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13 August 08

We are seeking enthusiastic and committed staff for four posts:

(1)   Full-time Director
Salary offered at PO7 - £45,246
Funded by the National Lottery through Big Lottery Fund

This post holder will be a dynamic and strategic thinker with:
·      Substantial experience working in a leadership role in the VAW
       (Violence Against Women) sector.
·      Knowledge of VAW policy and legislation in the

·      Strong work planning and staff management skills

(2) Full-time National Development Capacity Building Officer
Salary offered at P03 - £33,295
Funded by the National Lottery through Big Lottery Fund

This post holder will be an effective communicator with:
·      Substantial experience of working with groups and organisations to
       assist on development issues.
·     Knowledge and ability to provide refuges with information and support
       on issues related to operational policies and procedures
·      Skills to identify and develop effective local and regional partnerships

(3) Full-time Information, Finance and Administration Officer
Salary offered at S01 - £25,440
Funded by the National Lottery through Big Lottery Fund and London Councils

This post holder will need to have excellent organisational and communication skills with:
·      The ability to organise administrative tasks and provide support
       for all Imkaan events
·      Knowledge of setting up systems for running of an efficient office and
       maintaining appropriate office systems and information resources,
       including the project database.

(4) Full-time Training and Information Manager
Salary offered a P05 £38,404
Funded by The City Bridge Trust and London Councils

This post holder will have a proven record of excellent facilitation, training and resource development with strong inter-personal skills and;
·      The ability to develop specialist training programmes on issues such as
       gender violence and child protection in the context of BAMER
       communities.

These posts are offered on a fixed term basis with an initial probationary period of six months and are based in London Borough of Islington.

These posts are open to BAMER women only and are exempt under the Sex Discrimination Act 7(2) (d) and (e) and the Race Relations Act 5(2) (d) 1976

To apply for any of the above posts send a large A4 sae to:

Administrator, Imkaan, Tindlemanor, 4^th Floor, 52-54 Featherstone Street, London, EC1Y 8RT

Closing date for all posts: Monday 22^nd September 2008
CVs will not be accepted.

(These posts will be subject to an enhanced disclosure from the Criminal Records Bureau)

29 July 08

JOB VACANCY

London Borough of Tower Hamlets

Post Title	Domestic Violence Projects Assistant (Female Worker)
Ref No.	ENV/1470
Grade (or salary if ungraded)	£24,588 - £26,025
Directorate	Communities Localities and Culture Directorate

This post is advertised under Section 7 (2) (e) Sex Discrimination Act 1975.
A current Criminal Record Bureau check is required for this post.

Details

Tower Hamlets is a distinctive, unique London Borough that is home to a diverse, vibrant, multicultural community. As part of an exciting regeneration programme, we aim to improve the quality of life for all who live and work in the area. It’s also an ideal opportunity to further your career.

Tower Hamlets has a strong track record of delivering a coordinated community response to domestic violence that aims to increase the safety of adults and children.
Provision of a range of safe housing options and support is a crucial part of our strategy. We are seeking an experienced female domestic violence professional to co-ordinate the Sanctuary Project, enabling victims of domestic violence to remain safely in their homes. You will also support the work of the team by maintaining a domestic violence referrals database, contributing to a telephone duty rota and supporting initiatives to raise awareness of domestic violence amongst staff in the Council and partner agencies as well as the wider community.
You will have experience of supporting victims of domestic violence and a working knowledge of domestic violence policies and services. Experience in managing records effectively, securely and accurately and using databases is also essential. You must have an understanding of the principles of risk assessment and safety planning, and be able to work effectively as part of a small team.
This post is advertised under Section 7 (2) (e) Sex Discrimination Act 1975.
A current Criminal Record Bureau check is required for this post.

Closing date: 15 August 2008.

For an online application pack please visit www.towerhamlets.gov.uk email recruitment@towerhamlets.gov.uk
A special Minicom service is also available for those with a hearing or speech impairment on 020 7364 4853.
Please quote the relevant reference number

We shall ensure fairness and equal opportunities throughout our workforce and in service delivery. We welcome applications from suitably skilled candidates regardless of ethnicity, gender, disability, sexuality, religion or age.

www.towerhamlets.gov.uk

11 July 08

COHESION GUIDANCE FOR FUNDERS – CONSULTATION

Imkaan submitted a response in June 2008 in response to the consultation “Cohesion Guidance for Funders”. We have asked for the consultation to be withdrawn due to the detrimental nature of the policy and hope that our concerns will be recognised and considered.

Imkaan does not agree with the principles of the guidance. The principles provide conflicting and confusing messages, which will be damaging to both specialist BAMER third sector organisations and the communities which they serve.

Imkaan has a number of concerns about the guidance, in particular:

Its focus and undue emphasis on BAMER groups as contributing to a lack of cohesion.

