A domestic abuse survivor asked Cheshire East councillors how they slept at night knowing lives could be lost and families torn apart because it was axing funding for a vital support charity, writes Belinda Ryan.
Abi Blake was one of three survivors who turned up at the meeting of the full council to speak against the council’s decision to axe its funding for My CWA (Cheshire Without Abuse) at the end of next month.
Ms Blake told the meeting: “Cheshire East say supporting victims of domestic abuse is a priority, yet you’ve not once reached out to My CWA survivors about your funding withdrawal.
“Cheshire East also says the council provides robust in-house services, yet you acknowledge no other provider, other than My CWA, who offer the holistic scale of services currently on offer to Cheshire East residents.”
She said the council’s own 2023-27 high level business case and quality impact assessment report, says removing a specialist provider would be detrimental “and that ending My CWA’s contract would save most going forward, but that the potential risk to the local community and economic impact on other services is going to increase, ie local authorities, police, social care and health”.
Ms Blake told the council: “This isn’t about budgets, it’s about lives.
“Your assessment warns of increased female homicides and suicides, and that young women and children will be at greater risk without My CWA services.
“How do you justify, let alone sleep at night, knowing you’ve denied sparing £500,000 to save precious lives?
“Families are going to be ripped apart. Children and adults won’t survive under this pressure, and I therefore urge Cheshire East to reconsider its budget decisions.
“This is your choice, and the devastating consequences will be on Cheshire East.”
Another survivor told the meeting she had been helped by CWA over the past 25 years.
“I don’t know if I’d be here today if I didn’t have the help that we had,” she said.
“I can’t stress that there’s more people this is happening to in the world, and we need these kind of people to be there.”
Cllr Carol Bulman (Middlewich, Lab), chair of the children and families committee, said: “My CWA have had a contract with Cheshire East Council for safe accommodation, alongside a contractual number of interventions to support standard medium risk perpetrators, adult victims and children.”
She said the contract had been due to end in March 2024 and had been extended for a year.
“All partners were aware the extension was in place to allow for the new domestic abuse strategy to be developed in the light of gaps in provision highlighted by an extensive needs assessment commissioned during 2023,” said Cllr Bulman.
Council leader Nick Mannion (Lab) said: “Thank you to those people who came today to share what was clearly such painful testimony of their experiences of domestic violence.
“I have repeatedly challenged, scrutinised and sought reassurance from our officers the changes that will come in from the beginning of April this year will continue to provide the best service for victims and the families of victims of domestic violence.”
(Image courtesy of PDR Photography)
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