We are delighted to announce that RMC has been shortlisted for the NHS Safeguarding Initiative award for our work on the “Empowerment of Hard to Reach Communities in the Prevention of Violence Against Women and Girls” at the patient safety awards 2020
The Project
As a partnership of Wolverhampton CCG, Wolverhampton Domestic Violence Forum and Wolverhampton Refugee and Migrant Centre, we hosted 20 sessions to raise awareness of issues surrounding violence against women and girls.
It focused around the following aims:
- Increasing confidence in reporting domestic abuse, female genital mutilation, and modern day slavery/trafficking
- Facilitating reporting pathways
- Increasing access to appropriate projects/services
- Improving resilience to becoming victims, preventing serious harm and associated effects on health and well being
Sessions were split into 6 male sessions and 14 female sessions, with 56 men attending and 108 women. They covered topics around what rights women have, what counts as abuse, how and where they can report crimes and how to reduce occurrence of violence against women and girls.
‘[I] found the session really interesting, hearing other women talk about domestic violence. I went through it myself. I wasn’t the only person going through it. I didn’t talk about my own, [it’s] really interesting to know you are not the only person…. …I was happy, interested to share experiences, a sense of relief, for others I could see that was the case as well. It was the first time I’d been able to talk about such things.’
Female participant K
Male participants were also grateful for the improvement in knowledge. Many were not sure of legal issues around VAWG and were pleased to have that clarified. They felt it was important that they should have knowledge of VAWG issues even though previously some had thought of them as ‘women’s matters’ and of no concern to them. They also showed a willingness to share what they had learnt within their communities.
Following the sessions, women were given 10 cards that were unidentifiable to the project, but could be presented to the police or RMC without needing to speak, and they would immediately be fast tracked to a trained female member of staff for support.
The award
The partnership and project have been shortlisted, despite tough competition from hundreds of applicants. The project was selected based on it’s ambition, visionary spirit and the demonstrable positive impact that the project had on patient and staff experiences within the health and/or social care sector.
The judging panel is made up of a diverse range of highly influential and respected figures within the healthcare community including Rachel Power (Chief Executive, The Patients Association), Jean Knight (Chief Operating Officer, Northamptonshire Healthcare FT) and Vincent Badu (Deputy Chief Executive, Kent & Medway Partnership Trust.
The full shortlist for the 2020 HSJ Patient Safety Awards can be found on https://awards.patientsafetycongress.co.uk/shortlist.
Winners will be selected ahead of the ceremony, which will take place virtually as part of the Patient Safety Virtual Congress and Awards in November 2020.
