« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
REFUGES FOR WOMEN, CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN SCOTLAND
Chapter 1: Introduction
Introduction
Domestic abuse is not a new social problem: what is new is the growing public and political concern it attracts (Goldsack, 1997; Mooney, 2000). This research report focuses on one particular intervention intended to assist abused women and their children - refuge accommodation provided by the Women's Aid (WA) network in Scotland. This first chapter sets the context for the research by providing an overview of domestic abuse and violence in Britain; by outlining key responses from both the voluntary and statutory sectors; and by summarising existing research and other information on refuge provision. The chapter concludes by outlining the aims and objectives of the present study and the methods employed to address these aims.
Domestic Abuse
The Scottish Executive has recently defined domestic abuse in the following terms:
'Domestic abuse (as gender-based abuse), can be perpetrated by partners or ex-partners and can include physical abuse (assault and physical attack involving a range of behaviour), sexual abuse (acts which degrade and humiliate women and are perpetrated against their will, including rape) and mental and emotional abuse (such as threats, verbal abuse, racial abuse, withholding money and other types of controlling behaviour such as isolation from family or friends.' (Scottish Executive, 2000a, p.5)
Domestic abuse is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women: over 90 per cent of all incidents reported to the Scottish police involve a female victim and a male abuser (Scottish Executive, 2001). It is estimated that a quarter to a third of women will experience domestic abuse at some point in their lives, and 'repeat victimisation' rates are high compared with other crimes (Mooney, 1993; Scottish Executive, 2000a). Domestic violence accounts for one-quarter of all violent crime, and every week in the UK two women are murdered by their partner or ex-partner (Itzin, 2000).
Domestic abuse is increasingly understood as associated with broader gender inequalities in society and male abuse of power, and is linked to other forms of male violence (Scottish Executive 1999; Hanmer and Itzin, 2000; Scottish Women's Aid (SWA), 2001). Domestic abuse takes specific and identifiable forms, often increasing in frequency and intensity over time, and at particular times in a women's life such as pregnancy, the birth of a child, separation or divorce (Goldsack, 1997; Itzin, 2000; Mackay, 2000). As indicated by the definition above, domestic abuse extends beyond physical and sexual violence to other forms of controlling and coercive behaviour which undermine the mental as well as physical health of the women who experience it.
A growing literature highlights the profound impact of domestic abuse on children (Abrahams, 1994; Mullender and Morley, 1994; McGee, 2000; Mullender et al, 2000), while evidence has also emerged of a correlation between domestic violence and the mental, physical and sexual abuse of children (Forman, 1991; Saunders et al, 1995; Hester, 2000; Itzin, 2000; Scottish Executive, 2000a). Some commentators have argued that witnessing violence against their mother itself constitutes emotional abuse of the child because of the distress it causes them (Hague et al, 2000). SWA estimate that 100,000 children and young people in Scotland are currently living with domestic abuse (SWA, 2002), and research has indicated that children are in the same or next room in 90 per cent of domestic violence incidents (Abrahams, 1994).
Responses to Domestic Abuse
At the forefront of responses to domestic abuse in Scotland has been the WA network, which traces its origins to the women's liberation movement and the formation of the first WA groups in Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1973 (SWA, 1988). WA, through their lobbying activities, have also helped to bring about positive changes in the statutory response to domestic abuse, including with respect to abused women's housing needs. Most recently, the Scottish Executive and Scottish Parliament have pressed ahead with the work on domestic abuse started by the Scottish Office prior to devolution in July 1999, and current policy developments and funding arrangements are described below.
The WA Network
The original objective of WA was to provide refuge from physical assault:
'…on the assumption that once freed from their environment, the women would soon regain their self-respect and would be able to rebuild their lives together with their children. There would be no wardens living in the refuges and, ideally, women living together could share common experiences and give each other mutual support.' (SWA, 1999a, p. 51)
Women's needs for information and support, as well as refuge, soon became apparent when they began to contact the first WA groups. It also quickly emerged that women endured sexual, emotional and mental forms of abuse, as well as physical violence. Recognition of children's needs for specific services and workers came later. The network of WA groups grew throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, until by 2002 there were 39 groups affiliated to the SWA national network and seven unaffiliated groups. Two groups work with minority ethnic groups in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Few parts of Scotland are without any WA service (see Chapter 2), although the level of provision varies considerably across the country (Henderson, 1997). All groups provide refuge for any woman in need on an 'open door' basis, so the precise geographical boundaries of operation are not fixed. SWA was established with offices in Edinburgh in 1976. It is a membership body that supports local WA groups throughout Scotland. Its work includes lobbying, awareness raising, developing provision, co-ordination, and promoting best practice.
