A lifeline project supporting women and children domestic abuse victims in East Kilbride has been wound up.
The Children Experiencing Domestic Abuse Recovery (CEDAR) programme was run by The Women’s Aid South Lanarkshire and East Renfrewshire.
But after funding from the Big Lottery dried-up, the charity have been unable to run the project since December, with alternative funding yet to be found.
The project provided group sessions to children alongside sessions for parents/carers, allowing them to open up about domestic abuse and their experience of it.
Between January 2017 and December 2019 alone 143 children and 73 mothers/carers were supported by the CEDAR projects.
It has been running in the area for seven years.
Despite having pleaded to both South Lanarkshire Council and the Scottish Government, the charity has been unable to secure the funds needed to continue.
Team leader, Loraine Harris, said the charity turned to “a number of other organisations” for help, including “Children in Need and Comic Relief,” but all bids made were rejected.
She added: “The loss of this project is a real blow to all involved.
“It made a huge difference to children and their families, and we are extremely disappointed we haven’t been able to secure funding despite our CEO lobbying both local and national government.
“It was unique in that we were targeting the special relationship between parent and child damaged by domestic abuse.
“It will take years for us to benefit from the same level of expertise that we have in place now.
“Equally we served parents right across the region and it will impact beyond the services we provide to the likes of education and social work and partner agencies who refer families in need.”
Monica Lennon recently visited the charity’s East Kilbride offices and said she’d continue to support them in their efforts for more funding.
The Labour MSP said it would be “criminal if Scottish Ministers and South Lanarkshire Council did not support Women’s Aid to run these vital services”.
A spokesman for South Lanarkshire Council said he hoped the charity could secure the funding to continue.
He added: “As a council we support children recovering from domestic abuse in a number of ways, and we work with partners across health, police, and the third sector to provide a range of support for children and families.
“We also provide grant funding to Women’s Aid for other initiatives as part of these arrangements and will continue to do so.”