A concern that the policy will instead reverse the principles of cohesion by cutting and questioning the role of key community-based organisations that already play an active role in tackling inequalities, building communities as well as empowering marginalised communities with the tools and confidence to become active participants in wider society.

In reality, cohesion, shared values and belonging can only be achieved through a broader analysis of societal inequalities such as unemployment, racism, poverty, education.

Although the guidance states that domestic violence organisations should not be considered as part of the Cohesion criteria because of the nature of the work they do we feel that the Cohesion agenda will add further pressure to groups who are already struggling to maintain their specialism because of a move towards mainstreaming domestic violence services and the commissioning of domestic violence services to large scale generic housing organisations and voluntary sector providers. We are also aware that some Local Authorities and other funders are clearly using the principles of Cohesion to guide their funding criteria and in turn question the need for dedicated BAMER services.

The guidance will have a detrimental impact on all targeted services that support marginalised needs and communities. Importantly, local third sector organisations need to be involved in identifying and addressing local needs

Essentially, commissioners need to undertake and develop robust equalities assessments to identify gaps in service delivery and new and emerging areas of need.

Funders do not always have the correct information to make considerations as part of their decision-making process in an effective way. Through our experience we have found that funders and commissioners lack knowledge on the specific needs of local communities. Mainstream services are still reliant on the specialist voluntary sector in terms of identifying and responding to needs. Importantly, local third sector organisations need to be involved in identifying and addressing local needs

Primarily grant funding schemes and need to be maintained and not dictated by the cohesion agenda to ensure that small voluntary sector groups are supported and sustained.

Imkaan also sent a model letter to refuges in June 2008 to send to MP’s. , If you do not have this template and require one, please let the Imkaan office know. Please also inform Rapinder if you have had any responses to the letter you have sent.
Imkaan will continue to lobby against the introduction of the Cohesion guidance. If you are experiencing any difficulties because of local authority cohesion strategies please keep us informed.

Imkaan is also holding an in-depth public law training workshop in August 2008 as follow-up to the funding and commissioning training that took place in May 2008. The workshop will help groups to access direct advice and information on the role of equalities impact assessments and gender equality duties and how this can be used to challenge decisions.

11 July 08

EARLY DAY MOTION CAMPAIGN UP-DATE

EDM petition

An Early Day Motion was tabled by Linda Riordan MP in recognition of the need for specialist housing and support services for BAMER women and children experiencing violence including those women who are vulnerable because of the no recourse to public funds rule.

EDM 693 which has gathered over 107 signatures and over 50 people attended the public meeting at Portcullis House held in February 2008. See link below:

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=34848&SESSION=891
In light of the support we have received we are very keen to take these issues forward as part of a Westminster Hall debate. We are now inviting MP’s to apply for an adjournment debate.

Since the EDM, we have continued to observe what is happening locally and we are alarmed to find that we only have 50% of the specialist BAMER services nationally that existed a few years ago. This is clearly leaving fewer avenues of support for BAMER women and children who desperately need access to culturally-specific services. We were recently asked to provide evidence at the Home Affairs Select Committee on the need for specialist services and we are pleased that the final report recognises a lack of funding towards refuge provision, the need for dedicated BAMER services and an overemphasis on criminal justice interventions however our concern is that this is not being borne out on a local level because local commissioning decisions continue to be influenced by the cohesion guidance, cost-cutting exercises and a lack of recognition and understanding about the additional barriers that BAMER women and children face.

It is critical to continue lobbying and spreading the word to your service stakeholders and personal contacts so that they can do the same.

11 July 08

IMKAAN TRAINING SEMINAR – SURVIVING AND COMMISSIONING: MANAGING THE NEW FUNDING LANDSCAPE

The “Surviving and Commissioning” training seminar took place on the 16^th May 08’ at the comfortable venue of Garden Court Chambers in central London. Organising and marketing this event was quite a challenge because we were also delivering another training seminar, “In Search of Solutions” the week after and there were a few glitches such as public transport and the noisy air conditioning. Nevertheless, the day itself was a great success with a good amount of interest from member groups. 17 groups from across the UK were represented at the training.

The training seminar focused on how groups can manage the change in local authority funding and commissioning of local services and how this is impacting specialist domestic violence service provision for Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee (BAMER) women and children.

We had the support and expertise of 5 fantastic speakers who presented on a panel. They were Dipti Morjaria, Commissioner for Children and Mental Health Services in Newham, John Reading, Director of Civis Consultancy, Louise Whitfield, Project Solicitor of Public Law Project, Tania Pouwhare, Head of Policy at Women’s Resource Centre and Priya Chopra, Project Coordinator of Saheli Project in Manchester. Although we approached two Supporting People teams to present at this event, they were unable to participate. We would like to thank all the panel for their sharing their time and imparting their knowledge. Special thanks to Priya for volunteering at the last minute.

Sumanta Roy, Imkaan’s Locum Director introduced the seminar and explained where Imkaan present funding situation. Each of the speakers took Questions and Answers following their presentations.

