You are listening to Relationships Shouldn't Hurt, a podcast brought to you by Central Bedfordshire Council. During this series, you'll be able to hear us talk all things domestic abuse and raise awareness of the support available to those affected.
So welcome to our podcast Relationships Shouldn't Hurt by Central Bedfordshire Council. My name's Nina Page and I’m the Domestic Abuse Specialist Officer within the domestic abuse service. And today I'm hosting our podcast around LGBTQ issues. It's a round table discussion, we're really lucky to have three expert guests with us today to start talking about and really unpicking some of these issues. So recently, Central Bedfordshire Council have commissioned a review to help us get a better understanding of domestic abuse in LGBTQ+ relationships. And what the data and findings have shown us is that there's a real prevalence of intimate partner abuse amongst those relationships, particularly for bisexual and trans women. But also the LGBT victims and survivors face multiple barriers to accessing support services, and that means that they remain hidden, so they’ve remained invisible, really, to our services. We know there are no LGBT+ inclusive domestic abuse prevention interventions being delivered in the UK. And also, more tragically, that LGBTQ+ victims are more likely to self-harm and attempt suicide. And this means that they are more likely to be labelled as having a mental health issue, as opposed to really getting the support they need for the abuse that's going on in their relationships. So just moving through to our panel, as I've said, we're really lucky to have three experts with us today to start unpicking and really getting into this topic. Lee, would you like to introduce yourself?
Lee
My name’s Lee, I used to run the only LGBT specific charity based in Luton. We did cover Central Bedfordshire and Bedford Borough as well. And I'm still quite heavily involved in the LGBTQ agenda within the local authorities locally as well.
Nina
Thanks Lee, it's great to have you here. And we have somebody from Galop.
Galop
Hi, I am the manager of the National LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline for Galop.
Nina
Welcome, thanks for coming along. And last, but by no means least we have Lisa.
Lisa
Hi, I'm Lisa Wright, I’m the Senior Youth Worker for Central Bedfordshire Council, focusing on youth voice, social action and youth participation.
Nina
Welcome, everybody. So let's get started, just initially what does the term LGB and/or TQ+ mean?
Galop
So I'm happy to kick this off, so you'll see probably quite a lot of different abbreviations that have got different acronyms and I think the reason for this is it’s not actually a universal term. It's quite personal to people about what feels suitable to their organisation or to themselves, but for me it's an acronym that draws together people who are gender and/or sexuality diverse. It still recognises that there are distinctions within those identities and people have a broad range of experiences that are based in class, race, ability, sex, while being part of the LGBT community. However, LGBT+ people are brought together because of their shared experience of being marginalised by society because of gender and sexuality diversity.
Nina
Can I just ask, because we get asked this a lot as a service when we're talking about domestic abuse for individuals that are LGBTQ+, what are the right letters to say? And is there a right way to pronounce that? Because I know lots of people worry about getting it wrong.
Galop
Don't worry about getting it wrong, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. Galop chooses to use LGBT+ and the plus is there to really link with the huge diversity of gender and sexuality, so you can, for some, people include Q, they include I. But for Galop, this is the way that we use the acronym, so there's not a right one, there's not a wrong one, but it's there to kind of reflect the broadness of gender and sexuality diversity.
Nina
Thank you. Moving on to our next question, what does it mean when we talk about gender identity?
Lee
Yes, so there's a really useful tool that I was shown quite a while ago, I don't know if anybody's seen it, it's called the Gender Unicorn or the Gender Gingerbread Man. And what this actually does is it breaks all the facets down around gender identity, expression, your sex assigned at birth and your physical attraction and emotional attraction. And I think where people get confused, with the LGB tends to be more of who you're attracted to, whereas T really stands for who you are as a person, so putting those together, as Galop just mentioned, around the sexually diverse and it's great to put those together. But we are working with two very different groups, and sometimes they do cross over. But there are different facets, and there's a massive spectrum of that in between. So I think when people try and understand gender identity, it's not just one, two or three, it’s different in every single individual.
Nina
And I wonder in that topic of gender identity there's a term we hear a lot, of people being nonbinary, and I just wonder if you could offer us a little bit of insight into what that means.
