Imara works provides an early intervention service to children, young people and safe family members in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, after a disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). Referrals come direct from East Midlands Children and Young Persons Sexual Assault Service (EMCYPSAS) in order to reach children and families in a timely manner. Our mission statement is that victims and families recover and rebuild their lives after a disclosure of child sexual abuse and that recovery starts as soon as the disclosure is made, through our early intervention.
The work focuses on supporting child victims who have experienced familial child sexual abuse; child on child abuse or abuse from adults in a position of trust, recognising that these categories of abuse carry a significant betrayal of trust, take place within an established relationship or are complex as they relate to children exhibiting sexualized behaviour.
The service promotes joined-up thinking, supporting all safe family members to access the service as parents, siblings or victims, recognising the level of trauma that they are likely to be experiencing. We use a two strand approach with a team of creative arts therapists and a team of Children and Young Persons Independent Sexual Violence Advisers (CHISVA's) bringing therapeutic, legal and advocacy skills to the service and promoting communication and information sharing with the child’s network. Therapists provide both pre and post trial therapy interventions and all practitioners work closely with Police, CPS and Court officials to support the engagement of young people throughout the criminal justice process.
Feedback from stakeholders confirms the high level of need of victims/survivors and the value placed on our specialist interventions to help reduce acute stress symptoms and enable individuals to get on with their day to day lives, despite the trauma they have experienced..
Assessment with children, young people and family members to introduce service, gain consent for information sharing, collect demographic data, complete outcomes measures and identify key priorities for client and family to begin process of recovery.
CHISVA team provide:
Therapists provide
All practitioners attend multi-agency meetings as appropriate and provide informal and formal consultation and teaching regarding trauma and child sexual abuse.
We provide information in an accessible manner for children and adults using talking, drawing, demonstrating and playing.
Our interventions are provided in a trauma informed way, promoting safety, resourcefulness and stability to reduce distress and emotional dysregulation.
The interventions are designed to empower clients, focusing on the direct dilemmas they may be facing in the immediate here and now and adjusting to the individual needs of the clients. This requires our practitioners to work in a flexible and responsive way, working with clients in partnership to ensure that Imara activities create the core conditions for recovery.
