The barriers survivors face may include having additional support needs around mental health, substance abuse, disability, or language. Women may have no recourse to public funds, with no access to other support because of their insecure immigration status, they may have large families, or families with boys over 14. There may be other barriers – e.g., not having credit to make the phone call to a refuge, high anxiety levels that mean they are unable to make calls themselves, or other barriers as this is not an exhaustive list. If you’re a Women’s Aid member service and you’d like to find out more about the referral criteria, you can review all of the barriers to support the team can help with as part of the referral process. 

A team of specialist domestic abuse practitioners receive referrals from Women’s Aid member services, and we conduct detailed monitoring and analysis of survivors’ experiences alongside this. Currently, all referrals accepted into the project come from Women’s Aid Member Services and all services showing on Routes to Support. The project is unable to accept direct referrals from Statutory Agencies.