Lee
Absolutely, so a nonbinary person is someone generally who doesn't really identify with the sex they were assigned at birth, so it does fall into the trans category, but not exclusively. So nonbinary again is somebody whose gender they were born with doesn't sit comfortably with them. And that's generally what the description of nonbinary is.
Nina
Thanks Lee. Thinking about domestic abuse what does that look like in LGBT+ relationships?
Galop
Managing the domestic abuse helpline, we kind of see what abuse looks like every day for LGBT+ people. So I would say that actually, a lot of what you see across the board for heterosexual people and cisgender people is the same as what you will see for LGBT+ people, in the sense of the levels of control, the unequal power distribution in the relationship, the expectation of servitude, that the relationship is to be, in inverted commas, managed by the victimised person. So, you know, the high levels of fear, the likelihood of being left with the trauma responses from that experience are absolutely the same for LGBT+ people. But there are factors that are unique and compounding for LGBT+ people, and in no particular order the kind of things that we come across in the service is that sense of being deserving of the abuse and that being often because of a societal message and a family message that LGBT people are deviant, and their relationships are deviant and therefore this is what you should expect in an LGBT+ relationship. And that internalised feeling sits with somebody, and that way it may mean that they stick in that relationship for an extensive period of time. And the very real fear of being outed to family, colleagues, university, and I think one thing about this is really recognised is the serious consequence of that for many, many people. And the kind of consequences we’ll see on the helpline is total financial cut off by their family, for example, so someone is dependent on their family for, let's say, money towards living costs at university, it’s gone. Communities that may have corrective practices could suddenly be triggered if they were to discover that the child is sexuality or gender diverse. Community isolation and rejection is the whole community, not just your family, but the community that you have been a part of your whole life shun you, and family rejection, that the family will turn against you.
Lee
What we found quite interesting was the complexities around the cultural barriers as well. So when we work with the more diverse cohorts, we know that it's not accepted. So generally, I mean, that's a generalisation, so those people are less likely to come forward because they're scared to walk through those doors, are scared to admit to themselves where they are, and I think also, when we look at the transgender community as well, if they face that fear for so long, you get a relationship after, maybe having an internalised stigma, and once you're in that relationship, you tend to put up with things that most people generally wouldn't because you're scared of not being able to find somebody else that will love you, in inverted brackets, per say. So that's what we found in the LGBT links.
Nina
That's great, thank you, that's really interesting. Lisa, did you want to add something from a youth and a local perspective?
Lisa
Yeah, sure, I think, and as Galop said, you know a lot of the characteristics are similar within heterosexual relationships, but there's those very different factors as well. And I think one of the things sometimes, is that the person that would be controlling or abusing sometimes isn't necessarily the partner that you think it would be based on stereotypes and perceptions, I think is something that we've come across quite often, and it's often the person that isn't comfortable with their sexuality or gender identity controlling the partner that is, for fear of sometimes the outing, so they want to be in a relationship, but it ends up being the person that's receiving the abuse that actually ends up sometimes being the one that's cut off and isolated, whilst the abuser continues to be part of that community and have their social circle and have their friends, because they're not sharing that relationship within their circle if that makes sense.
Nina
Yes, that does and it's a really interesting nuance, I think, for the things that we're seeing in Central Bedfordshire amongst the younger population, and it sounds to me like you're all saying that in terms of who the abuser could be, really, it could be anybody. It could be your intimate partner or a family member or the community that you live in. And because of the way that the negative narrative that sometimes surrounds being LGBT+, it’s also wider society can often also be seen to be colluding with the things that have been told to people when they are in abusive relationships. Would that be fair?
Galop
Yeah, absolutely.
Nina
So what are the more specific issues that LGBT+ people face around relationships and consent?
Lee
I believe there's a lack of education out there to be honest, those very, very, very early stages, I mean, I remember being in school and we were never exposed to any LGBTQ+ conversations at all. It was very, very underground. I remember looking at the papers, I mean, we're going back now. I'm not that old, I know you can't see me, everybody, but I'm not that old. But I remember going back and seeing in the back of the paper, when dating used to be at the back of the papers, and there was one little box that said a man seeking a man. And for me, that was just wow, you know, how can that be there? So I think from a young age, really, I mean, nowadays it's changing slightly, but from a young age, it's always been quite underground. I mean, you know, when we look at homosexuality and legalities around that, you know, we're only really moving forward. So I think the work that we need to do really needs to start at educational levels, to start those conversations and normalise that this is okay, because there's still so much work to be done in those areas.
