Our Social Impact
SafeLives: Training family lawyers to help survivors of domestic abuse
SafeLives’ mission is to end domestic abuse for everyone and for good. The charity, a partner of the Charles Russell Speechlys Foundation, has four main areas of work: keeping families safe sooner; challenging perpetrators of domestic abuse to change; supporting people to live the lives they want to live after harm has happened; and trying to stop abuse before it happens.
In addition to campaigning to influence government policy, SafeLives also provides training to independent domestic violence advisers, police officers, social workers, corporate organisations and family lawyers.
“We hear from survivors all the time that the family courts are one of their biggest sources of frustration and trauma,” says Liz Thompson, Director of External Relations at SafeLives. “People don't always understand the dynamics of domestic abuse, so our job through our training is to make sure that anybody who comes into contact with somebody who either is experiencing, or has experienced, domestic abuse knows how they can best respond, where they can refer people on to and what support they can give.”
Securing funding
In addition to the Foundation providing financial support to the charity, which effectively funds one member of its public affairs team, Charles Russell Speechlys’ Family team worked with SafeLives to secure funding from the Legal Education Foundation and to support the development of a cultural change training programme aimed at Family Law practitioners.
“We've been working with the Firm on training family lawyers in helping them understand the dynamics of domestic abuse and how they should best respond to a victim they are working with,” says Liz. “In addition to doing some training with Charles Russell Speechlys lawyers, they’ve also helped us with office space to run the training and given us lots of advice and input as it has been developed.”
Jemimah Fleet, Knowledge Development Lawyer at Charles Russell Speechlys, was involved in the advisory group that helped SafeLives shape the training programme and is an associate trainer on it.
“For me, it’s a real privilege to be part of the training team,” says Jemimah. “The ethos of the training is almost a reframing of the way family lawyers approach cases where there are allegations of domestic abuse, based on the reports and the research SafeLives has undertaken with victims and survivors of domestic abuse, and their experience of the family court.”
Jemimah adds that the feedback from staff that undertook the course was overwhelmingly positive. One participant was Jamie Kennaugh, Partner, who advises on all areas of Family Law. “It was the most engaged I'd ever been in a course,” says Jamie. “I think it should be mandatory for all lawyers in this sphere. It was so impactful, helpful, thought-provoking and practical. It was absolutely brilliant.”
Liz describes the charity’s relationship with the Firm as “funding plus” and is keen to further strengthen bonds with Charles Russell Speechlys moving forward. “Obviously it’s great to get financial support from the Foundation, but we also get pro bono advice from the Firm and are currently exploring other ways in which they can help,” she says. “One of the reasons we love working with Charles Russell Speechlys is they’re a really great team full of enthusiasm and wise advice.”
“We love the people at the Foundation — they have been enormously helpful. And the pro bono work that the Firm has been able to support us with, whether that's providing practical advice on contracts or supporting us with advice on defamation, has been invaluable.”
Liz Thompson, Director of External Relations, SafeLives
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