GreenSquareAccord: Creating Places of Safety for domestic abuse survivors

For 16 Days of Activism around Gender-Based Violence, we talked with GreenSquareAccord’s domestic abuse services manager, Heather Downer, about the success of Places of Safety and how newly approved grant funding will help support more survivors of domestic abuse.

There is a dizzying array of support services social landlords are expected to provide for the benefit of tenants and the communities in which they operate – from homelessness to unemployment, mental health to disability. 

Midlands and South West-based housing association GreenSquareAccord provides many such services. However, it’s the support it provides for survivors of domestic abuse that most recently got a boost. 

In October, the 30,000-home landlord won grant funding to expand its provision of individual homes for homeless survivors of domestic abuse in Gloucestershire, a scheme that has supported more than 100 people in its eight years of operation. 

It is hoped that this new DLUHC (Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities) funding, which was secured via the Gloucestershire Strategic Housing Partnership, will support even more survivors of domestic abuse in the Gloucestershire area. 

We talked with GreenSquareAccord’s domestic abuse services manager, Heather Downer (pictured below), to find out more. 

What are Places of Safety? 

They're houses across the county [that allow us to] take people who normally wouldn't be able to live in communal living, refuge-type accommodation. 

It means that, if somebody's got significant mental health issues, older children, especially things like pets...the fact that people can bring them now, or if people have substance misuse issues or something like that, means we can be a bit more inclusive with who we're able to accommodate and who we're able to give that space to.

How did the first 12 Places of Safety come about? 

It was a grant pot, basically, that we were given, and the whole idea is that it would last maybe two years, maybe three. We were given a lump sum and to see what we could deliver with that. We've got the 12 properties, which we've leased from other housing associations and areas. And so, we had this grant pot, just to see how far we could go, and we've made that last eight years. 

How is the new contract funded? 

The original project was grant funded; the new contract, which is starting from now, that's funded through the Housing Partnership through the DLUHC funds that were put in place by the government. 

How many new Places of Safety do you intend to deliver through this new contract? 

Twenty-four to 36. We're in the process now of identifying new properties. 

When will these properties be in use? 

The plan is to have them identified within the first year of the contract. We've got 12 already, and we're meeting with individual housing associations and partners to see what opportunities there are to increase that number. 

Within the first year, we're looking to have the majority of that provision, at least the additional 12, and obviously GreenSquareAccord have an opportunity as well to put properties forward for this, too. 

You mentioned earlier about survivors being able to bring their pets with them to their Place of Safety. Is that unusual? 

Absolutely. In a refuge accommodation, so a place where everybody's in effectively one building, it's communal living; they often share maybe kitchen space or living space. You can't take pets. It's really unfortunate, but it has to be that way because it's communal living. 

Because this is dispersed and those properties are all separate – so each family has their own property in a different area of the county – people can bring pets, and that's fine. Most of our properties will take pets. 

Would the kind of service you are providing be possible if it wasn’t for partnership working? 

It’s quite a big contract, and to be able to get this across the whole county, and with the amount of properties we need...there aren’t spare houses, people just don’t have them. GreenSquareAccord, for example, to put up an additional 24 properties in Gloucestershire is a massive ask – and that would be a massive ask for any individual housing association. 

But if we're asking each of them to put up maybe two, that's absolutely reasonable...it couldn’t be run, not easily anyway, by one housing association because it’s too many properties. It’s a big ask. 

Can you tell us a bit about GDASS (Gloucestershire Domestic Abuse Support Service) and how that ties into GreenSquareAccord’s domestic abuse work? 

We're commissioned by Gloucestershire County Council to run GDASS. It's a large community support organisation in in Gloucestershire. It's absolutely huge, taking around 10,000 referrals a year. 

It covers all risk levels, from people who are immediate risk of really significant harm, and then people who are at the other end of the spectrum, who are accessing things like group work and our longer-term floating support packages, who need help moving on and building up their self-esteem and assertiveness to move on from abuse. 

To have this as a dispersed model means we can be as inclusive as we possibly can be in allowing anybody to come to us

We also have co-located teams there as well. We have staff who are based with the police, with social care in the mental health services, in hospitals, and just to try and identify people who are experiencing domestic abuse at that point of crisis...It's a really big service, and having the Places of Safety project aligned with that is really advantageous. 

