Tameside and Glossop NHS Trust

"This study begins to give us a local insight to the concerns and issues surrounding domestic violence for victim and professional. As a professional working in child protection I was particularly concerned about the percentage of children witnessing violence and the percentage of the victims stated that the children were affected by the violence. These indictors coming from the victims themselves are reflected in national statistics.

This is an excellent study to form a baseline to underpin our strategy."

S. Phillips Named Nurse Child Protection, Community & Priority Services NHS Trust

Education and Cultural Services

"It is pleasing that there is general satisfaction in relation to the Education Service. Several points were raised regarding children who change schools, and parent contact by schools.

The majority of children did not have to change schools. This may have been due to the particular individual circumstances, however, it is also the case, that where children move to a refuge for a short period of time, efforts are made to enable children to stay in their current school, by for example, providing transport.

Moving schools can be distressing for children and part of the delay in moving schools can be due to attempts to prevent further distress, before children commence.

Where children develop behavioural difficulties, schools have procedures for meeting such needs.

The issue of parental contact is more difficult, and schools need to follow legal guidance in this regard. Supporting parents and children experiencing domestic violence is an area for development."

Paul Lawday, Strategic Director of Education and Cultural Services, TMBC

Tameside Women's Project

"The responses overall for the Refuge were very pleasing. However, I have taken note of some of the reported problems.

When the Refuge is busy, which is almost always, communal living is very difficult. Every woman works differently for cleaning, cooking etc. We will discuss with residents, ways in which they feel this can be improved and implement changes as appropriate, suitable for the majority of residents.

As much as we try it is not possible to please everybody, but with more feedback like this, along with our own exit surveys from residents, we should be able to work together as a team to raise standards even higher for women and children fleeing domestic violence in Tameside."

Lorraine Gilmore, Project Manager, HOUSING TMBC

"We are concerned about the survey results and have taken note of the issues raised. A review will be undertaken of Housing Advice Service later this year and the survey results will assist with the process. Improvements have been identified from a number of sources. The Council and New Charter are committed to providing a high quality service."

Mark Renolds, Housing, TMBC

Tameside Refuge Counselling Service

"The Counsellors based at the Refuge are independent of the Refuge. It is a purely confidential and safe service. We feel the service receives good results as it empowers the woman helping them to move on. The service is non- judgmental and all Counsellors are qualified or in their last stages of training.

The report was an excellent piece of work and I feel very pleased to be part of it. I feel the information will be invaluable to all service providers."

Jackie Forth (Member of the Council), Counsellor

Beevers Solicitors

"I would like to thank each and every participant in this research. Without their comments, how can any of us improve our service? Despite the general high levels of satisfaction recorded for legal services, we can certainly learn and continue to improve the service we offer to our clients.

Domestic violence has been an issue that has been swept under the carpet for far too long. The report raises many important issues. This piece of research extremely important to all those involved in providing services to victims of domestic violence in the Tameside area."

Rebecca Baxtor-Cox, Beevers Solicitors, Ashton-under-Lyne

Legal Services

"I was concerned to find that some respondents had difficulty in accessing a solicitor. The establishment by the council and partners of the Community Legal Partnership will help in this area. Information on solicitors and their specialist areas is available to members of the public from any Library or Customer Service site."

Councillor M. Oldham, Cabinet Deputy, TMBC

Helpline

"I am pleased to note the high satisfaction rating of the Helpline Service. Since the start in December 1999, the number of calls has increased dramatically peaking at 200 calls per month over the Christmas and New Year period. It is also encouraging to note that men are using the Helpline to seek help for their daughters, daughter-in laws and granddaughters."

John Johnson, Head of Community Safety, TMBC

Family Support, Social Care and Health (Child and Family Centres)

"The report is extremely enlightening, particularly because it is founded on the actual experiences and opinions of local women. The comments made by women who have received support from the Child and Family Centres are very encouraging and support Social Care and Health rationale for recent configuration of its services for children in need. Some Child and Family Centres have recently closed and resources have been re-invented in to outreach and family support. The remaining Family Centres are in the process of reducing the amount of childcare directly provided in order to increase the services that the women in the survey have identified as most helpful to themselves and their children, such as counselling and therapeutic help. The report provides valuable information for further development of our staff training and development strategy."

Judith McDonough, Unit Business Manager, Social Care and Health

Tameside Victim Support

"We are pleased to have been involved in this research and have been pleasantly surprised by the results shown in connection with Victim Support. Having said this we do not want to sit back and feel that everything is fine.

Victim Support is thankful to those who took part and to Joyce Jones for her work with those who completed questionnaires. We need to work on our profile and make sure that Police Officers make use of our service for all victims of crime.

We are beginning to work at Outreach Centres around Tameside and hope this will raise our profile but also give victims of Domestic Violence a safe place to receive information and support. Thank you for this opportunity to improve our service."

Helen Ogbourne, Scheme Coordinator, Tameside Victim Support

Greater Manchester Police Authority

"Greater Manchester Police Authority under the Policing Act 1996 and Best Value have responsibility for consulting the public on policing issues. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 gives more emphasis on consulting the public in partnership with other agencies. This research is an example of how consultation can be achieved in partnership to ensure that groups of the community that are not usually targeted are reached and the information gained shared between all appropriate agencies. The information from this report will be invaluable for the work of the Greater Manchester Police Authority Domestic Violence Forum. The forum is made up of agencies across Greater Manchester involved in supporting victims and perpetrators of Domestic Violence. The initial results and methodology was presented to the aforementioned forum in which they were most interested. Greater Manchester Police Authority strive to ensure all sections of the community are included in consultation on policing issues and consulting victims of crime is an area we are keen to develop. This research is a best practice example of consulting in partnership with hard to reach groups and the reason GMPA helped finance the research. The report findings on policing issues will be of interest to the Police Authority."

Uzma Alam, Senior Consultative Worker, Consultative Team GMPA

Benefits Agency

"Although the table of results on page 16 is not shown as a league table, Benefits Agency ranks as the worse service provider at 45% and we are concerned to improve this. Customer Service for all our clients is a major priority and if we have an identified problem area then we would wish to act on this.

Hopefully your research might help. I am interested in pin pointing the areas where we can improve e.g. at reception, or visits, or telephone, or whether we have one of our sites causing a problem."

John Smethurst, JSA Manager

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