Elmore raises awareness about domestic abuse support on BBC Radio

Elmore Community Service’s Chief Executive Tom Hayes today went onto BBC Radio Oxford to raise awareness about domestic abuse support in Oxfordshire.

While domestic abuse happens all year round, Christmas is a time where the family are together for a sustained period of time, providing fewer opportunities to seek help and support if somebody needs it. There also can be increased use of alcohol - which in itself does not cause domestic abuse - but can be a catalyst for more severe and frequent incidents if someone is living with an abusive partner. By New Year, domestic abuse services will often will hear from survivors saying they cannot face another year living in fear of a partner.

In Oxfordshire, a service named Oxfordshire Domestic Abuse Services (ODAS) offers support to victims (female and male), family, and friends. You can contact them on 0800 731 0055. Support can include: phone support, face to face meetings in a safe environment, safety planning, access to a confidential refuge where women (with or without children) can stay temporarily in order to escape an abusive relationship. Support is available for children in refuge accommodation. Help to recognise abusive and non-abusive behaviours, support accessing other services for victims and their children, signposting to other agencies. In an emergency please dial 999.

Elmore provides a domestic abuse frontline service to perpetrators and victims/survivors across Oxfordshire as part of Family Solutions Plus, the model commissioned by Oxfordshire County Council. The interview also raised awareness about the service via ‘Ending the Cycle of Abuse’, a new four-part series released today by Elmore.

The series is hosted by Liz Jones, who developed the programme and helped to establish the service, and Sadia Hussain, who managed the team providing interventions for perpetrators and victims/survivors.

The podcast series has the following episodes:

Episode 1:  Society—does it make abusers, and can it change abusers?

This episode explores society’s role in conditioning abusers and whether people who abuse can change, and features Liz Jones and Sadia Hussain.

Episode 2: Abusers—how do we change them and what does it take?

Featuring Elmore perpetrator caseworkers Kerrie and Irina and team manager Tilly, this episode explores the enablers of change for abusers and the interventions that can lead to change.

Episode 3: Perpetrator Programmes—how do they benefit partners and children?

Featuring Oxfordshire County Council’s Laura Clements, this episode explores why we need perpetrator programmes, what they can and can’t achieve, and their benefits to partners and children.

Episode 4: Myths and Stereotypes—what are they and how do we challenge them?

This episode investigates the misconceptions and stereotypes that influence how society perceives abusers and victims/survivors, and features Liz Jones and Sadia Hussain.

The only voices you’ll hear on the podcast series belong to the women who created the interventions or managed the team delivering them or directly delivered the interventions themselves. This is a deliberate choice to ensure the experiences of women underpin conversations about how to prevent mainly male abusers from harming mainly female partners.

Notes:

Elmore’s domestic abuse victims/survivors and perpetrators services are delivered as part of the Family Solutions Plus model commissioned by Oxfordshire County Council. The services supported 506 people from 1 April 2021-31 March 2022. 244 of the people supported were perpetrators while 262 were victims/survivors.

Family Solutions Plus is a collaborative partnership model set up to safely reduce the number of children that the local authority cares for. Together Elmore’s domestic abuse workers and County Council social workers address the causes of abuse through perpetrator group programme and victims/survivors one-to-one support.

The perpetrator programme works alongside perpetrators to recognise their behaviours as abusive, take the responsibility for their behaviours, understand its roots and address the factors that sustain abuse, stop the damage of their abusive behaviours, and enable positive change to happen.