This week Star and Crescent will be running a social media campaign on our Facebook and Twitter pages to support local charity Aurora New Dawn’s ongoing action to stop planned cuts to domestic violence support services in Portsmouth. By Sarah Cheverton.
On 8th December, Portsmouth City Council voted to cut local domestic violence service, the Early Intervention Project, by £180,000, reducing the number of workers from 13 to 5 posts.
Why cutting services isn’t good for Portsmouth
- The Early Intervention Project has been in place since 2002 and has seen a 27% increase in referrals since 2013/14 and 55% increase since 2012/13, with 1,347 referrals in 2014/15 (Portsmouth News)
- There were 4,745 incidents of domestic abuse in Portsmouth reported to the police in 2014, which was up 12% on the year before (Safer Portsmouth Partnership)
- In almost 60% of domestic abuse incidents in the city recorded by the police the victim and offender have been involved in previous incidents (Safer Portsmouth Partnership)
- In 2013/14, 618 high risk domestic abuse cases were taken to the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) a 9% increase on the previous year (Safer Portsmouth Partnership)
- There has been a 29% increase in referrals to the Early Intervention Project (EIP). In 74% of closed cases there was a reduction of risk to the victim (Safer Portsmouth Partnership)
- Almost one third (31%) of reported assaults in Portsmouth are related to domestic abuse (Safer Portsmouth Partnership)
- Recent research shows that domestic violence and violence against women have increased since 2009 pushing up overall levels of violent crime (British Journal of Criminology)
- Research on the impact of austerity on women in 2012 found 95% of women’s organisations had experienced cuts, rising to 100% for BME women’s organisations (Women’s Resource Centre)
The 3 step fightback
- STEP 1 – Sign the petition to ensure Portsmouth City Council has to debate the proposed cuts in February
- STEP 2 – Come along to the rally in the Guildhall Square on 9th February to show your support for victims and survivors and tell councillors not to cut vital services
- STEP 3 – Tell us why you think domestic violence services are important by getting involved in our poster campaign on Facebook and Twitter. Follow these simple 3 steps:
- Create your poster by completing the following sentence ‘Domestic violence services are….’ adding the hashtag #TheyCutWeBleed
- Take a photo of yourself holding the poster and tweet it to us @SandCPompey with the hashtag #TheyCutWeBleed
- Share your picture on your own social media and invite your friends to get involved
Photography by Sarah Cheverton.