Nina
That's a really good point Lee, and I think there's a real lack of any positive representation of LGBT+ relationships in the media more generally but for young people, it's almost non-existent.
Galop
I would really agree with this point, we've even with Sex and Relationship Education at school we've seen such a backlash to that, which has actually reduced the possibility for organisations to go in and talk about healthy relationships, let alone LGBT+ healthy relationships. And then you think, where does a young person go? They're not getting the education or the conversation at school. Where do we think they’re going to go? They're going to go online. And you go online, and you start using some of the apps, dating apps, or particular apps used by LGBT+ people. And unfortunately, we're still living in a society that has a lot of predatory people that will take advantage of young people, young adults, people who are inexperienced in relationships, and if you think their first interactions with an LGBT+ person has become predatory, there's been issues around consent, but they can't go home and talk to the family or their friends about ‘I met this person on this app. Something happened, it didn't feel right’ and that's just carried, that weight then is carried with that young person of one of their first intimate experiences. So you can kind of see the knock-on effect of not having sound education. The impact is probably having young people that are exposed to predatory people that they didn't need to be exposed to. So I think that's a real issue for consent. And I think generally, who is educating anybody on solid, respectful, healthy, equal relationships, it's just not coming through, it's not there and everybody is missing out, I think, because of that.
Nina
Absolutely, and the new Domestic Abuse Act places of duty, doesn't it, on schools now to provide robust relationship and sexual education programmes. But that's still in its infancy, so we haven't seen that established.
Lee
Following up about where this information source, where can people go? We know for a fact that if we target LGBT people as an organisation and we show representation, they’re more likely to engage in a service, we know that. But when the doors are closed, you know, it is all about the representation, where are we showing the cohesion of being able to support? And there's a lot of structural and cultural barriers which I think are correlated with that as well, you know, if people don't feel that services are able or adapted to meet the needs of the service or what they require, then people are not going to even look to walk through those doors. But then equally, we can't put a big rainbow flag outside the door or a flag that represents a community, because that equally is going to create a little bit of issues with people walking through them doors as well. So, unfortunately, I think funding is gone, and we've still got the problems there that, this is effectively where my head's at.
Nina
And as you say, we know that we had those, those indicators that people were looking for that service and that support, and we don't know where those people have gone from. Lisa, did you have something that you wanted to come in and add just around the conversation around young people and consent and their education?
Lisa
Yeah, I think, certainly around the education system I mean, we hear on a daily basis, and it's not by any means an exaggeration, it is a daily basis, from young people that homophobic, bi-phobic and transphobic language is not challenged consistently throughout their schools. And some of these young people aren't members of the LGBTQ+ community, they’re allies of young people that are, and they're feeling that they almost have to try and do that challenging and that education. And there can be a mixed message. I guess the easiest way to explain it is how young people have said it to us, if it was a racist comment, there would be a clear process in terms of who, you know, what happened to that young person that made that comment. But that doesn't seem to be there for when it's homophobic, bi-phobic or transphobic, and it's often put down to, oh it's just the banter, but actually, no, it's not banter because there’s that, as Galop said earlier, leads people to believe that that kind of behaviour is normal and then leads them to be in relationships where that behaviour is happening to them. You know they're getting abuse; they're getting hurled insults at them. And I just think the whole education system really needs to be rehauled in terms of that. And, as some of you know, we have got young people at the moment that have kind of taken the matter into their own hands a little bit and have designed a teacher training programme around bullying and how schools can move to make their environments LGBTQ+ friendly places. But I think if we don't start there with educating what a healthy relationship looks like, no matter who you are in that relationship with, we're not going to move on sadly.
Nina
It's a really worrying picture isn’t it, if you couple together the daily reports that you're receiving about homophobic insults and abuse just being commonplace in schools, when you couple that with the lack of really good relationship education programmes, and then that lack of visibility of positive role models and relationships of LGBT+ individuals more widely, it's a really worrying picture isn’t it, and it really raises that question where are young people going for their information about relationships? Yes, Galop.
