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SERVICES
Aims
The overall aim of the Lantern Project is to work alongside all other relevant agencies to fill in the gaps in provision and form a supportive network which to help survivors of domestic abuse (DA) to recognise and deal with their situation.
Specifically the Project aims to:
- Provide peer mentors with the knowledge to guide and survivors and act as a role model.
- Support survivors so that they can take control over what is happening to them
- Give ongoing support to enable survivors to carry out the advice that others give them.
The Lantern Project also aims to:
- Enable survivors who have successfully come through and recovered from DA to help those still living with it.
- Start and continue to function as a response to DA issues in which the community (including people who have been through DA) can become involved and can support each other.
- Support and enhance the effectiveness of services provided by other agencies
How it works
The Lantern Project recruits volunteer mentors to support people living with domestic violence so that they can make plans for the future and move on in the way they want to.
The mentors are ‘there’ for survivors to help them:
- Gain more control of their lives by improving their confidence and self-esteem.
- Look at all their options to make well informed decisions and plans for the future.
- Find and deal with the other services and agencies who can help.
- Go through any legal processes they might be involved in.
- Support them through moving out - if that is what they decide to do.
- Feel more certain that they can manage on their own if they need to.
Each survivor is matched with a mentor for as long as they want the support, which is driven only by the needs and wants of the survivor and her family. |
The Mentors are women of any age, status, creed or colour, who have a wide range of experiences, skills and backgrounds. Key attributes needed include common sense and being non-judgmental. Life experience is more important than formal qualifications. |
Survivors can be referred by ANYONE – Friends, Police, Health Visitors, Doctors, Social Workers, Hospitals, Voluntary Organisations etc. They can also ask for help themselves.
Examples of the support given by the Project include:
- Providing lengthy practical and emotional support to enable women to overcome their fears in order to give evidenced in criminal court proceedings. This has also involved supporting them after adjournments and over several days of a trial
- Supporting survivors who wanted to make use of the civil court system to obtain occupancy and non-molestation orders and deal with access to children. This has included accompanying them on visits to solicitors and to County Court
- Supplying general emotional support to help with decisions mentees have to make and with the recovery process once they have extricated themselves from the influence of the abuser.
- Finding advice on a benefits issue which a perpetrator had been using to ‘blackmail’ his partner.
- Helping women to explain the situation to family and friends who may either feel that they do not know how to help or have ‘washed their hands’ of the survivor because they do not understand her predicament. In some cases the fact that the survivor receiving support from the Lantern Project has brought previously slightly hostile friends and relatives rallying round.
In addition, Mentees have been given emotional support and assistance with a range of issues including:
- child contact visits at Cafcass Offices
- housing issues
- making contact with solicitors
- immigration issues
- accessing training
- dealing with problem neighbours
Anyone needing help can contact Judy Morgan on 07747 825 745 or Hayley Hickman on 07790 952 626 during working hours.
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