Covid-19 NOTICE

The Hampton Trust services have been adapted in response to Covid-19. We have withdrawn all face to face work to protect the health and wellbeing of staff and members of the public. Our offices in Ashurst will be fully closed from Monday 23^rd March until further notice and all staff have successfully transitioned to home working. We are conducting all internal and external meetings virtually. All our professional training has been cancelled until further notice and we are no longer able to deliver LINX or Hate Crime workshops in schools. Direct office lines have been diverted to mobiles phones staffed by members of the team, limiting disruption. We are continuing to maintain our victim and perpetrator services, and safeguarding, case/risk management and safety planning remain critical during this time.

Victims

The heightened risk of domestic abuse remains paramount and we will provide an enhanced service to victims who have (ex) partners engaged with our service. The ADAPT Integrated Victim Safety Service, conducted via telephone, is provided by our Domestic Abuse Safety Advisors. Risk assessment and safety planning will include additional information on how to manage periods of isolation with a perpetrator present. We fully appreciate the enormous amount of work being carried out across pan Hampshire by our partner agencies and we will do all we can to support them. The Hampton Trust Victim Safety Service will focus entirely on individuals who have current or ex partners referred to our perpetrator service

Perpetrators

Referral pathways for our perpetrator service will remain open. Assessments have been revised to include the impact of Covid-19. History taking, current context, static and dynamic risk factors will be assessed. There is little evidence to support robust change management via telephone. Instead engagement with perpetrators will have an emphasis on risk and ‘hooking in’ clients who may be showing levels of minimization, denial and blame. Safeguarding and risk management will remain priority when engaging perpetrators. We will discuss techniques and strategies for de-escalation in the short term, rather than long term behavioural and attitudinal change.  We do not intend to reduce our perpetrator service during this period. Whilst the service can no longer operate on a face to face basis we have highly skilled practitioners who are very familiar and able to use strategies to engage perpetrators using other platforms. We will not hesitate to make swift safeguarding decisions or engage police for tracking and disruption purposes should this be required. Covid-19 will not provide a smokescreen for perpetrators and our commitment to victim safety remains at the forefront of our work. Our standard business hours will be 9am – 5pm, however they will be flexible to meet client and professional demand.

Partner Agencies

We will continue to liaise closely with our referring agencies, particularly with Police, Social Care, Mash, HRDA, Victim Services and all other statutory and non-statutory services to provide a Perpetrator Support Line for Professionals. We can provide tips and advice on how to manage perpetrators they are currently aware of. This will include perpetrators who are engaging with services or targeting those we need to disrupt. We understand that face to face contact remains limited to services such as police and social care. Our referral pathways will remain open to all agencies and will be closely monitored to ensure we respond quickly.

Independent Sexual Violence Advisor

We currently deliver an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor Service available to adults and young people on the Isle of Wight. This service will revert to a telephone support service and will continue as normal. We understand that court cases lasting more than 3 days have been postponed so this will not impact on us being able to support clients through trials.

Project CARA

We deliver CARA workshops as a conditional caution in partnership with police forces across the UK. Due to these unprecedented circumstances some police forces have opted to temporarily cease the use of conditional cautions with an intervention. Other police forces are continuing to use CARA as a conditional caution and we are providing telephone sessions with an emphasis on risk management during times of isolation. We are receiving high levels of engagement.

WaDE

Hampshire Constabulary are no longer using conditional cautions with an intervention so the WaDE programme for female offenders has been temporarily suspended. For those women that we are already working with we are continuing to provide intensive telephone support

Project Gateway

We are continuing to liaise with our Gateway partners and with young adults already engaged on Gateway. Hampshire Constabulary have temporarily suspended this service.