WA are committed to a feminist analysis of domestic abuse which locates its causes in the power imbalance between men and women in society (SWA, 2001). Its guiding principle is that of 'self-help' - of women helping themselves and each other - and men are not permitted in refuges (other than male children under 16). From its earliest days, WA groups have operated as 'collectives', with decision-making pursued on a consensus model wherever possible (SWA, 1999). The SWA Code of Practice emphasises the non-judgemental approach that WA seeks to take in its work with women and children, allowing them the space to make their own decisions rather than directing or advising them (SWA, 2001). While refuges are intended as temporary accommodation, women and children should be able to stay there as long as they need to. If women return to their partners they will be supported in that decision - leaving an abusive partner is viewed as a 'process' rather than an 'event', with women often coming into refuge several times before making a final break. Refuge is intended as a safe place for both women and children, so violent or abusive behaviour is not permitted and WA operates an anti-discriminatory policy. SWA has developed a specific Code of Practice on service provision for children and young people (2001).
Local WA groups receive their funding from a variety of sources, including local authorities, charitable organisations and individual donations. Housing Benefit provides much of the revenue funding for refuge accommodation and, from April 2003, the other key source of revenue income has been Supporting People grants (the new UK-wide funding mechanism for housing support services). Children's support work is excluded from both of these revenue sources, and has traditionally been funded from temporary sources, including local authority voluntary sector grants. The buildings used as refuges are generally owned by local authorities or housing associations (now known as Registered Social Landlords), with a small number owned privately or by other voluntary organisations (see Chapter 2). No WA group in Scotland owns its own refuge. The Scottish Executive provides funding for SWA national-level work, but SWA is also dependent on funding from other sources such as donations and legacies to finance its activities.
The Legislative Framework on Housing and Domestic Abuse
The Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 (subsequently incorporated into Part 2 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987) was a landmark piece of legislation which granted rights to long-term rehousing to certain 'priority' homeless groups. Families with dependent children were defined as the key priority need group. The Code of Guidance which followed the legislation recommended that local authorities should also treat single women fleeing violence as a priority group (Scottish Office, 1997), and by 1999 it seemed that the vast majority of local authorities followed this advice (Scott et al, 2001). Nevertheless, there are longstanding concerns about insensitive or inappropriate treatment of abused women by local authority homelessness services (Goldsack, 1997; Henderson, 1997; Mullender and Hague, 2000), although significant progress has been reported in recent years (Morley, 2000). The Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 strengthened the rights of homeless households in various respects, and introduced a requirement for local authorities to produce homelessness strategies which should be integrated with their domestic abuse strategies (Fitzpatrick et al., 2002). The Homelessness Etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 has introduced further, and more radical, measures to increase the rights of homeless households, including measures for phased expansion of the priority need category leading to its eventual abolition by 2012 (Fitzpatrick, forthcoming). People who run the risk of domestic abuse are one of the groups included in the first phase of expansion, to take place as soon as the Act is brought into force.
The other key housing-related legislation intended to assist abused women is the Matrimonial Homes (Family Protection) (Scotland) Act 1981. This legislation provides for orders excluding violent partners from the family home and for interdicts restraining their behaviour, including with powers of arrest (the Protection from Abuse (Scotland) Act 2001 now provides a simpler procedure for obtaining powers of arrest). Unfortunately some local authorities (and courts) have used the existence of these rights to deny abused women assistance under the homeless persons legislation (finding them to be 'intentionally' homeless if they did not exercise them). The Homelessness Code of Guidance has made clear that this is unacceptable given that women and children will often not be safe remaining in the family home even if the abuser is legally excluded (Scottish Office, 1997), and by 1993 it seemed that few local authorities persisted with this practice (Evans et al, 1994).