How does GDASS help to deliver your Places of Safety? 

GDASS will offer domestic abuse support for the whole period that somebody's in there. And that's not to provide it if they don't need it, but every time somebody goes into one of our properties, they have a support plan in place. 

Whatever it is they need at that stage, they will be able to receive support for that, and we ask them to engage with that with their coming into our properties. And that doesn't mean they have to be in contact with you the whole time. It's just, you know, we'll provide what they need.

GDASS service manager Tessa Davies

How does your domestic abuse support take into account things like a person’s gender or sexuality? 

To have this as a dispersed model means that, if you're a man experiencing domestic abuse, if you're trans and wouldn't feel comfortable in a single-sex refuge or whatever, we can be as inclusive as we possibly can be in allowing anybody to come to us. 

GreenSquareAccord generally are really inclusive in the way that we're working with people who are experiencing domestic abuse, and in Gloucestershire specifically, we have ‘champions’ groups within GDASS to particularly work with those communities and identify those barriers to accessing support. 

What kind of contact do you have with service users once they move on? 

When somebody leaves, the staff that are that are working in that place's safety team will do an assessment with them to see what ongoing support needs they have and make sure that either they're connected with GDASS still, or if there's other partner agencies that they would benefit from working from, we will make sure those referrals are in place before they've left us. So, it really is a holistic, wrap-around approach. 

While GDASS will provide that domestic abuse support, we have staff connected with Places of Safety who are able to really work with people around their community resettlement and housing management budgeting – that tenancy sustainment kind of work. That allows people who may have never managed their own budgets or knew how to run a household before to build those life skills for moving forward and living independently. 

How do you go about sharing best practice and key learnings from your work around domestic abuse? 

We take part in all sorts of awareness raising and training. So, each of the services – GDASS actually have specialist teams for this – have teams that go out and work with partner agencies and the multi-agency arena in general. But then really spread the word about early intervention and identifying domestic abuse at that early-as-possible opportunity. 

It's important housing associations identify the issue behind the action and take appropriate steps instead of saying, you haven't paid rent, we're going to move you

But then we also deliver training internally. So, we offer internal safeguarding training, and we've just included a whole module on domestic abuse. It really does give us an opportunity to really get the word out there and look at operating with our best-practice model. 

How important is the work of housing associations and others in looking out for instances of domestic abuse and supporting survivors? 

Massively important. Ultimately, home is where we're supposed to feel safe. And we're providing accommodation that's designed to do that. It's designed to keep people safe. This is your sanctuary. This is your home.

And if that's threatened, if people aren't safe, then we need to take really serious action around it. GreenSquareAccord have some really positive processes around managing domestic abuse in our accommodation. 

We have staff who do lots of extra training, who are really proactive in working with people who are experiencing domestic abuse. Like I say, having that internal domestic abuse training as part of our safeguarding offer is really impactful for that. 

But it's also around making sure that all those things that come alongside somebody experiencing domestic abuse – so, economic abuse and not being able to pay your rent or things getting broken in your house – it's really important that housing associations are identifying the issue behind the action and take appropriate steps instead of saying, you haven't paid your rent, we're going to have to move you on. 

It's actually, why haven't you paid your rent? OK, so there's some economic abuse here. What can we do? Who can we engage? How can we help make this better? GreenSquareAccord are really positive with doing that.

Was there anything you wanted to leave Unlocked readers with?

Just that, we’ve got this model, [which] is absolutely fantastic, and it's absolutely a positive step for domestic abuse accommodation, and to see this increasing is just fantastic. It's great to see this kind of investment into this area of accommodation. 

• This article is part of a wider CIH series launched for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

Main image: (L-R) Beth Bennett-Britton, public health consultant (Gloucestershire County Council); Cllr Carole Allaway-Martin, cabinet member for Adult Social Care Commissioning (Gloucestershire County Council); Heather Downer, head of domestic abuse services (GSA); Sharne Maher, housing partnership manager (GSHP); and Tessa Davies, service manager (GDASS)