Month: September 2016

The Guardian published an article on 15th September entitled, ‘MPs call for end to abusive men using courts against families,’ by Sandra Laville. The suggestion within the article that MPs are calling on the government to carry out a review of family courts to stop them being used as a manipulative tool by abusive parents to further exert power and control over their ex partners and to end the revictimisation of both the ex-partner and children.  Laville writes, ‘the courts needed to ensure there was safe child contact, not contact at any cost.’ I’ve accompanied women to court and have heard accounts from our women here in North Warwickshire of the trauma of having to face an abusive man after…

Classic Gems: a new Cohort 4 project that warms our hearts Following on from the success of Sparkles, North Warwickshire Gems and Little Gems, Cohort 4, last week launched a new venture called Classic Gems. Classic Gems is a project that delivers jewellery and craft workshops to older people with the aim of reducing isolation and loneliness, and to promote inclusion, raise self-esteem and provide a sense of community. Beginning a new project can sometimes feel quite daunting, particularly when you are appealing to a new audience. There is always that uncertainty of how well your efforts may or may not be received. However, we felt that Classic Gems has without a doubt been one of the most heart-warming experiences…

VINDICATE, a new project from Cohort 4 In 2014 a group of our women got together to discuss a need and a project specifically for women affected by the criminal justice system in North Warwickshire. This group were fed up with being ‘done to’ and wanted something of their own, a group where they could be supported to lead a positive lifestyle, and to support others to do so in a non time limited, creative, peer mentoring model. In 2016 at last, that plan and hope is realised in the start of a new project from Cohort 4 – Vindicate. Vindicate was chosen as the project name after taking inspriation from Mary Wollstonecraft, who was an English writer who advocated…