This summer, the Women in Safe Homes fund partnered with Sheffield Women’s Aid (SWA) to provide ten desperately needed safe and affordable family homes in the city for women and their children after they’ve escaped domestic abuse. These new homes are the charity’s first dispersed* accommodation offering - to date it has focused on its emergency refuge provision for women. The fund has recently handed two properties over to SWA so very soon the charity can start settling women facing housing crisis into their new homes and provide them with holistic, trauma-informed support services so that they can embark on journeys of empowerment and the rebuilding of their lives.

With November 25th marking the start of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the 16 Days of Activism campaign, running until 10 December, we recently caught up with SWA’s Chief Executive, Hollie Venn. We spoke to her to find out more about SWA, why SWA partnered with the fund, how women are supported, and the difference a combination of safe, decent housing alongside specialist support makes to women’s lives after they’ve experienced domestic abuse.

Q: Hi Hollie, would you mind telling us a little bit about Sheffield Women’s Aid, what you do, who you help?

Hollie: SWA is a specialist charity created in 1974, to support women and families who needed domestic abuse support and place of safety to come to.  We are fifty next year and our sector has seen real changes so to still be here is a real achievement.

We have evolved over time from loose agreements with the local council to fund and support women, to being the only commissioned provider in the city for our refuge provision.  We operate two large refuge sites. All are fully self-contained, and one can accept pets, which is unusual in refuge provision across the country. We can support thirty-seven women at any given time; this includes the provision of a crash pad in one of our refuges that means emergency out of hours referrals can ensure survivors have an immediate place of safety.  We support at least as many children because of the sizes of the families we support.

We are a single sex service which means we only support women and children; we work with another partner who supports males and trans survivors.  We do this as a feminist organisation that recognises domestic abuse as a gendered issue, disproportionally affecting women, and we know that women who use our services feedback that they want single sex provision. This is a really important part of our charity’s identity.

Each survivor works with a dedicated key worker to support them through their time at SWA. This includes working in a trauma-informed way with each survivor, supporting them wherever they are in their process of recovery.  We undertake practical support with women, for example, ensuring they receive all the benefits they are entitled to, supporting them to secure move on accommodation, helping them access more emotional support in areas such as providing and holding space for women to talk through their experiences, recognise abuse in relationships, work through their feelings about their abuse, etc.  We equally have dedicated support workers for children and young people as we recognise them as victims in their own right, and that they need their own age-appropriate support and time away from mum - and equally mum having some time for herself.  We undertake 1-1 and group sessions with children, and support in areas such as ensuring children are enrolled at school/nursery places, advocating for assessments for any additional needs, therapeutic play and arranging activities.

Q: Why did Sheffield Women’s Aid partner with the Women in Safe Homes fund?

Hollie: Simply, why would we not!  I recognise as the CEO that we need to grow to meet the constant need for more accommodation and to meet our appetite to grow as a charity.  We see the opportunity for properties to meet this need as central to our ambitious vision and to be less reliant on private landlords and housing associations for properties.  We have the opportunity to move away from an overly subsidised reliance on landlords in this model, who either do not share our values or who receive the housing benefit income for the landlord duties. 

Equally, by being able to directly manage properties ourselves - that sit outside of the commissioned units we have - gives us greater autonomy resulting in better outcomes and service for survivors.   It means we are able to receive direct, self-referrals, which we cannot do currently, as we know the local housing pathway does not work for survivors.  The additional properties will mean we are also able to truly deliver on the principle of refuges being a national network of provision, as we remove the oversight of the local housing team screening the referrals we receive and can offer support based on risk and need and not solely local connection.

Q: What is the housing/homelessness situation in Sheffield, and how does this particularly affect women desperately needing to escape domestic abuse?

Hollie: There is a co-ordinated and strategic approach to commissioning homelessness and domestic abuse accommodation in Sheffield, however we know from the national Women’s Aid strategy and survey that demand outstrips supply.  We do sit on the strategic domestic abuse board to help influence local policy and feed into the local domestic abuse accommodation strategy, but the reality is there is simply not enough accommodation.  Equally in Sheffield, for our commissioned accommodation, we use the housing referral pathway which we know does not met survivors needs as it is not responsive enough, creates delays for survivors in accessing accommodation and staff involved in that process are not the specialists that SWA are, and to also ensure the first response is the right response.

Q: For a woman experiencing domestic abuse, what choices might she face if she wants to leave the dangerous situation she is living in?