We began with Dipti Morjaria who is currently a CAMHS commissioning manager and has previous experience in delivering a service from an Asian Women’s Refuge. Dipti took the audience through her journey, and advised us about the things that commissioners look for in services that are bidding for a tender.
Dipti outlined the processes of commissioning and what commissioners look for from 3^rd sector organisations. She pointed out that voluntary organisations have the advantage of a greater reach and trust of vulnerable communities and commissioners need this specialist expertise when looking to consult with these communities and develop service provision and funding. So Dipti encouraged all groups at the training to take a pro-active stance, work out project strategies and business plans and take the initiative in presenting these to commissioners.

John Reading’s consultancy, CIVIS specialises in social care, housing and community regeneration. John brought to the day some background about CIVIS and a wealth of experience about Supporting People and the Commissioning process. John provided a much needed overview and pointers to how services could strategically plan.
John shared his expertise of Supporting People and commissioning processes. John outlined the movement towards “super-providers” and consequent threats to smaller organisations in terms of cuts to funding, merging or decommissioning. He then talked through strategies that would be particularly useful to small, BAMER groups in trying to sustain services through service reviews, value for money demands and quality assessments, partnership work, fundraising. John gave examples of groups working in equitable partnerships

As the Project Solicitor, Louise Whitfield outlined the work of Public Law Project (PLP); casework, advice, training and policy work regarding public law issues. Louise’s special interest is in voluntary sector organisations and disputes with public body funders, including the equality duties and the impact they are currently having on the sector and service provision. Louise highlighted the current project, “Empowering the Voluntary Sector”. She also talked about PLP’s work with Southall Black Sisters and Voice for Change England. There were many questions and much note-taking in the audience as Louise was presenting material that is new to members and gave groups an outline of Public Law that would assist them in challenging poor decision making by local authorities that would adversely affect their services. In particular, Louise mentioned using the Compact, the code of conduct between local authority and 3^rd sector organisations and the two pieces of statutory legislation, Gender Equality Duty and Race Equality Duty with their requirement of local authorities to carry out an impact assessment in terms of gender and race when making decisions about service provision.

Tania Pouwhare is the Head of Policy at the Women’s Resource Centre (WRC). Tania’s background is in gender equality and prior to moving to the UK, she worked as a policy adviser at the national office of Women’s Refuge in New Zealand. She began with highlighting WRC’s current projects: the Crisis and Rape Campaign, the No Recourse Campaign and the Single Group Campaign. She then went on to present a lot of useful facts and statistics related to the need for gendered services. Tania ended her slot with a case study, giving step-by-step information on how WRC managed to sustain their project despite being challenged on the need for women-only services.

Priya Chopra is the Project Coordinator of Saheli Asian Women’s Project and Hosla Asian Women’s Outreach Project in Manchester. Saheli has been supporting Asian women and children who are escaping domestic abuse for over 30 years.
Saheli has partnered a number of organisations working to ensure that the voice of Asian women reaches policy makers and recently has been involved in research funded by Oxfam UK Poverty Programme to look at the poverty and destitution faced by Asian women who have no recourse to public funds and are experiencing domestic abuse. Priya and her colleagues have successfully navigated Saheli Manchester through a threat of merger with generic services or decommissioning resulting from a strategic review of services by Manchester City Council. Priya provided members with a successful case example in Saheli’s fight to maintain independence and sustain services through this period of changes in the funding landscape.

In summing up the morning, Anjum Mouj, Imkaan’s Development Officer said,
“We need to get commissioners on our side; we need to get our voices heard! Most commissioners haven’t ever worked in the voluntary sector so they don’t know how important our services are.”

Imkaan received great feedback from members who all found the training very useful and timely. In particular, groups requested more information from Public Law Project to improve their legal knowledge and in response Imkaan will be working with Louise to set up training workshop about using public law and gender equality duty to challenge public bodies, e.g. the local council. The participants also found the information about the commissioning processes useful. Members requested that future trainings take place further North of UK.

The training seminar finished here but after lunch a network meeting took place for Imkaan members.
At this meeting it was agreed that Imkaan would organise a specific training by the Public Law Project, which is now scheduled for the 1^st of August 2008, it was also agreed that Imkaan would set up a meeting with the independent London BAMER Refuges and this took place at the end of June where we discussed the future of the sector and Imkaan’s Capacity Building for these groups and the meeting discussed the issue if individual budgets on the sector, Imkaan will develop training around this issue.

Imkaan was also asked to arrange a meeting with SBS, WRC, Women’s Aid, GDVLP and refuge, this was arranged for the 7^th of July and the outcomes of the meeting are that we develop a good practice charter with regards to funding and hold a public meeting to discuss the issues that are impacting on BAMER and specialist groups. The meeting also discussed the importance of the right to self organise and the need for independent BAMER groups and looked at the importance of not undermining or attempting to take over such groups by larger agencies.