This website uses cookies for anonymised analytics and for account authentication. See our privacy and cookies policies for more information.





The voice of Scotland’s vibrant voluntary sector

Published by Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations

TFN is published by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh, EH3 6BB. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Registration number SC003558.

Are cuts crippling our communities?

This opinion piece is over 5 years old
 

Iris Quar argues that cuts to community services get pushed through at our peril

Seldom a day goes by without a headline that some organisation or charity is facing the choice of making cutbacks to services due to lack of funding.

Needless to say, these are all worthy causes, many of which have thrived for years. However I believe we miss a trick at our peril, if we do not address the wider societal issues that arise when these vital lifeline services are forced to go to the wall.

Last week the focus was on the plight of Glasgow’s Rape Crisis Centre, which has been delivering support over the last 40 years through its dedicated helpline and drop-in centre at Bell Street.

Iris Quar
Iris Quar

It addresses an issue that sadly just won’t go away. So where do the women that need that vital service turn to in instead? Our already overwhelmed NHS services have neither the capacity nor the specific skill set needed to fill the gap.

Their plight echoes that of Abused Men in Scotland (AMIS). The charity provides Scotland’s only dedicated helpline and one-to-one support services to men who are the victims of domestic abuse and domestic violence.

While the overall scale of the abuse against women is proportionally much greater, that does not negate the need for support to be available to men who find themselves in the same predicament; some 20 per cent according to Police Scotland statistics.

These, and many other support services up and down the country, play a key role in fulfilling the ever changing needs of a modern society.

Charities and other organisations working with victims who are often trapped at the margins of society facing violence and assault, including abuse, self-harm, offending behaviour and mental health issues, deliver much more than support to those facing these difficulties.

There is a much wider issue here around protecting our communities’ wider health needs. Our common thread is that we want to support people and help them move on and enjoy their lives to the full.

By actively supporting individuals in their given time of need, we are heading off the unthinkable consequences of sitting back and doing nothing.

From an holistic public health point of view we are mitigating future offending behaviour, self-harm, abuse, suicidal thoughts and isolation, by delivering programmes of support across Scotland.

These also have wide-reaching benefits, not least in promoting family cohesion and instilling a sense of caring in our society, for those who may not be as fortunate as others.

It is this empathy and care approach that makes us different. Cost is, and always will be, an issue vis-à-vis delivery of services. But you can’t put a price on a group of individuals who just want to make a change in victim’s lives because they can.

As a nation we boast many inventions and innovative practices to enhance our society and it is heritage we are staunchly proud of.

As we move forward, we must embrace this caring attribute where and when we can, to ensure we can continue to support our future generations in their hour of need.

Iris Quar is services manager at Abused Men In Scotland

 

Comments

0 0
Nick Child
over 5 years ago
THE KNOCK OUT COMPETITION BETWEEN VICTIM GROUPSThanks for speaking out on this Iris. It's important. It's hard to speak about without being drowned by loud protests and mass silence.Our culture has become a strange one where victim groups can wield immense power, competing to be high up in the league of the most needy and deserving of support and funding. Funds are used to do research in order to get even more moral support and funding in the next round. Smaller or less popular victim groups can easily be silenced by the big ones. Especially when it comes to gender, a totalistic belief in evil patriarchy being the cause of all that is wrong means that men can be assumed to be perpetrators in general or particular. So men deserve blame not sympathy or help. If men or their supporters open their mouths it must be to support the cause of women victims or stand guilty without trial of heinous ideological crimes.But there are many many victim groups that have little voice or power. Even those who are not deemed to be in a perpetrator category tend not to get heard when the loudest voices dominate. There are now several of us who are pointing out that there is a common pattern to the harmful relationships that take you in and cut you off. This common pattern has many names (eg coercive control, undue influence etc) and is found in many contexts, from families to high control groups. All of these many emotionally entrapping and abusive groups have victims in them. Some are worse off than family victims, coping only by completely giving up their authentic identity for a false cultic identity - eg jihadi terrorists, human trafficking, violent gangs etc.Somehow we all need to stop this Hunger Games tournament to the financial death of the powerless victim groups. We need to recognise the commonality of the harmful pattern that they're all enduring. We need to find some recognition and teaming up so that victim groups with quiet voices get heard alongside those with loud voices. The teaming up will itself further the joint cause of tackling harmful coercive relationships of all kinds.Anyone interested in this wide spectrum approach can find more about it here: http://openmindsfoundation.org https://www.facebook.com/ICSAToday/videos/10157605813408266 https://thealienationexperience.org.uk/2016/01/31/learning-about-a-common-enemy/
0 0
Johnny
about 5 years ago
"Especially when it comes to gender, a totalistic belief in evil patriarchy being the cause of all that is wrong means that men can be assumed to be perpetrators in general or particular."Uuuuuuhhhhh, dude, you do realise that the societal assumption that men are the strong ones who can only be the perpetrators is literally part of what patriarchy is, right? Dumbass.
Commenting is now closed on this post