Moray Women's Aid helpline at risk
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A HELPLINE service for abused women in Moray could be drastically cut despite the numbers seeking help nearly doubling within two years.
Elgin-based Moray Women's Aid is bracing itself to be next in line for cuts by Moray Council, which has informed the organisation that it would have to look at a reduction in spring.
The organisation has escaped cuts in previous years but is now reviewing its services to assess which of these can be streamlined.
Moray Women's Aid was established in 1987, starting out with four staff manning its helpline. It now employs 17 staff, providing a holistic service at Marleon House in Elgin.
Melanie Wood, its business development and funding manager, said: "Our numbers have jumped significantly. In 2017 we supported 333 women, which had been a roughly consistent figure for about five years. In 2018, this jumped to 467. To date for the last 10 months we've already hit 496. We are expecting about 580 this year."
Mrs Wood said Moray Women's Aid was not out to "bash" Moray Council, which had been very supportive over the years and saw the value of its work.
But she added: "Unfortunately they can't not cut the grass twice this year. They are looking to make a cut. We will find out in March, when our current contract is up, what that figure will be."
The council provides the group's core funding, which pays for the refuge building and staff. It pays for a full housing support service, operated by staff at the refuge, which has housing for seven families. It also has three dispersal properties out in the community.
Mrs Wood said the helpline, which operates seven nights a week, would be the "lesser evil" if the group was forced to make a cut. They are considering reducing the helpline to daytime hours only – removing overnight and weekend cover.
She said: "There is a national domestic abuse helpline. There are out-of-hours social work and housing helplines that they can go to. That might be one of the lesser evils."
Moray Women's Aid also runs a children and young person's service and an outreach service, both funded by the Scottish Government. It has submitted funding bids with the Big Lottery Community Fund to take on another two outreach workers.
The outreach service has become even more vital as the numbers of women seeking help has burgeoned. At present there is only one outreach worker – "one woman, on her own, who covers the whole of Moray".
Mrs Wood said: "The good thing with her is she can go out and about in Moray whereas we're restricted to Elgin. The worker will go and see them at their home if it's safe or we have a few community places we can use."
The children's and young person's service has supported 114 children this year, an increase of about 30 from last year.
Mrs Wood said it was hard to pinpoint why they were seeing such a big jump in women seeking their help, but believed the Domestic Abuse Scotland Act, which came into force in April, will have played a part. The new law recognises more subtle coercive and controlling behaviours as abuse.
She said: "The new Act will have had some influence. Back in April there were a lot of adverts on TV about coercive and controlling behaviour and we do see an increase in referrals when there has been a storyline on soaps, say, or there has been a film where domestic abuse is involved.
"Certainly, from what we're hearing, women are getting a better understanding of this."
The refuge has had to stop taking in donations of items through lack of storage space. However, it welcomes donations of old clothing to the "rag bag" bins situated outside the refuge.