Recent Policy Developments
The intention to establish a 'Scottish Partnership on Domestic Violence' was announced by Henry McLeish in June 1998 (Henderson, 2000). This followed the publication of a number of reports which pointed to problems in the quality and availability of services to abused women (see in particular Henderson, 1997). The Partnership was established in November 1998 and met until September 2000. Its key task was to develop a national strategy on domestic abuse within the Government's overall policy on violence against women (Scottish Executive, 1999). The Strategy was published, together with a report on the Partnership's discussions, in November 2000 (Scottish Executive 2000a, b). The ultimate goal of the Strategy is to '…take all practicable measures towards the elimination of domestic abuse, including a clear acknowledgement that responsibility for abuse lies firmly with the perpetrator' (Scottish Executive, 2000a, p.7). Its specific aims are three-fold (and reflected the priorities first developed by the Zero Tolerance initiative in Edinburgh, see Gillan and Samson, 2000):
- prevention: active prevention of domestic abuse of both women and children;
- protection: appropriate legal protection for women or children who experience domestic abuse;
- provision: adequate provision of support services for abused women and their children.
The 'National Group to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland' was established to progress the actions recommended in the Strategy; this is a multi-agency body chaired, at the time of writing, by the Minister for Social Justice, Margaret Curran. Three 'Working Groups' were set up in October 2001 to examine prevention, protection and provision issues and to feed into the work of the National Group. At the same time, a high profile national publicity campaign was funded by the Scottish Executive to raise awareness of domestic abuse and to publicise the National Helpline launched in June 2000 (Scottish Executive, 1999).
Two new streams of funding were also linked to this policy development work. First, the Domestic Abuse Service Development fund was established in April 2000 to provide 12 million in revenue resources over four years till 2003/4 (6 million was provided by the Scottish Executive and 6 million was to be provided in local match funding). This has been used to fund a variety of local projects including outreach work, multi-agency work, children's work and preventative work. Second, a Refuge Development Programme, funded by the Scottish Executive and channelled through Communities Scotland, has made available capital resources of 10 million over three years till 2003/4, with Communities Scotland contributing an additional 2 million in 2000/1. This 12 million has been used to build new refuges and to adapt, extend or upgrade existing ones. The stated target of the programme is that '…by 2004 any abused woman who needs a place in a refuge will be able to get one' (Scottish Executive, 1999, p. 56).
Refuges in Scotland
This next section of the chapter provides an overview of refuge accommodation in Scotland. It outlines current levels of provision, describes the key regulatory frameworks that affect refuge accommodation, and concludes by summarising the available research evidence on refuges.
Current Levels of Provision
The most recent SWA (2002) annual report indicated that affiliated local groups provided 357 refuge spaces in Scotland; this is an increase of 24 spaces from the previous year, reflecting the additional expenditure referred to above. This provision still falls well short of the 680 spaces required to meet CoSLA's recommendation in 1991 that there should be one refuge place per 7,500 of the population (CoSLA, 1991), and SWA reported that local groups were only able to accommodate a quarter of those seeking refuge in 2001/2 (SWA, 2002). A recent statistical analysis, carried out by the Scottish Executive based on figures provided by WA groups, found that the CoSLA recommendation was not met in the majority of local authority areas in Scotland, and in any case this recommendation was inadequate to meet the reported demand. The authors calculated that 511 additional refuge spaces were required to meet current demand across Scotland (as Chapter 2 demonstrates, however, there is no consensus within the WA network on the definition of a 'refuge' or 'family' space).
The Regulation of Refuge Accommodation
Refuge accommodation is subject to two main regulatory regimes. The first, relevant only to shared refuges, relates to the regulation of Houses in Multiple Occupancy (HMOs). Regulations issued under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 mean that all HMOs must now be licensed by local authorities. HMOs are defined as shared accommodation which is the only or principal residence of a specified number of persons from more than two families. This 'specified number' is currently four or more, and will reduce to three or more on 1 st October 2003. (It is, however, unclear whether children count as a 'person' for the purpose of HMO licensing.) Certain categories of shared accommodation are exempted from HMO licensing, but SWA's attempts to have refuges exempted have been unsuccessful thus far (Currie, 2002). It is the owner of the accommodation who must apply for an HMO licence, and in the case of refuges this will almost always be a local authority or a Registered Social Landlord. It is a criminal offence to operate an HMO without the required licence.
