We’re here for you

Training: Developing a therapeutic awareness of the impact of trauma on the body

We’re delighted to host a one-day course with Berlin based therapist Julianne Appel-Opper on Friday 8th January 2016 in Birmingham.

In psychotherapy/counselling practice it is important to be aware of the body and how to work with this without exposing or shaming clients. The workshop will focus on the cultural language of the body.

Julianne Appel-Opper has developed the ‘Relational Living Body Psychotherapy’, where therapist and client introduce mindful interventions (not touching the client) to acknowledge and validate the messages the client’s body is conveying. This approach avoids re-traumatising and makes healing and change possible.

This training is thoroughly recommended to counsellors/psychotherapists who work with survivors of trauma. Attendees will develop enhanced awareness of the body in therapeutic environments through live supervision and group work.

The training costs £85 + booking fee for individuals and voluntary organisations, £100 + booking fee for statutory and private organisations. The event will take place at The Priory Rooms,  40 Bull Street Birmingham B4 6AF.

Book tickets via www.eventbrite.co.uk

Client survey

It’s survey time again! We regularly seek feedback on our work from survivors so can learn and improve. This survey is open to all survivors, whether they have used RSVP services or not.

The focus of this survey is outreach support; we want to know your thoughts on local, community services. The majority of our service stake place at our Birmingham city centre premises. We currently deliver some outreach counselling sessions at different locations in Birmingham and Solihull. We want to know if this is something you would like to see more of.  Would you prefer to use services closer to home? What would be better, or not so good, about more local services? We want to hear from you.

We’d really appreciate it if you could take 10 minutes to complete this online survey www.surveymonkey.com/r/RSVPNov2015.

The survey will close at 5pm on Friday 4th December.

Do spread the word, many thanks.

Red Cup Cheer!

RSVP has been selected as one of Starbucks’ Red Cup Cheer charities. We’re in a with a chance of receiving a £1000 donation. To make this happen, we need our lovely supporters (that’s you!) to cheer for us online using the hashtag #RedCupCheer.

From Monday 16th November til 6th December, supporters can follow RSVP on neighbourly.com and Twitter, tweeting using the twitter handle @RSVP_West_Mids along with the hashtag #RedCupCheer to help us win the vote, and up to £1,000 through a Red Cup Grant. You can also follow our page on Neighbourly sharing the link online to contribute to the social noise for RSVP.

The money raised will go towards expanding our counselling service, so that more rape and abuse survivors have quicker access to emotional support after trauma.

So, make some online noise for RSVP using the #RedCupCheer – thank you!

Grow Your Tenner!

Every donation up to £10 made to RSVP via Local Giving from 13th October to 18th November will be matched, so your donation is doubled at no extra cost to you. Can you give, and grow, a tenner?

We’ll use the money to build more counselling rooms. We need to make sure that more abuse survivors are receiving support to cope with trauma, and that they don’t have to wait long for this support.  We have confirmed a lease on a space next door to our current premises (hurrah!) but we need to refurbish it and convert the one big space into three individual counselling rooms, including a dedicated facility for the children we support.

We have the counsellors, we have the space, now we just need to refurbish and decorate so more abuse survivors have quicker access to counselling. Can you help us?

Go to https://localgiving.com/charity/rsvp-wm to donate, and please spread the word!

Training event: Working therapeutically with survivors of sexual trauma, with Zoe Lodrick

Saturday 7th November 10am – 5pm

The Priory Rooms
Quaker Meeting House, 40 Bull Street, Birmingham, B4 6AF

Trainer: Zoe Lodrick

Tickets: £85 + booking fee for voluntary organisations and individuals. £100 + booking fee for statutory and private organisations.

Book tickets via www.eventbrite.co.uk

What will be covered?

The neurobiology of threat: including, why people do not usually react in ‘logical’ or ‘active’ ways when faced with intimate interpersonal threat, how, and why, people become vulnerable to repeated victimisation, specific vulnerabilities of children and teenagers to sex offenders.

The ‘replay’ in the therapy room: including, how neurobiology can help us to understand what will get ‘re-enacted’ in the therapeutic work.

The psychology of the offender: including, the process that precedes offending, the ‘socially skilled’ sex offender, how, and why, they target certain people.

Suggestions for utilising the above to inform how we structure our therapeutic work and how we support disclosure.

Working with guilt and shame: including, the psychological underpinnings of guilt, how to hear guilt and challenge it.

About Zoe Lodrick.

Zoe is a UKCP registered psychotherapist and an experienced trainer.  She has over 19 years experience of providing psychotherapy to women and men who have experienced rape, sexual assault and/or childhood sexual abuse; and providing training and consultation to professionals who work with victims/survivors of sexualised traumas. Zoe has specialist knowledge/expertise with regard to human behaviour/response when faced with a perceived threat (especially sexual threat).

Zoe held the full time position of Senior Practitioner at Portsmouth Area Rape Crisis Service (PARCS) from 1994 to 2009.  Since April 2009, Zoe has been a self-employed trainer and consultant.