Galop
Can I add in, from my experience in managing the helpline, it's actually for adults too. Adults have not been given this education. None of us, you know have been taught. When we get messages from society they are, actually, they are very patriarchal, they’re very dominant and submissive. There's a lot around entitlement to sex, you know, all the kind of ideas that everything's kind of grey and you can't really trust what people say, and they probably want it anyway. For the people that are most affected, people that are marginalised in society, LGBT+ women, women and girls, people with disabilities, BMER people, around the sharp end of that kind of entitlement culture. And if there's no other really clear voice to all of us about, actually this is how we have healthy, respectful, caring, communicative relationships where we have sex that we both want, we're not entitled to it. Then, until we're going to get those messages out and proud in society as a whole is challenging for young people and adults to navigate through life.
Lee
I mean, echoing on that if we can’t openly talk about sex and relationships to heterosexual students, then how do we expect teachers to have the confidence to be able to actively talk about healthy LGBT+ relationships? Because, you know, we’re prude, we're all here because of sex, so I don't understand why we can't have those open conversations about it, and we need to have those transparent conversations that we can educate people on that. So, as Lisa said, you know the programme that's being put together by the pupils to train the establishment is fantastic, that's the way we need to go, that's the way we need to steer with this, I feel, because if we can't talk about heterosexual sex, how do we expect somebody who's uncomfortable to talk about homosexual sex or same-sex sex? It's a massive barrier, huge barrier, and then we've got the trans, how do you expect somebody to be able to support somebody through trans sex or something of that kind? So it's going to be an ongoing battle, and until we got some framework in place from a national or local level, I think we're going to face these barriers all the time, personally.
Galop
There’s some fantastic work out in Seattle, where they have a LGBT+ domestic abuse service and they run a whole course on how to have healthy relationships. I think wouldn't that be great, like adults that you could sign up if you, maybe you had some difficulties in your relationships and you had this space to kind of come together and explore that and openly talk about it with others that get it?
Lee
Because we have been too little, too late at the moment. I think we’re reacting at the moment. And I think this is why we're in the position that we’re in, because we know that there's a problem, but we're just reacting to the outcomes of that, we’re not actually sitting back and saying right, what can we do to prevent this?
Nina
That's really interesting, and I'm really interested to pick up on that point about consent and what that looks like for people in LGBT+ relationships, and what that idea of informed consent is and when it is not informed. When it is people feeling pressured or pushed into something, and I just wonder what your opinions are, about that sense of what informed consent is or what that would look like.
Galop
I mean, we had a fantastic leaflet at Galop that was just titled Do What You Both Want. And that was kind of the key message, check in, do what feels good for both of you. It just takes a conversation and the kind of bravery to say is that alright? Is that feeling okay? And so that feedback is there, you know, the feedback that tells you I'm a bit uncomfortable with this. Can we pause? Oh, yeah, this is good. And that's actually all it takes to have that informed conversation is asking and getting the feedback and then listening to the feedback.
Nina
That's really helpful, thank you, and really feeds back into what Lee was saying, about having conversations, open and transparent conversations about sex? So what are the barriers that LGBT+ people face when they're seeking help, especially during this pandemic? Because I know there's been so many changes for support services in terms of what they've been able to offer.
