Funded by London Councils

Ascent is a partnership within the London Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Consortium, delivering a range of services for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, under six themes, funded by London Councils.

Ascent improves service provision for those affected by sexual and domestic violence in London through the provision of front-line services as well as support to voluntary and statutory organisations.

What is Ascent?

The London VAWG Consortium is made up of 22 organisations working in partnership to deliver comprehensive, cost effective, high quality services to all communities across London.

This innovative partnership strengthens referral pathways across organisations and identifies trends and emerging need.

What is the London VAWG Consortium?

- Prevention in primary and secondary schools and community settings

- Advice, counselling, outreach, drop-ins and support for access to services in 18 languages for survivors of VAWG

- Domestic and sexual violence helplines

- Specialist refuge, support and accommodation for survivors

- Ending harmful practices with specialist BAMER organisations (advice, casework and counselling)

- Support services to organisations – second tier support including training and other support to increase quality of services in the sector

The six themes of Ascent

The Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS) is a:

•Human rights organisations•It’s a BAMER organisation ran for women and by women•It’s a MRC working with migrants, refugees and asylum seeking women from LA•It’s a specialist service• It was founded in 1983•Has 4 programmes: Tackling poverty, VAWG, Development and Outreach, Policy, Advocacy and Campaigning•Responds to the holistic needs of LA women•Services in Spanish and Portuguese•We see more than 4,000 women per year in a women only space•13 staff and 45 volunteers

LAWRS

• LAWRS is one of the oganisations of the VAWG Pan London Consortium

• It is one of 8 specialist BAMER/MRCs organisations involved in the ASCENT project including: Asian Women’s Resource Centre, Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), Imece Women’s Centre, Jewish Women’s Aid and Chinese Information and Advice Centre. The Consortium also works with Ashiana Network and Southhall Black Sisters.

• LAWRS is involved in 3 strands including prevention, advice and counselling and ending harmful practices.

• We provide services in several boroughs across London but LAWRS is a national organisation

• Service are specialist and generic• We are part of the Strategic Steering Group of the VAWG

Consortium formed by 6 organisations

LAWRS’ role

• The model used for the Consortium is equal partnership with equal say.

• This means that all partners have the same voting rights regardless of size and money received from the Consortium

• Each strand has some independence and there are general VAWG Consortium meetings, and strand meetings. There is also a strategic steering group and a communications group.

• We all signed up to a list of principles and values as part of the partnership agreement. These include: feminist, anti-racist and HRs ethos, need to ensure that needs of BAMER’s groups are addressed, BAMER services delivered by organisations managed/staffed by BMER women, recognition of contribution and limitations of smaller organisations

• We chose this model considering unequal power relationships, the difficulties of current commissioning practices and threats to the existence of women only BAMER services.

Model used and why

• It was successful in obtaining the bulk of the funding for the VAWG priority of the London Council’s through its ASCENT project

• It is protecting the work of smaller BAMER/MRC specialist organisations

• It builds up on previous successes of partnership work between BAMER women only groups eg Woment Together against Abuse

• It enhances partnership work between BAMER groups and mainstream larger organisations

• It establishes referrals pathways and coordinates the work in the sector on a Pan London basis

• It has gone beyond “power dynamics/relationships” through a successful working model (not without challenges!)

Successes of the VAWG Consortium/ its model

• Starting and negotiating the creation of the Consortium was a very challenging and lengthy process.

• It is very hard to get 22 different organisations of different sizes and work practices to collaboratively work together

• One of the most challenging parts at the beginning was the management of power dynamics in between mainstream and specialist organisations and big and smaller organisations

• Deciding on a feasible delivery model that was fair was difficult

• Internal distribution of resources was challenging. • Coordination of the work is still challenging with some strands

doing better than others. Overall it has gone very well.

Challenges

• Good communication is essential• Clarity from the beginning and concrete partnership

agreements• The planning is almost more important or as important as the

delivery. Everyone should be included! • It is important to be flexible but also to be assertive about

your needs. • It is essential to think about the users as your main inspiration • Fairness is key for successful partnership work. • Solidarity is very important in effective partnership work • Power should not be concentrated

Key learning for collaboration

• Being small or specialist BAMER/MRC focused should not mean having less of a say or less participation

• Equal voting is essential and clearly analysing and counteracting power dynamics.

• Collaboration is key for survival. With commissioning systems in place, this is a way forward to us

• Be aware of your added value and your “value for money” advantage.

• Be open about the sort of organisation that you can establish partnerships with, but ensure that there are always clear terms and conditions for the agreement.

• Believe in what you are doing and portray that to others. Nobody can do it better than a BAMER/MRC organisation responding to specific needs!

ADVICE FOR BAMER/MRC ORGANISATIONS

To find out more, please visit our website:

www.thelondonvawgconsortium.org.uk

Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS)www.lawrs.org.uk

Find out more