Leeway Women’s Aid’s

From Norfolk RCC

Forthcoming Events!

• Fashion Presentation on Magdelen Road, Friday 12th October, 7.30pm, £10 ticket inc wine and goody bag.
• Sponsored Walk - Norwich to Great Yarmouth, 2nd - 4th November

Call 0845 2412171 to join in or for more details

Our Aim

Leeway Women’s Aid’s aims and objectives are ‘to offer advice, support and information to women and children who have or are still experiencing domestic violence’. In order to achieve this, we aim to:

• Provide a confidential, specialised, safe, effective and supportive service for women and children who have experienced physical, mental and/or sexual abuse.
• Empower women and children, enabling them to make independent choices and decisions about their lives.
• Work as a team to ensure the continuation, effectiveness and development of the project and help develop an awareness of domestic violence throughout Norfolk and society as a whole.
• Provide the above service for women and children in Norwich and the East of Norfolk, along with those seeking refuge from other areas of England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland (where applicable).

Our History

Leeway was established in 1974 and was a founding member of WAFE (Women’s Aid Federation England) Our service was set up by a group of women who recognised that there was a need for a refuge in Norwich, which became the third known to open in the country. The service started with a £200 grant from the council and was run by volunteers on a collective basis. During the 1980’s and 1990’s the service expanded and developed to meet the needs of the women and children, with the establishment of the After School Club and Resettlement service.

In 1990 a management committee was established, which continues to have the responsibility for the overall management of our organisation. Each year the committee puts together an operational plan which defines the focus of the work for the forthcoming year.

Our Service

Our service users are women and children experiencing domestic violence, including abuse by same sex partner or other family member, forced marriage, neighbour abuse and elder abuse. We will accept women with no recourse to public funds in all services where possible and male children up to a maximum age of 16 years.

Non Resident Services

Leeway also offers a range of services for those families that either do not want or need refuge provision, those where refuge provision is not appropriate or when the refuge is full. We give advice and support over the phone, Advocacy services for women going through the criminal justice system, regular drop in sessions in local community venues, re-housing assistance, support in the home though our Floating Support service and Parenting Support for the Great Yarmouth area, Outreach Service for women in the community in the Norwich area and a Children’s Outreach Service. We offer one to one support for children affected by domestic violence and education programmes/support in Schools.

Residential Services

Women can come to the refuges on either a more long term basis or for breathing space for a few days if they feel they want to get away. We feel this is an important service to offer as some women may feel they need to leave their partner for their own or their children’s safety, but are not ready to commit permanently.

• We will arrange for women, who self refer themselves, to move out of the area using the WAFE network of refuges if it is not safe in Norwich or advise an agency of alternative places to try.
• The majority of our service also offers support for women who wish to be re-housed.
• During the first week in our refuges women are allocated a key worker who will devise a support plan and offer emotional and practical support according to her needs, throughout the length of her stay.

On average 2 out of 3 residents at Leeway are children, who will have been affected by abuse in some way. To help the children come to terms with their experiences we:

• Provide a specialist team leader to work as the children’s advocate, liaise with school, take on legal responsibility for child protection issues and offer emotional support.
• Provide an OFSTED registered playgroup for 2.5 hours each day, open to children between the ages of 2 and 8 years.

Consultancy Service/Training

Leeway also offers a range of non client based consultancy services:

We provide domestic violence training to other agencies, including internal training specialised to their needs, and multi agency training to a range of statutory and voluntary organisations. Our training has been developed in partnership with the Crime and Disorder Reduction partnership in Norfolk.

We have run workshops at the Women’s Aid National Conference and during 2004/5 we provided domestic violence training to staff from over 50 different agencies.