Galop
So I think the first thing that kind of comes into mind of what we saw on the helpline when the pandemic began, or really in the midst of it, was people no longer had their coping mechanisms. So the things that enabled them to manage and cope with living with an abusive situation like your work, school, college, university, your income that allows you to be independent, was just taken away. And that is a double-edged sword, because it means in some senses the levels of control are suddenly so much greater in your life. And at the same time, what we saw was people contacting us and saying, I need out. This cannot go on any longer. And actually that is a bit of a silver lining, because often what we used to see on the helpline was people would be in a relationship for a very long period of time, going back and forth on is that okay? Is it not OK? Can I cope with it? Can I not cope with it? Perhaps remaining in an abusive relationship for a longer period of time, because they could balance it with these other facets of their life. That's not possible when you are just at home with an abusive person or abusive family. So people were, that time was shrinking down to I can no longer do this, I am going to leave. So it is possible that they have taken steps to come out of a relationship a lot sooner than maybe they would have done. Another thing that we saw a real shift in was a lot more young adults calling and contacting us. And these were people that were back in the family home now. So you know you're talking of young people that have maybe gone off to university or living independently now, I'd say it's kind of like 19 to 27/28 actually, we often think about young people and young adults as 18 to 24 and there’s this other little bit where they're actually, in my opinion, they're still wobbling around with maybe not great income sources, insecure housing. But they get overlooked because, especially LGBT young people who may have actually started their intimate relationships a bit older, which we see as a pattern, kind of overlooked. But they're back in the family home now, where they’re perhaps living with very narrow definitions of what gender identity is, it's man, it's women, you better behave like that. They’re in a hostile environment every day, having to take on tactics like secrecy, walking on eggshells, managing abusive behaviours that they've been free from for quite some time. And having to, I think for any person who feels like they spread their wings, they develop, they got a sense of self, to have that cut away is really disempowering. So we saw a lot of calls and contacts like that. Greater surveillance, people were unable to call so much because they're being, their partners and families were watching them significantly more. So we saw the email contact and the website resources used so much more than we had done in the past, and we saw a lot of contacts where we had young adults saying, I'm sofa surfing now, I've been kicked out, my family can't cope. I don't know what to do next with a big increase in that demographic.
Lee
Yeah, I mean, what we found as well, with some of the access, and why we saw people not accessing services, were for two main reasons, for the structural and cultural barriers. And that's really the way that services were designed and delivered, as a perception of them being less accessible for LGBT people. So when we look at the framework, if it's a predominantly heterosexual service, there could be a fear around that that person who's experiencing domestic issues, that they feel that the service is not equipped to be able to deal with that, so they’re kind of wasting their time. So we found that the cultural and structural barriers were one thing, but also the interpersonal barriers as well. And that was the individual's perception of the support system and their self-belief, and also about their abuse in that relationship with the perpetrator as well. So there are two main things that we picked up on quite early. So it's all about that representation again, it's all about, you know, showing that we've got the skills to be able to work with these people, and also that we can work with diverse groups, and we can work with minority groups, because there's a perception that it's just a Caucasian heterosexual middle class sort of service. So they’re the things that we picked up, as well as barriers with people coming forward and disclosing domestic violence.
Nina
And that's certainly something that we've seen reflected in our LGBT+ needs assessment around domestic abuse that we've just finished in Central Bedfordshire. And that really highlighted that people from the LGBT community are really just not confident that agencies were inclusive and would be able to support them. And we equally found that professionals didn't feel particularly confident in being able to ask those questions and do that, so it creates such a gap. It does leave people invisible to services because professionals aren't seeing people identify as being LGBT coming through their doors. And equally people that identify in that way aren't confident enough to walk through them in the first place.
Lee
Yeah, I mean, an example of that is I used to work in sexual health services and what we found was LGBT people, they were coming into the sexual health services, they were showing symptoms of, let's use HIV, for example. They were going to their GP surgery, they were getting treated for one infection, and the GP was actually too scared to ask those questions around other infections that we know are more prevalent within the LGBT community. These are doctors, GP’s, professional, trained people. So we need to look at how can we train these professionals to have the confidence in asking these questions. Because people were walking out the doors of their GP, they weren’t getting any support from the GP. I mean, this is an example of one, came back to the sexual health service a few months later and they had an HIV diagnosis. So there's so many missed opportunities and hotspots that we miss, I think because of the confidence in asking those questions.
Lisa
We’ve certainly,
from young people, have felt they're not going to go back to their doctors
sometimes, because it may well be that young women have gone in, say for
example, for the smear test, we have to have them so let's not be afraid to
talk about them. And sometimes they’re asked the questions like you’re not on
the pill, do you need to be on the pill? No, I'm not on the pill. Okay, but
have you got a partner? Yeah, I've got a partner. Well, then you should really
think about being on the pill. Yeah but I don't want to go on the pill, I don't
need to be on the pill. And they're trying to give them the indication,
actually, you know, I mean, I'm in a lesbian relationship, I don't need to be
on the pill. But then the doctors aren't picking up on that, the nurses aren't
picking up on that and they're not saying so who are you in a relationship
with? Are you in a relationship with a man or a woman or what's going on? And
they're left feeling like, well I don't feel that I can say to my doctor I'm a
gay woman, because if he's not thinking to ask me that, then is he, in a way,
against me being in a relationship with another woman. So there's those issues
as well.