Hollie: This is a large and complex question as each survivor is very different. Women who have children, more complex needs, who may not have recourse to public funds, women that are pregnant, are from a minoritised group etc, all face intersecting and additional barriers when looking to leave.  Each of these areas of need will have a specialist charity available to offer support and we would always recommend women access those organisations to help them navigate the support that is available.  Women are experts in their own situation and with different experiences and understand the risks uniquely if deciding to leave – they have often been keeping themselves safe for years.  We also know that the time when leaving domestic abuse is when risk is at its highest for serious injury or murder so needs effective planning and support. There are a range of community based (non-accommodation) and accommodation options for survivors, depending on the availability of those services.  Women can often feel alone and not know what support is available and we would always encourage women, if it is safe to do so, to reach out and talk to specialist services.

Q: Two properties have recently been handed over to Sheffield Women’s Aid - can you tell us a little about these homes and what they will mean for women escaping domestic abuse in the region?

Hollie: These homes will provide additional accommodation that we can offer at SWA and are a mix of two- and three-bedroomed properties, meaning we can support larger families. These properties are ideal for families where refuge/communal living can be more challenging and not suitable.  These properties will provide a literal lifeline for women and families who need to leave domestic abuse relationships that place their lives at risk, and instead, will enable women and children to live safely in a supported environment. The properties will also mean we can step outside of the housing pathway by offering a prompter response to survivors at a time of high risk.

Q: What sort of support services do you provide women with and how does this support empower them?

Hollie: We provide a range of support for women and families. This can range from practical, tangible work like securing benefits for women, securing the right to remain for survivors who have no recourse, challenge contact arrangements with children, ensure survivors are registered with primary care services, and more. Also, we can offer more emotional support such as working with women to explore the impact their abuse has had on their lives through our 1-1 sessions and bespoke trauma-informed groupwork that looks at the dynamics of domestic abuse and how to build confidence.  We provide the space for women to consider what action they want to take next in their lives.  As women work through the support we offer, they become more empowered to take agency over their lives – one area in which we can see this is working is when women start to disagree or challenge us rather than agreeing with us - this shows us they are finding their voice, and is lovely to see!

Q: Why is it important for women to have access to a safe, decent and affordable home?

Hollie: Very simply, it saves their lives and provides a space for them to cope and recover from their abuse and trauma. 

Q: What are some of the challenges the women you support might be experiencing?

Hollie: We see women that have a range of more complex needs including those who may be substance users, dependent on alcohol and experiencing enduring mental health issues.  Many women we support do not speak English as their first language, are struggling with the cost of living crisis and will often have abusive contact arrangements with their perpetrators, who use children as a further way to abuse them through these arrangements.  

Q: What do you find most rewarding about your job and working in the women’s sector?

Hollie: I have worked in this sector now for over twenty years, and have seen changes in legislation, policies and the ways the sector has galvanised responses to ensure specialist services are delivering for women.  I find the work I do a privilege every day – hearing the brave stories of women who have left abusive relationships and found a regained sense of control over their lives.  No day is the same and being able to see those we support and the sense of confidence they start to build gives me a real satisfaction.  I am in awe of our staff daily; they hear really hard things and go above and beyond to make sure the women we support are advocated for – there aren’t many jobs where one day I may be looking at a leaky pipe, ensuring survivor voices are represented in strategic documents, listening to a survivor who I happen to see in our building explain how our service has helped them and undertake our annual planning as an organisation to ensure we remain here for another fifty years.  I would not want to work in any other sector!

Q: What is your hope for your partnership with the women in safe homes fund and the homes the fund is buying for SWA?

Hollie: My hope is we can secure up to ten properties overall to offer a greater range of provision and autonomy, and eventually consider purchasing properties to give us as a small charity greater security.  I look forward to sharing with the Women in Safe Homes fund the impact of the properties, as we year on year evidence and demonstrate the impact of the additional properties and how that brings real tangible outcomes for the women and families we support.

About the Women in Safe Homes fund

The Women in Safes Homes fund is a joint venture between Resonance and Patron Capital. It was created to address the need for safe, affordable homes for women experiencing homelessness. Investment from social impact investors enables the fund to purchase and refurbish properties – including improvement of their energy efficiencies – across the UK for its housing partners. Partners support women to settle into their new homes, proving them with wraparound specialist support so that they can maintain their tenancies, start their recovering from trauma and more, and start creating positive futures for themselves.

We recently published the latest Women in Safe Homes fund’s social impact report for 2022/23 – read it here – and see the positive impact the fund is already having on the women and their children that it is housing, including:

• 120 women and children housed
• 43 homes handed over to housing partners
• 9 housing partners
• £29m raised
• 20 impact investors
• 91.5% of women reported positive impact on their wellbeing and life outcomes
• 87% of women agreed or strongly agreed that they felt safe in their home
• 83% of women reported improved mental health since living in their home

DOWNLOAD THE WOMEN IN SAFE HOMES SOCIAL IMPACT REPORT 2022/23

*longer-term, individual homes as opposed to a refuge