The SurvivorsTrust

The SurvivorsTrust

At a glance

Causes

  • Campaigning
  • Children / families
  • Community safety / victim support / domestic violence
  • Criminal justice
  • Human rights
  • Men
  • Mental health
  • Voluntary sector support
  • Women
  • Young people

Other details

Geographical remit: 
National - Britain

Objectives

The Survivors Trust is a national UK umbrella agency for 130 specialist voluntary sector rape and sexual abuse support organisations.    We say, "We believe that rape and sexual abuse is preventable, and we challenge society to acknowledge its reality and our individual and collective responsibility for it."

Our beneficiaries are our member agencies and the victims and the survivors they support and that we support ourselves directly through our support line and website.  To support our member agencies:  we hold regular regional meetings; facilitate networking; represent their needs and interests to commissioners and policy makers regionally and nationally; we distribute information about funding opportunities; provide accredited training; offer organisational support to managers and trustees.  To support individual survivors, our website offers access to information and contact details for specialist member agencies in the UK providing therapy and support. We also run a national support line that offers advice, information and support to adult victims and survivors. 

Activities

To meet our objectives, we have membership of a wide range of national groups and forums through which we can provide a collective voice for our member agencies and for victims and survivors. For example, National Police Chief Council's Rape Working Group, Crown Prosecution Service Violence Against Women and Girls External Stakeholder Group, NHS England Sexual Assault and Abuse Strategic Partnership Group.  We regularly engage with Government Departments such as the Home Office and Ministry of Justice to raise awareness of the impact of sexual violence and sexual abuse and the support, counselling and justice needs if the women, men and children that have been affected, also their families and partners.

We encourage provision of direct services for victims/survivors based on an understanding of gender based violence and connected social, cultural, geographical, economic, physical, emotional and environmental factors which impact on individual responses of victims/survivors to the experience of rape, sexual violence and childhood sexual abuse and sexual exploitation.

Our support to member agencies is aimed at supporting service delivery and driving up service quality to create maximum benefit of services in their communities.  Our National Service Standards for Sexual Violence Services provide a robust structure to establish and run specialist trauma focused services, addressing all aspects of a specialist organisation’s activities and instilling a survivor-focused, empowerment model of working.  

Our member agencies are providing specialist services to over 80,000 victims and survivors each year (NHS England, 2015), based on cope and recover principles identified in the Victims Commissioning Framework.  Our work supports member agencies to engage with commissioners locally and to work with local partners to identify the needs of the community they are based in.

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