Warwick sexual abuse survivors' charity achieves a national first

Safeline, a Warwick based charity providing support to anyone affected by sexual abuse and rape, has become the first all-gender sexual abuse service in the UK to achieve the Male Service Standards.
Helping survivors of sexual abuse and rapeHelping survivors of sexual abuse and rape
Helping survivors of sexual abuse and rape

The charity, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, submitted a wealth of evidence to independent accreditors who demonstrated it’s ability to meet 24 separate quality standards across for domains - leadership and governance, access and engagement, service delivery and outcomes and evaluation.

Managed by LimeCulture Community Interest Company (CIC), the 12-month process ended with a site visit from the accreditors to Safeline where they met with trustees, staff and service users, all to further prove the quality of service.

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Safeline’s head of clinical services, Liz Welsh, said: “We understand it can be hard for male survivors to trust professionals and services.

“We have always been really confident in our work but this accreditation mark proves our services have been independently assessed and quality assured - it shows we have the needs of male survivors at the very heart of what we do and hope this gives further assurances to men making the very brave decision to contact us for support.”

Head of Safeline’s Helpline and Online service, Liz Harrison, added: “We are incredibly proud of this achievement and to be recognised as a quality service in our 25th year is particularly rewarding. We wish to thank LimeCulture for providing a robust and challenging accreditation process which highlights the support that male survivors of sexual violence should be able to access and huge thanks to our team and service users for their support and vision.”

Safeline is survivor-led charity, based in Warwickshire providing a range of quality assured support services to anyone affected by sexual abuse and rape.

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Established in 1994, Safeline works to prevent sexual abuse and to support those affected in their recovery.

This includes working with people whose mental health issues (manifesting for example as self-harming) suggest they may be vulnerable to abuse. The organisation provides counselling (face-to-face/online/phone) and creative therapies to adults and children and their families affected by abuse and education and prevention programmes to protect children at risk of sexual abuse.

It operates the national helpline and online service for male survivors of abuse, the Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (ISVA) service which specifically supports individuals to both report to the police and throughout the investigation and court process and also provides training to professionals and parents to help support and protect people at risk of or affected by sexual abuse.