Greater Manchester Womens’ Support Alliance (GMWSA) is an unincorporated association comprising a number of women's charities in the Greater Manchester area which is in the process of incorporation as a charitable company and registration as a charity. It co-ordinates and delivers support for approximately 1700 women with multiple and complex needs each year across the Greater Manchester area to cope, recover and regain control of their lives, by providing co-ordinated support, advocacy and training or education in safe, women-only spaces.
Underpinning the model offered by GMWSA is a whole system approach to working with women with multiple and complex needs across Greater Manchester. The Alliance's approach uses women’s projects/centres as hubs in each borough. Through co-ordinating the services of the members of the Alliance (and also delivering services itself), GMWSA has embedded a gendered, relational and trauma responsive service model, which provides wrap-around provision and gives women access to a wide range of services across Alliance member organisations, designed to tackle issues such as domestic abuse, substance misuse, health, debt, mental health, employment, legal issues, training and education.
This system allows GMWSA to deliver collaborative and innovative ways of working with locality services and agencies across Greater Manchester.
Support which is co-ordinated and/or delivered by GMWSA includes:
• One to one holistic support.
• Drug and alcohol support.
• Counselling and psychotherapy.
• Domestic Abuse programmes.
• Group work/courses and workshops.
• Drop in sessions.
• Sign-posting to other services / sources of support.