Working with a Domestic Abuse Recovery Practitioner

For the past month I have had some amazing opportunities while working alongside Kate, one of the Domestic Abuse Recovery Practitioner’s (DARP) at the SAFE charity. She has allowed me to help with her case load and has given me opportunities to work one-on-one with various different families working with the charity.

After the seedlings course over the Easter Holidays, I met up with Sasha (the lady who organises the volunteers at SAFE) as she wanted to discuss a possible job role for me at the charity. I was so excited about this as she was describing a role as a young persons counsellor where I would work with older children in their teens. This is the experience I have really been looking for as ideally this is the age group I have found I most prefer working with. She also gave me various resources to read that the charity to use and also some online training to complete. Through this reading and online training I gained a much better understanding of the different roles the team members play at the charity and the many different ways domestic abuse can affect a person and their family. I also met up with Kate after my meeting with Sasha to discuss ways for me to get my placement hours in before the summer. Here, we discussed 3 possible families I could help give support to over the next few months. We planned for me to go and visit one child at their primary school on the Wednesday (8/05/19) who attended the Seedlings group over the Easter Holidays and another two children, brother and sister, on the friday(10/5/19) who I meet previously at the SAFE charity office. I went in just to introduce myself to their teachers and the teams working with them at school with Kate as Kate may not be able to attend every session and ideally I would be taking over these visits for her so she can assist other families as there are many families waiting for support from the charity. I had 30-45 min sessions with each of the children just so they could take time out of their day to have some 1-1 time in a confidential and safe space so if they have anything that is bother they can talk about it or if they just want to play or have a nice chat, whatever they want. All of the sessions proved so useful as it gave me an insight into what schools are doing regarding support to these families and monitoring the children. It was really nice to see how much care and support the teachers around these children had for them. I am really excited to meet them again and continue supporting these children. I am also hoping to meeting up with one of the children’s little sister as I am hoping I can provide childcare for her while the olde sister can have 1-1 sessions with her mum with the charity.(READING and TRAINING = 6hrs, MEETINGS@SAFE = 2hrs, MEETINGS@SCHOOLS = 4hrs) = 12hrs

TOTAL HOURS COMPLETED: 30hrs

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