IMARA
Our objectives
Imara CIO supports children, young people and families affected by child sexual abuse and domestic abuse.
Child sexual abuse service:
We provide 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 for the CHISVA service and some elements of our therapy service come direct from East Midlands Children and Young Persons Sexual Assault Service (Coral Cove) 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 and/or domestic 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; harmful sexual behaviour between siblings, peer on peer 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.
Children affected by domestic abuse service:
Since 2020 Imara CIO has provided a service to children and young people affected by domestic abuse. We deliver a range of therapeutic approaches to children, young people and safe carers. These include individual arts psychotherapy sessions, dyadic arts therapy sessions, Domestic Abuse Recovering Together groupwork for children and mothers, and 'having therapeutic conversations' with primary age children in school settings.
Young people and parents who have accessed our services are invited to become part of a co-production network formed of individuals who are experts by experience. They are integrated into our service design and delivery in various ways including representation on our Board of Trustees. They help us to develop areas of our work and inform our thinking. They offer support to wider stakeholders through focus groups, strategy panels, education design.
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.
Our activities
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:
- ongoing support throughout police investigation, CPS decision-making and court procedures as appropriate, offering updates and answering any queries.
- interventions relating to any immediate health, employment, education, benefits and housing difficulties that are creating distress for family. Offering practical advice, supporting client to attend meetings, advocating on behalf of family e.g. managed move of school for child who faces exclusion and writing letters of support.
Therapists provide
- individual therapy sessions providing early intervention strategies; psycho-education; assessment of dissociation and acute stress symptoms and ongoing creative arts therapy/trauma processing therapy as appropriate.
- Parent/child dyadic therapy and/or family sessions.
- Imara are approved providers of an NSPCC evidence based therapeutic model, Letting The Future In (LTFI), offering opportunities for longer term therapy, to support both children, young people and parent, in addition to short-term therapy sessions commissioned by NHS England.
- Therapists also deliver various groupwork sessions including a Storytelling group and an NSPCC groupwork model for children and mothers affected by domestic abuse called Domestic Abuse Recovering Together (DART).
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.