Counselling feedback

We’re gathering feedback on our specialist rape and abuse counselling service. If you have received, or are currently receiving,counselling at RSVP, would you spare a few minutes and complete a short online survey? All feedback is totally confidential and will help us to improve the service and support more survivors.
Click through to the survey www.surveymonkey.com/r/S5M9DG7

Many thanks!

We’re recruiting helpline volunteers

RSVP is recruiting Telephone Helpline Volunteers. You will be required to offer telephone support, signposting and referrals at our Birmingham city centre premises to survivors who have experienced rape, childhood sexual abuse and sexual violence. Candidates will be able to offer warmth, empathy and have the ability to hear sensitive information.

We welcome counselling students to apply as well as those with little or no experience as full training will be given. All applicants must be over 18 years old.

A DBS (CRB) check will be undertaken and references are required.

Please download the application pack or contact Nasreen on 0121 643 0301 for further details.

Application Pack:

Cover letter

Helpline application form

Training dates

RSVP Leaflet

We do not accept CVs. This is a volunteer position and not paid employment.

Please return completed application to info@rsvporg.co.uk.

Closing date for applications to be returned by: Monday 28th September 2015.

New email

We’ve updated our systems and have a new email contact address. If you need to contact us by email, please do so via info@rsvporg.co.uk. If you have sent us an email recently to our old address, don’t worry, you don’t need to resend it, we’ll still have seen that.

Our telephone number remains 0121 643 0301.

The Rewind Technique for Post-Traumatic Stress

RSVP are offering training for all professionals working in rape and sexual abuse support services on Saturday 18th July, 9.30am-4.30pm in Birmingham city centre.

The Rewind Technique has become internationally recognised as an effective treatment for PTS/PTSD. The treatment is different to other imaginal exposure therapies as details of trauma don’t need to be disclosed to the therapist, reducing the risk of clients being re-traumatised.

This event is suitable for practitioners working with clients that have been traumatised by surviving or witnessing trauma, such as sexual abuse, and are consequently suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress. The course is suitable for statutory, voluntary and private organisations, as well as individual counsellors/therapists.

By the end of the course participants will have:

• Competence in applying the Rewind Technique,
• A clear understanding of how and why the Rewind Technique works,
• A solid grounding in recognising and treating PTSD.

The full-day course costs £100 for voluntary organisations and individuals + booking fee/ £120 for statutory organisations + booking fee. Price includes lunch and refreshments.

Places can be booked at www.eventbrite.co.uk

Venue: 7th Floor, Grosvenor House, Bennett’s Hill, Birmingham, B2 5RS. 5 minute walk from New Street station.

The session will be run by Dr David Muss. Prior to his involvement in developing the Rewind Technique Dr Muss was a Paediatric Surgeon and a family doctor. Since 1988 Dr Muss has worked as the Director of the PTSD UNIT at the BMI Hospital, Birmingham.

Volunteering – a work of heart

This year’s Volunteers Week took place 1-7 June. We currently work with over 60 volunteers who help RSVP deliver  vital support to survivors in various ways, from direct client care (counselling, helpline) to marketing, fundraising and research. But, why volunteer? Here’s a little insight from one of our amazing volunteer counsellors.

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When I tell people that I volunteer as a counsellor, I’m usually met with hushed silence. I suspect I’m sometimes dismissed as a bit of a ‘do-gooder.’ One of those irritating people with too much time on their hands who make a big deal of their selflessness.

None of these labels quite fit. I’m certainly no angel. And while my empty nest has relieved me of big financial burdens, I still have to bring home some bread.

Maybe the real question underlying ‘why volunteer?’ is curiosity about my motives? Doing “owt for nowt” makes little sense in a society where value is quantified in an hourly rate. Never mind that I don’t properly value myself by working for nothing, what possible worth could voluntary work have for the world at large? I think we all know the answer to that one. Volunteering probably contributes billions to the UK economy, though that’s the very least of its virtues, even in a society that monetises everything. Its big-heartedness can be felt in every household, community, town and city across the land, providing everything that makes life worth living.

The fact that I’m not paid for my voluntary work is less a reflection of its worth – more a critique on how we organise our economy.

But none of this really explains why over 19 million people in the UK choose to volunteer every year. I suspect that for most, like me, the motivation is a simple one. I absolutely love what I do. It stirs my heart and expands my mind. Most of all it connects me deeply to people in a way that would never be sanctioned in the commercial world where profit rules. I get to work in a great organisation which is fired by compassion and delivered with the kind of professionalism that would put the big corporates to shame.

Volunteering is all about nurturing social relationships, the ‘greatest single cause of happiness’ according to psychologist Michael Argyle. That’s probably why RSVP’s 62 volunteers have a spring in their step. They apply their skills with love, whether they’re staffing the helpline, serving on the board, making arts and crafts, raising funds, doing IT and admin, overseeing the website and social media or offering counselling to clients.

They know that if you want to be happy for a day, buy a Porsche. But if you want to be happy for a lifetime, volunteer.