Galop
I think that was a really interesting point raised about how LGBT+ people are expected to out themselves all the time. You've got to keep going around going I’m LGBT, let's deal with the way you're going to interact with that. And actually, that's quite a heavy expectation for LGBT+ people. If we had services that felt okay to just be very matter of fact about it, who’s your partner and then just getting with what needs to be discussed. What are the conditions you might be experiencing or could be exposed to? We've, on the helpline, we've seen a really big uptake in health professionals signposting to Galop's helpline, which is great. We hear a lot of my doctor told me to call or like a health agency, and it feels a bit like the health agency, you've got to take this number, give them a call, and if that's the least they can do, good. Because then at least they got to an LGBT+ service. So let's just say they were from Bedfordshire, that happened, they get to Galop. Galop, in essence, is going to triage it back to you. So they're like, OK, what are the local young people services, what are the LGBT+ services, if they still exist. Hearing from Lee, that sounds challenging at the moment, and then linking them back with the localised specialist services in the area.
Nina
That's really interesting gives us lots of food for thought, in terms of where again, where are people going for their help and advice when they’re kind of referred back to services, that we know aren’t feeling confident or don't feel that they have the skills to start asking those questions in the first place. And I just want to finish up on this part of the topic just by coming back to Lisa and just asking that question, again, around the barriers that LGBT+ people are facing when they're seeking help, especially during the pandemic, and just really interested in what that has looked like in Central Bedfordshire over the last 18 months for young people. So what those barriers might be?
Lisa
I guess it links in a little bit with what Lee was saying in the first place, is that we were very limited on services anyway that young people would see that they could access. And so I guess from a point of view if they may have been able to walk into a youth centre, so there wouldn't have been a specific LGBT+ service, but they could have walked into a youth centre pre Covid. When Covid came that wasn't happening, the youth centres weren't open, they weren't on. So it was only young people that were already known to youth workers they were able to kind of keep in touch with. And I think again because there is nothing specific in Central Bedfordshire, those young people are probably still out there now to be honest with you, probably not having spoken to anyone during the pandemic unless they've already got a healthy relationship with, you know, a teacher or a youth worker or another professional.
Lee
And I think that's a really hard one to get right, I feel, because what we don't want to do is segregate a community, so we don't want to open the doors with a big rainbow flag above the door saying you're different, you're separate, you can only come and see us. But then equally we want people to know that they are accepted in other services, so from my theory, I feel it's a massive, massive training need across the board. Every service should have the skills and the resources to be able to support somebody who's experiencing domestic violence or refer into somebody who has the know how to work with that young person or person. So it is a double-edged sword, because again, we don't want to segregate, so we don't want to give off one message, but we equally need somewhere safe where people can go and where they feel respected and understood at the same time.
Galop
Yeah, and that's a really interesting point is do we look for a model where any person is welcome at mainstream services? Or do we look at such a niche specialist provision? And I kind of wonder about actually, we need both, because we know that for some people, actually their life experiences and their identity means that actually they just want to go to an LGBT+ place, where they’re with LGBT+ people who get it, that's what they want to do. And then for others, that's not the case at all. They don't want that. They just want to go to the mainstream service and get a service, and I think it's about us having the flex to do both and to provide both and say that we want both.
Nina
Absolutely, and that really comes back around to the point that you made earlier about LGBT+ people having to announce themselves in every room that they come into. And actually, if we had that breadth of services, they wouldn't need to do that because the options would be there. What should somebody do if they think or fear that they might be being abused? So how could we encourage people in LGBT+ relationships to keep and stay safe?
