History
Cleveland Women’s Network is a partnership of the area’s leading voluntary and community organisations who work to help women and girls who are victims and survivors of domestic and or sexual violence and abuse. The partnership has social and charitable aims which are to:
- Collaboratively tackle inequalities and violence against women and girls in the Cleveland area.
- Bring together like minded voluntary and community sector member organisations to share intelligence and knowledge with the aim of improving all services for women and girls suffering violence in the area.
- To encourage and develop partnership working amongst all VCS member organisations for the support and provision for women and girls.
- To promote our unified activity and to share best practice with, partner networks and other organisations
If you are a victim of violence and or abuse you can contact one of our local members direct for advice and support, however in an emergency or if you are a victim of a crime please call the Police.
More information and advice can also be found on the national Women's Aid website here
Cleveland Women’s Network
The partnership network was established over 5 years ago to tackle inequalities and violence against women and girls in the Cleveland area. The network brings together leading Charites in the voluntary and community sector who engage and support women and girls who are victims of domestic and or sexual violence. More recently with the help of Tees Valley Community Foundation and The National Lottery they formalised their partnership and became a Community Interest Company with charitable aims.
Core activity of the Network is to improve the way services are delivered across Cleveland by working to address some of the barriers women and girls face in the way of abusive experiences and to give those victims a voice in the services that support them.
All charitable members of Cleveland Women's Network meet quarterly and confidentially share information about their organisations and any new service developments or gaps in service for Women and Girls suffering violence and abuse. These meetings also aim to improve the quality of service delivered for victims through the sharing of best practice and continuously identifying what is working and what is not.
Some 2 years ago all Cleveland Women's Network members worked in partnership to establish minimum quality standards of service delivery for victims, so that regardless of which organisation women access they can be assured they will receive the same standard of response and service. To our knowledge this is a first in the region and possibly in the country and has been introduced to ensure the equality of service and delivery standards across Cleveland.
Other work has included mapping the true scale of domestic violence in Cleveland in local communities and feeding information into local Commissioners and Regional and National forums, developing a Female Genital Mutilation routeway and bringing communities together so they can work and communicate more effectively.