Agenda item
Sexual Violence and Abuse Joint Strategic Needs Assessment
Minutes:
The Director Public Health introduced the
report and described how sexual violence was an emotive topic, and
could cause both physical and mental harm to survivors. He stated
that the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) had been developed
out of a need to view the topic objectively and give victims a
voice. He thanked HealthWatch for surveying residents who had
experienced sexual violence. He described how the JSNA had
discovered fragmented services for survivors, and how this piece of
work would try to bring services together. He stated that this
report was a proposal and would be up for consultation with
stakeholders, and then revised based on their comments. He added it
would then go to the Health and Wellbeing Board and spoke of plans
to hold a Thurrock Sexual Violence Summit in the New Year to launch
the JSNA. He summarised and thanked the Public Health Programme
Manager and the Strategic Lead – Public Mental Health for
their hard work as this report had taken one year to put together,
and was not an easy topic to work with.
The Public Health Programme Manager gave some context around the
report and described how the JSNA provided further understanding
regarding the prevalence of sexual violence. She stated that this
report had engaged with 83 local survivors, six of whom had been
interviewed, and 128 professionals. She clarified the definition of
sexual violence that included any unwanted sexual acts,
trafficking, or unwanted sexual comments, and added that these
could have a wide range of impacts, which could occur at any point
in life. She stated that sexual violence could make survivors turn
to harmful behaviour, and 56% of sexual violence survivors turned
to self-harm, and one third had common mental health issues. She
added that sexual violence could impact on the survivors ability to
parent, work, study, or form relationships, and this meant that a
survivor might need to access lots of different services to help
them cope and recover. The Public Health Programme Manager added
that different organisations had responsibility for commissioning
services to support survivors, and these services had different
criteria for eligibility to access services, which made the system
fragmented and could make it difficult for survivors to navigate.
She summarised and described the range of services available
locally for survivors to access, such as the Sexual Assault
Referral Centre (SARC) and the South Essex Rape and Incest Crisis
Centre (SERICC).
The Strategic Lead – Public Mental Health added that the JSNA
worked to identify local victims, and hypothesised that there was a
large data gap between the number of estimated victims, and the
number of victims known. She described how there were likely to be
over 10,000 victims in Thurrock who had experienced sexual violence
and abuse since the age of 16 (10,116 females and 1,985 males),
however only 316 Thurrock victims were reported in police data for
2018/19, with the majority of these victims being young and female.
She added that there was also a data gap between children who were
victims, and children who had reported being victims. She suggested
that this was likely due to increased safeguarding measures in
place for children, however even with those arrangements, there
still appeared to be a gap in the data. She described the reasons
for this data gap were due to inconsistencies in data reporting or
reporting systems. She added that there was also a perceived low
conviction rate of the perpetrators, so some survivors questioned
whether it was worth reporting. The Strategic Lead – Public
Mental Health described how there was only a 5% conviction rate in
2017 of the perpetrators.
Councillor Redsell declared a non-pecuniary interest as
she sat on the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) Panel.
The PFCC provided input in to the JSNA and also commissioned the
interviews with survivors.
The Strategic Lead – Public Mental Health continued and
stated that nationally it was recognised that some survivors
reported difficult accessing services, due to the geographical
location of those services, such as not being on public transport
routes. She added that there was also a local variation regarding
the knowledge of services and the different pathways that existed
to help people. She also mentioned that the relationship between
professional services was not always clear to residents. The
Strategic Lead – Public Mental Health stated that this was a
large piece of work and would include work around the prevention of
sexual violence, such as teaching in schools and addressing
perpetrators behaviours. She added that a toolkit would also be
developed for all frontline staff, so the system of reporting and
disclosure could become standardised across all services in the
borough. She stated that a campaign of public awareness would also
begin to ensure victims of sexual violence felt more confident in
reporting or disclosing, and this would be collaborative with Essex
Police and initiatives such as Project Goldcrest. She summarised
and stated that the recommendations of the JSNA should lead to
improvements in survivor’s accessing services, improve
existing services and would provide strategic oversight of sexual
violence across the borough.
The Public Health Programme Manager added that the proposed new
pathway would work collaboratively with providers, to ensure that
all survivors were offered a complete assessment following their
disclosure, which would include housing advice. She stated that the
proposed assessment would include aspects such as housing advice,
counselling, advocacy, employment advice, and access to other
health services including drug and alcohol, and sexual health. She
felt that sexual violence and abuse specialists had the right
skills and knowledge to help identify the needs of survivors, and
could then seek to ensure survivors had streamlined access to all
the necessary services that met their requirements. She added that
the work on the JSNA would also start a discussion around how
services are commissioned, for example joint contracts and outcome
based performance funding. She summarised and stated that the next
steps included a dedicated Sexual Violence and Abuse Partnership
that was being set-up, seeing the JSNA through the necessary
governance processes, and holding a Sexual Violence Summit to bring
together providers and commissioners.
The Chair opened debate and felt this was a fantastic piece of work
that provided a good understanding of the issues surrounding sexual
violence. Councillor Muldowney echoed the Chair’s comments
and felt it was a very moving piece of work, particularly regarding
the under-reporting of sexual violence against children. Councillor
Ralph also echoed these comments and felt that it was good to see
survivors voices were being included in the report. He asked if a
piece of work could be included focussing solely on domestic
violence against men, and sexual violence against LGBTQ residents,
as this was often under reported too. Councillor Redsell also felt
that it was a good piece of work, and added that it was good to see
sexual violence being taught about in schools.
The Accountable Officer Thurrock CCG asked if the JSNA could go
wider, as there were issues regarding commissioning, and many
sexual violence services worked across Essex, not only in Thurrock.
Councillor Holloway added that as the JSNA developed, more data
might be included as other agencies may want to be included. She
felt that the new pathway would be supported by stakeholders as it
was important to change the system so it worked better for users.
The Strategic Lead – Public Mental Health responded to all
the points raised, and stated that the JSNA had not included
particular figures regarding LGBTQ sexual violence, but this was
something that could be looked into. She added that as Councillors
could be a point of disclosure for survivors, all Councillors would
be provided with the same toolkit that was given to other frontline
staff. She stated that throughout the JSNA, they would look to work
with the School Wellbeing Service and future Mental Health support
team to school to help children better understand sexual violence.
Councillor Redsell asked if a summary of the JSNA might be
presented to Full Council, as she felt it was important that all
Councillors see the work being undertaken. The Chair also asked if
Councillors could be invited to the Sexual Violence Summit, so
Councillors could help survivors who disclosed, or could learn to
spot the signs that a person was a victim of sexual violence.
The Chair also asked when the first meeting of the Sexual Violence
Partnership Group would take place. The Director Public Health
replied that the JSNA had to be signed off by the Health and
Wellbeing Board first, but this meeting had been delayed by purdah
due to the upcoming general election. The Chair asked if reports
could be delivered back to the Committee regularly to be able to
hear updates and developments, and thanked officers and HealthWatch
for their hard work in preparing the report.
RESOLVED:
1. That the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee
noted and commented on the content and recommendations contained
within the report
2. That the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee
endorsed the recommendations contained within the document
Supporting documents:
- Sexual Violence and Abuse Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, item 26. PDF 81 KB
- Appendix 1 - Sexual Violence Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, item 26. PDF 6 MB
- Appendix 2 - Sexual Violence Joint Strategic Needs Assessment Appendices, item 26. PDF 2 MB