Membership Spotlight highlights the work of our member organisations and outlines how other individuals and NGOs can support them. Together is shining a light on one of our newest members which is the Forth Valley Rape Crisis Centre.

1. Tell us about the work of your organisation in Scotland

At the Forth Valley Rape Crisis Centre, we provide free & confidential information, advocacy and support to anyone, any gender, aged 13+ affected by any form of sexual violence. We opened in 2016 and are one of 16 local rape crisis centres across the whole of Scotland, we cover Falkirk, Clackmannanshire and Stirling.

At our centre, we take a holistic approach to healing from trauma, and because of that have different roles within the centre. Firstly, we have support workers – these are all trained counsellors who provide 16 weeks of emotional support to survivors, and some have particular expertise such as a couples counselling, substance issues and learning disabilities. We are an incredibly innovative centre, as it’s one of our values, and to this we have a trauma informed massage therapist. We know trauma is held in the body, and for a lot of survivors this key to their healing. Additionally, we have our advocacy workers, these are workers specifically trained to help survivors who are thinking about or are already going through the criminal justice process. We understand how difficult it can be to report what has happened, our advocacy workers can offer practical and emotional support. One of our organisational goals is to end sexual violence, we work to do this through our prevention programme. These are workshops delivered to young people in schools & community settings, around 5 key topics: power, consent, understanding sexual violence, online sexual violence and pornography.

2. What projects are you currently working on?

Currently, our prevention worker is ensuring that all young people have the right to essential prevention education, including those with learning disabilities and additional support needs (ASN). Children with learning disabilities are 10-12 times more likely to experience sexual harm. We became increasingly aware that most pupils with ASNs did not attend some classes (they were in a base or other room). Majority of the time, their RSHP education was completely missed. Some young people did not know their own private body part names, or what sex was. All young people deserve access to the education that can keep them safe & protected from sexual violence, especially those who are more vulnerable.

To make this right, our prevention worker collaborated with Forth Valley NHS learning disability team to refresh the old ‘No More!’ prevention pack, which was left behind at Rape Crisis Scotland due to funding loss. After updating the materials, activities, and resources – we then evaluated them in our local ASN school units and adult learning disability community groups. The results, feedback, and data from this, we then put into a report to take to Rape Crisis Scotland – to urge them to put this on the agenda and hold this nationally. This would mean that every prevention worker across all local authorities would have a responsibility to take this on as part of their job, not just mainstream young people.

Currently, we are in the process of doing a national pilot with 5 other local authority schools and prevention workers, assessing these updated materials. From this, we will have a solid prevention programme ready to go, which reflects our networks national standards and the diverse young people we support.

3. How do you support children and families to learn about their rights?

We strive to ensure that children and families understand their rights and how to exercise them to achieve justice. We do this in a variety of ways.

Provide supportive spaces for children and families to learn and talk about their rights in the context of sex and relationships.

Each year our Prevention Worker delivers 200 workshops to 3,879 young people across Stirling, Falkirk and Clackmannanshire. The workshops are safe learning spaces for young people to learn about their rights in sex and relationships. Allowing them to exercise their rights to share their thoughts freely and talk about what issues they feel are affecting them.

“[the facilitator] made it feel like a safe space to voice my opinion, and I personally felt like I could talk to her about anything” – Girl, 15

Every year, we work in partnership with Stirling Council (People & Wellbeing Team) to welcome new Scots, delivering workshops as part of the ‘Empowering Women’ course for female refugees. Our workshop focuses on ‘assertiveness’, having conversations about power, respect, gender stereotypes and why women might find it hard to say what they need & want. Feedback from participants reference that after the workshops they felt more confident advocating for their needs and rights.

Last year, following the workshop, the participants decided they wanted to be part of their children’s relationship education. They asked us to deliver a series of workshops with their kids, around gender & equality, staying safe online and consent. For us, it felt like the women were putting assertiveness and rights into action, we co-produced the activities for their children and the parents joined the workshops with an interpreter, so they could understand what their children thought and the conversations. These workshops taught the kids that they deserve to be safe from sexual abuse and protected from harm, regardless of status, language or religion.

Provide support to survivors of sexual violence who’s rights are not being respected.

Our advocacy team work with survivors who have reported or are thinking about reporting sexual violence to the police. We can educate them about their rights as victims of crime and their rights as witnesses if the case goes to court. We can also explain what is happening with their case and what to expect from the criminal justice process. Having more information and being able to understand what is happening often makes survivors feel more empowered and in control.

For young survivors it can be extra difficult to go through the criminal justice process, as their parents and other adults might make decisions on their behalf. We can explain things like child protection and safeguarding responsibilities to them and will always do our best to make sure their voice is heard, and their rights are respected when interacting with other adults – whether those adults are other professionals or their caretakers.

For further information visit their website.

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Would you like to find out further information about joining Together’s membership?

Are you a Together organisational member and would like to collaborate for a Membership Spotlight? Email: caitlin@togetherscotland.org.uk

Consultancy and Training

Together provides training and consultancy to organisations looking to strengthen how they support children’s human rights. 

For twenty-five years, Together has been helping organisations and individuals from a range of backgrounds and roles to improve their awareness and understanding of children’s human rights in practice. This has included work on the Skills and Knowledge project, which explores what professionals need to know and apply to be able to implement children’s human rights. 

The UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 will impact public bodies, private sector organisations and third sector organisations all over Scotland, as they look to further their work on children’s rights. Together can support organisations to identify situations in which they are already implementing children’s rights in practice, alongside how they can evolve their work using a Children’s Human Rights Approach. 

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