MSP Awarded Lloyds INVEST Grant
The Male Survivors Partnership is delighetd to announce that Lloyds Bank Foundation for England & Wales, has awarded the partnership an £85,000 grant to develop quality standards for services for male survivors of sexual abuse, rape and sexual exploitation.
The two-year project, beginning May 2017 will see the development of new quality standards created and rolled out nationally across the UK. Crucially, the funding will also enable an accreditation process to sit along side the quality standards. This funding will be used to support up to 10 organisations to meet the quality standards and reach full accreditation by 2019.
In order to ensure that the male service standards are held independently of the MSP, they will be working in partnership with LimeCulture Community Interest Company (CIC), a leading national sexual violence training and development organisation to develop the standards.
Stephanie Reardon, Joint Chief Executive at Lime Culture said:
“This is a really exciting step forward for support services working with males who have experienced sexual violence”.
“With this funding, we will be doing a comprehensive review of existing service standards from around the world, consulting with experts in the field and listening to the views of males who have accessed support about what works. This will result in an agreed framework for services supporting males that will be rolled out across the UK.
“For males who have experienced sexual violence these new standards and the accreditation process that goes with them, will give a layer of reassurance about the quality of the services they are accessing at a time when they are feeling most vulnerable. They will have the knowledge that they will receive a nationally approved level of care and support – something they haven’t previously had.”
A two-year working plan is currently under development which will see 10 male survivor organistions and organistions supporting male survivors achieving acreditation and a plan for the following years.
Lime Culture’s Tom Leavesley, a survivor himself with expereince of using both male specific and gender inclusive services, will be managing the project and can be contacted on tom.leavesley@limeculture.co.uk