Galop
So I would say, what we do know about people that experience domestic abuse is one of the first things they're going to do, after they've tried to resolve the issues themselves and have not been able to do that because the abuse keeps coming, is that they talk to a trusted friend or a family member. And I would say to somebody who was listening to this podcast, if there's someone that you trust, and you trust them not to judge you and you know they've got your back, have a conversation with them first of all, just to let someone else know what is going on. Because ultimately that person will be with you probably through a lot of your life, and it may be that the two of you can work through something like the Survivor's Handbook, which is actually a Women's Aid resource, but it's very useful. The second thing I would say is, if you feel able to reach out to one of the helplines or Galop’s helpline and have a non-judgmental conversation with another LGBT+ person about domestic abuse and what's going on. They're not going to make you do anything, but they will have resources that can help you navigate what's going on. We have a resource for coping with living with an abusive person, which we developed through Covid. We have ones on all sorts of subjects that relate to domestic abuse. So that would be my second thing. And if that one feels too overwhelming, I'd look on our Survivors forum. We have a peer-to-peer support forum for LGBT+ survivors of domestic abuse on the Galop website, and there you can read other people's accounts and you can ask the community questions, you can post stuff, and that's the way of getting a sense of you know, is this just me or is this bigger than me? And those will be the first things I would say. But I'd also say, if you're scared and you're threatened by your partner, you're always entitled to call 999, if that feels possible for you, because your safety is really very important.
Lee
Yeah, one of the other things that we used to ask our customers to do, whilst engaging with the specialist services, was to start thinking about devising a safety plan. And that is kind of like, I mean, you can find them online, they’re easy enough to download, and it's a really comprehensive page, or booklet rather, it’s probably about eight pages of A4, but it goes down to all the details of what you can do to prepare to leave and the likelihood. It even goes down to things like your finances, childcare commitments, how do you get away from that? Any contingency plans? Where do you put your savings? Where is your passport? So it's something that somebody can fill out if they are experiencing domestic violence and they can park that, they can keep up with a friend, and they can go back to that. But it's also that validation to know that there are steps that you can take, and just to know that you're covered in that as well. So it helps that person as an individual, even if they're not ready to vocalise that and outwardly seek support.
Galop
It’s a really great point about safety planning, and that's something Galop does, but one of the kind of useful facets along literally planning to stay safe, is in an abusive relationship one thing that's been stripped of you is your power, and the feeling of powerlessness is such a, it’s very detrimental to anybody. But actually, doing that safety plan, it gives some power back. You take some power back, and that is so important to feel empowered in your own, even in times of real difficulty, to feel that you have some power in that situation. And just the act of going through the safety plan can help with that.
Nina
That's great, thank you both, and we'll put details for the reach out resources that Galop were talking about, their helpline, their forum details and all the resources to be linked to their website at the end of the programme, but also put a link to the safety plan that Lee mentioned so that you can find a bit more information about that there after the show. Lisa, did you have anything that you wanted to add?
Lisa
I think just finally from me in terms of obviously seeking support and having that trusted adult or trusted friend, is that I guess coming from a young person’s viewpoint or putting myself in their position, is you might not be the one that's in the relationship at the moment. But you might be living in a household where the domestic abuse relationship is taking place. And I think I would say the same to that young person, is if you feel that there’s a trusted youth worker, teacher, school nurse, that you have that relationship with, that you can talk about what you're experiencing at home, then do that. It's not just necessarily about, for me, the people that are in the relationship, but it's the other people in the household that are kind of on the brunt of that behaviour as well.
Nina
Thank you, it's a really important point that it's not just for those experiencing, is it? If you're living with domestic abuse then you're experiencing it on a level as well, aren't you, and need your own support. So I'd just like to say thank you very much to all of our guests today, it's been a really helpful and informative discussion. We’d just like to thank you for your time and expertise.
Lee
Thank you.
Galop
No problem, thank you for inviting us.
Lisa
Thanks very much. It was it was an honour to be asked.
Thank you for listening to Relationships Shouldn't Hurt. If you or someone you know has been affected by domestic abuse or the issues raised in this podcast, you can contact the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 08082000247. You can also find lots of information about domestic abuse on our website, and if you're in the Bedfordshire area, you can find local support services on the Get Help page of this website. If you are in immediate danger, please call the Police on 999.