Domestic abuse services in Stockport face a ‘challenging’ situation which ‘is not going away’ — fuelled by an ‘alarming’ rise in the number of cases in lockdown.
That’s according to the boss of a major charity in the borough which supports victims of domestic violence — who is also calling for more funding to be put in place long-term to curb the problem.
Now, new statistics obtained by the Manchester Evening News reveals the scale of the problem authorities are facing in Stockport.
“We have had significant increases in the number of referrals through the formal route of high risk cases,” Stephanie Mallas, CEO of Stockport Without Abuse says.
“70 referrals in a month. That’s alarming compared to what it used to be.”
A freedom of information request to Stockport council shows that 502 ‘high risk’ incidents were recorded in the borough in 2020/21 — up by 30 percent in just a year.
The council says that in part, this is due to a change in the way it classifies cases — and could be down to the same victims coming forward repeatedly for support.
However, the charity says that these ‘revolving door referrals’, as they are known, also ‘continued to increase’ as the pandemic progressed.
Partly, that is directly because of challenges put in place by the advent of the coronavirus.
“Covid has meant we have not had some of those face to face conversations [we need for] victim plans,” Stephanie says.
“It is really challenging to have that conversation over the phone if the perpetrator is in the same room.”
While a leap in new cases is testing enough for services — Stephanie adds that her organisation’s capacity ‘to respond… has been limited’ — and not just because of difficulties from working remotely.
Staff burn-out and pots of extra government funding coming to an end have also played a role, she tells the MEN.
“The money that has come through from government [allowed] us to put in place short-term accommodation — but only for four months,” Stephanie says .
“Within eight days of opening it was full. Ten units, full. That demonstrates the need that was there for additional safe accommodation.
“It is great to get funding but it was short-term. On March 31, when the funding ended, Covid and domestic abuse did not.”
The CEO adds that at one point, she was facing losing nine staff due to short-term funding grants ending — a hammer-blow for an organisation which also provides specialised support for older people (aged 55-plus), children and families, and male victims of domestic violence.
Ultimately, only three left her team — but that still had a huge impact on the remainder of the charity.
“It is really demotivating for the rest of the staff to see colleagues leaving,” Stephanie continues.
“I do not believe that we have seen the full effect of burn-out. They are hanging on in there.”
Despite the steps being taken by the council and government to boost funding, Stephanie says more needs to be done.
“It is challenging, and it is not going away,” she summarises.
“We need ring-fenced funding for refuge services. We need increased funding support services, and we need mental health support as we are desperate.”
The council says it has taken a variety of steps to boost its support for domestic abuse services.
“We have supported our specialist domestic abuse services by applying to available funding for two additional Independent Domestic Abuse Advisors, an additional role to support our medium risk domestic abuse service, as well as supporting our refuge provision to open a new 13 space temporary refuge,” a spokesperson said.
“Extended training programmes have been offered, community support groups created and front-facing services worked to help with safe disclosures and immediate safety planning provided by our domestic abuse specialist services.
“We have also supported our existing community peer support groups and created four new peer support groups in areas that had a high prevalence of domestic abuse. The role of peer support is to maintain contact and offer support that assists with connecting to services.
“We increased communication with all our communities such as [printing] helpful telephone numbers on hand gels and at chemists and supermarkets, and offered IT equipment support to victims and small community services.
“It is also worth noting, Safelives, changed the recommended criteria for referral for high-risk services, before the pandemic, so any incidents within a 12 month period need to be referred to high-risk victim support process ( MARAC). The increase of the high-risk victims of domestic abuse is not directly and solely due to increased new incidents of domestic abuse and it could partly be due to repeat cases within a one year period.”
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