Families, Social Exclusion and Places of Safety

Researchers

Research background

The project is funded by the EU and their Rights, Equality and Citizenship programme.

SREU has been involved in other EU projects where the focus is domestic violence. This current project comes from previous research that indicated that there was a need for programmes in refuges to challenge social exclusion and to help women to re-establish themselves in the community.

The partners in the project are:

Staffordshire Women's Aid
AVODP (Bulgaria)
University of Navarre (Spain)
LAMORO (Italy)
CPIP (Romania)
Die Berater (Austria)

Project aims

This project aims to develop and make a programme of activities that will actively support mothers and children living in domestic violence refuge settings or other places of safety. The first part of the project is about talking to women and their children to find out what problems they experience when living in a refuge and what kind of activities they would find helpful in the development of the new programme for use in refuge settings.

In addition, this project is aimed at professionals working with women with small children. The main focus will be on professionals working within refuges and places of safety but others will be made aware of the programme to help them in their wider work.

Refuges and places of safety have been chosen as the focus of this project because they are often unable to provide other services that deal with the accompanying problems that mothers and children bring with them as a result of experiencing violent and abusive situations. It has long been known that this experience can lead to emotional and psychological trauma for children.

Research methods

In-depth interviews with women and their children residing in refuges or places of safety. Also in-depth interviews with professionals who work with women in refuges/places of safety. The Bulgarian partner also held a focus group with women from the Roma community.

Prior to the interviews, partners compiled an evidence base detailing policy and description of the issues around DV in their countries.

Key findings so far

It is hoped that the programme currently under development will be a success and be continued to be used to challenge social isolation in refuges across the EU.

The key finding to date is that the journey for women escaping DV starts at the refuge but continuing support is needed in order to empower women not to return to abusive partners and successfully reintegrate into their communities with their children.

More information can be found on the FSEPS website.