The second regulatory regime relates to the support function of refuges, and is relevant to all refuge accommodation, including dispersed, self-contained flats. In April 2002 a new body, The Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care, was set up to regulate and inspect all care services against published National Care Standards, and in accordance with the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001. Separate National Care Standards have been published for different types of care services: those relevant to WA refuges include housing support services and children's support services. Some children's support services provided by local WA groups are already registered with the Care Commission; for some this was automatic as they were previously registered under The Children Act 1989 (see Chapter 2). All housing support services were to have been registered by April 2003, but owing to delays this is now anticipated to be September 2003.
Regulation by the Care Commission has long-term implications for WA's traditional manner of working and recruitment. The National Care Standards, as they currently stand, do not appear to take full account of the particular context of temporary crisis accommodation, nor of the specific types of children's services WA provide. A particular concern expressed by SWA (2002) was the emphasis on 'qualified' staff and 'managers' in the draft National Care Standards on housing support, as this runs counter to WA's 'collective' model of working. While the final document took on board some of SWA's concerns, there remains an expectation that all those providing housing support will hold appropriate qualifications in the near future. There are more complex issues in relation to the children's support services provided by SWA, both with regards to the standards/parts of standards that are appropriate to these services, and the skills, training and experience required of the workers who deliver them. SWA hope to develop in-house qualifications which satisfy the new regulatory framework on both children's and housing support services. Another, and more widespread, concern about Care Commission regulation, relevant only to housing support services, is potential overlap with the regulation of Supporting People grants. To get Supporting People funding, services will have to be registered with the Care Commission and will have to meet their defined housing support standards. It remains uncertain how this will work in practice as neither were operational at the time of writing, but it would clearly be beneficial if there were a unified approach to avoid duplication.
Existing Research on Refuges
There have been a number of detailed studies of refuge provision in England and Wales (Binney, 1981; Ball, 1994; Charles, 1994; Frayne and Muir, 1994; Rai and Thiara, 1997), and a review of (mainly English) research on responses to domestic abuse found that survivors consistently rated refuges more positively than other services (Mullender and Hague, 2000). These high levels of satisfaction were associated with the safety and practical assistance provided in refuges, as well as the 'empowering' attitudes taken by WA staff. Women also appreciated the opportunity to share their experiences with other women in the same position as themselves.
There has, in contrast, been very little research on refuges in Scotland. However, a number of recent Scottish reports provide good overviews of services to women, children and young people experiencing domestic abuse (for example, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, 1997; Women's Health Network, 1997), and the key national report identified a range of resource constraints that limited the availability of refuge space and other WA services (Henderson, 1997). This study also found that women may experience problems in adjusting to refuge life, and identified problems with access to refuge for women with older sons, women with pets, and women with alcohol and drug dependencies. There has been only one piece of research specifically on refuge provision in Scotland: this focussed on the role of housing associations, and involved a questionnaire survey of associations and interviews with association staff (Goldsack, 1997). The key current sources of information on refuges in Scotland are therefore SWA annual reports and associated publications (SWA, 1988, 1999a; 2002) and some local studies of provision (for example, Tayside Women and Violence Working Group; Mackay, 2000).
Even less is known about children and young people's experience of refuge life, although a short survey of young people undertaken by SWA (1999b) provides some useful initial insights. A small number of publications in England have focused on children's services in refuge (Ball, 1990; Debonnaire, 1995; Hague et al, 2000), and Saunders et al's (1995) book on children's experience of domestic violence and refuge life involved interviews with four adults who had lived as children in refuges some 15 years earlier. However, none of this literature has focused on direct, in-depth evidence from children and young people about their current experiences and feelings about refuge.
Aims of the Study
The aims of this study were as follows:
- to investigate women, children and young people's experiences, preferences and priorities in relation to refuge;
- to assess the level and standard of refuge accommodation currently provided by WA groups in Scotland; and
- to produce an 'audit tool' to be used in future years to assess the level and standard of refuge accommodation in Scotland. This audit tool was interpreted as comprising the questionnaire(s) used in the original assessment, together with commentary and advice on how they should be used and supplemented with more qualitative work.
