID-19

After a disruptive and distressing year for all, we are delighted to be welcoming more people back for face to face support.

Recent changes in our approach surrounding COVID-19 have been made to reflect the most recent guidance and legislation issued by UK Government. Under current UK legislation, risk assessments are required to be carried out before re-opening workplaces. We feel it’s important that you have access to our risk assessments and are informed about the steps we’ve taken to ensure that our RSVP workplaces comply with current UK legislation and are COVID-19 secure.  

RSVP may look and operate a little differently to what you remember but we are still here to support you.  We’ve made adaptions to our city centre premises and outreach sites to protect you, our team and continue to play our part in reducing the spread of infection. The risk assessment measures are in place to protect everyone, whilst continuing to offer support in the best way we can, given current circumstances.

We hope these risk assessments reassure you of the steps we’ve taken to keep you safe and provide you with an idea of how RSVP will look whilst hygiene and social distancing measures are in place. Please find our risk assessments below:

Our other outreach sites remain closed. We’ll keep you updated as and when they re-open.

Please click below for information surrounding our COVID-19 Secure measures for children & young people.

We are unable to resume face to face social groups, coffee mornings and Arts with Hearts due to spacing issues and social distancing guidelines. However, groups are taking place virtually. For more details, please get in touch by emailing info@rsvporg.co.uk

Our support is here, and you can choose to access it face to face, by phone or online. We’re here for you.

Sending continued care and compassion,

The RSVP Team

Corona Virus & COVID-19

We have been monitoring the health situation with Coronavirus carefully in order to protect your health, the health of our team and the health of people who visit us too. We have already been following public health and Government advice and been encouraging hand washing and the use of hand sanitiser to reduce the risk of infection. 

Since the Government has moved to the next phase of advice we want to update you, as we want to play our part in reducing the spread of the virus and protecting the most vulnerable. 

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, we ask that anyone with symptoms, a new and persistent cough and/or a temperature/fever does not come to the RSVP office or into an outreach site. Please stay at home and wait until the symptoms have passed and self isolate.

Please click here and read this advice if you do need to self-isolate.

Support by telephone can be arranged and is available, please speak to the office to ask about this.

We will not count counselling sessions which have been missed due to Coronavirus, self-isolation or caring for children if schools shut down.

Also, if you have been into RSVP or an outreach site, and then have a positive diagnosis of Corona Virus, please inform us.

We hope this gives you some clear information and advice. We will continue to monitor the situation and do our best to look after your health while receiving RSVP services. Take good care.