Collaborative Approaches to Addressing Domestic and Sexual Violence among Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in Southampton: A Case Study of Yellow Door

Abstract

Domestic and sexual abuse have been in the academic discourse for quite some time. In recent years in the United Kingdom, the government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the charity sector have doubled their efforts to tackle this challenge through different approaches. One of these approaches is the establishment of specialist services. A case study of these specialist interventions is two advocacy services within a community-based domestic and sexual abuse charity in Southampton named Yellow Door (YD). In line with the specialist service approach (SSA), the diversity, inclusion and advocacy (DIA) service and the Black and minority ethnic Communities (BME) independent sexual violence advisory (ISVA) service were created to address the needs of the BME community. Through the adoption of the collaboration, prevention and education approach, these services support survivors from this community, professionals and community groups to encourage more disclosures and support clients holistically. Recommendations to encourage more reporting and better ways to improve the needs of clients from BME communities were proposed.

Keywords

• domestic and sexual violence
• BME
• Yellow Door
• prevention
• collaborative
• education