The study was commissioned by the 'Working Group to Review Recommendations on Refuge Provision in Scotland' and funded by the Scottish Executive. It was commissioned in part to inform the allocation of capital funding under the Refuge Development Programme described above. However, it is also envisaged that its findings will inform broader debates and developments on the future provision of refuge services in Scotland.
Methods
A range of research methods were employed to address the aims of the study.
1. Literature Review
The first stage of the research comprised a brief literature review of previous research and other published information on refuges and related provision in Scotland and elsewhere in Britain.
2. Focus Groups with Women, Children and Workers
The key qualitative stage of fieldwork comprised focus group interviews with women and children survivors of domestic abuse, and with WA workers.
Eight focus groups were conducted with women with experience of domestic abuse, selected to reflect as wide a range of relevant experiences as possible (a full list of the focus groups is provided in Appendix B). Appendix C contains the outline topic guide that was used in these interviews: this was tailored each time for the particular group of women interviewed. A short self-completion questionnaire was given to all of the women at the end of each focus group to enable them to contribute any additional points they wished to make (see Appendix F). Eight self-completed questionnaires were returned. All of the women who participated in the focus groups were given 15 to compensate them for their time, and any travel and childcare costs were also met.
Four focus groups were conducted with WA workers, again selected to reflect as wide a range of experience as possible (a full list of these focus groups is also provided in Appendix B, with the topic guide presented in Appendix D). Workers were also issued with a self-completion questionnaire (this was an amended version of the questionnaire in Appendix F); only one was returned. While it was envisaged that both paid workers and volunteers would attend the focus groups, in the event it was overwhelmingly paid staff who participated. Three of the groups were conducted in refuges where focus groups had also been conducted with women residents. This not only saved time and expense, it also enabled a comparison of women and workers' views in relation to the same provision.
The University of Glasgow team conducted the focus groups with both women and workers. However, given the particular sensitivities and skills involved in interviewing children, the 11 focus groups conducted with children and young people were facilitated by children's support workers from local WA groups. This part of the research was co-ordinated by Claire Houghton, the National Children's Rights Worker with SWA, and was supported by separate Scottish Executive funding secured via the National Group. The children's support workers were briefed by the University of Glasgow team on the purpose and focus of the research, and used a range of innovative methods to engage with children and young people, including games, drawings, photographs, question cards, wall charts and computers. The outline topic guide for the work with children was drawn up by the University of Glasgow team (see Appendix E), but was tailored by the children's support workers to accommodate both the age of the children involved and the consultation methods used. Claire Houghton recorded the children's responses and wrote these up for analysis by the University of Glasgow team. 'Children and young people' were defined for the purposes of this study to include boys up to the age of 16 and girls up to the age of 18, in line with WA advice.
3. Audit of Women's Refuge Accommodation
The quantitative dimension of the study comprised a postal survey of all 46 WA groups in Scotland. An initial telephone survey was conducted to clarify the broad type of refuge provision in each local area. Four separate questionnaires were then designed, taking into account the preferences and priorities expressed by women and children in the focus groups:
- a general questionnaire, to provide an overview of the local WA groups' work (see Appendix G); and
- three specialist questionnaires, to investigate the main types of refuge identified in the telephone survey - shared, cluster and dispersed (see Appendices H, I and J). A definition of each of these types of refuge is provided in Chapter 2.
Forty-four of the 46 WA groups in Scotland completed the questionnaires in time for inclusion in the analysis (a response rate of 96%). The questionnaire data was analysed using SPSS.
Structure of Report
Chapter 2 of the report provides a profile of refuges in Scotland, based on the questionnaire survey. Chapter 3 is the first of the qualitative chapters and reviews experiences and views on the accommodation provided in refuges. Chapter 4 focuses on the services provided to women in refuges, and Chapter 5 focuses on the services provided to children and young people. Chapter 6 considers the position of a range of particular groups for whom access to refuges may be limited or difficult. Chapter 7 presents conclusions and recommendations arising from the research, both substantive (relating to refuge accommodation) and methodological (relating to future auditing of provision).
« Previous | Contents | Next »