The Communities Team

The Communities Team focus on the ‘community’ aspect of the Co-ordinated Community Response (CCR). Our focus is on survivors who are often missing from responses to domestic abuse, including survivors with faith, and those subject to harmful practices.

We know that most survivors of abuse are likely reach out to friends, family and community networks for help in the earliest stages of the abuse. Grassroots communities and faith groups have the power and potential to make a real difference in the lives of survivors and hold perpetrators to account.

We co-ordinate forums which bring together specialist agencies who work directly with these survivors via the Faith and VAWG Coalition, and local and pan London harmful practices groups. Through this work we aim to amplify the work of these specialist organisations, improve responses, identify gaps and advocate for systemic change.

In 2016 the SAFE (Safety Across Faith and Ethnic) project was set up within STADA to build the capacity of voluntary and informal networks within faith and Black and minoritized communities to respond to domestic abuse and VAWG safely and appropriately and to amplify their voices in policy discussions. In November 2018 SAFE hosted a conference on the role of faith and community in responding to VAWG. The overwhelming turnout for the conference, and positive feedback suggested the need for a professional and strategic space where VAWG specialists and professionals working with faith and cultural contexts can come together. The Faith and VAWG Coalition was formed as a response to this need.

In September 2018, the founder of SAFE began co-chairing the local Harmful Practices Operational Group (HPOG) in the boroughs of Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea. When funding was obtained to support the group, the Faith and Communities Team took on a Harmful Practices Co-ordinator to fulfil this role. The Co-ordinator has been supporting the HPOG with a range of areas including data collection and analysis.

The work of the Harmful Practices Co-ordinator identified a range of gaps in practice regarding responses to harmful practices cases, but also more widely to Black and minoritised survivors of VAWG. Building on a local relationship with Asian Women’s Resource Centre (AWRC), the Coaction Hub was created as a partnership project between the two agencies. The project aims to explore and strengthen the Co-ordinated Community Response to Black and minoritized survivors of domestic abuse and harmful practices.

For any further information regarding Faith and Communities Team please contact us: admin@standingtogether.org.uk