Each morning I come to work at our West London Women’s Centre – it’s designed to be as welcoming to clients as possible, so we’ve got art on the walls made by former service users, a little kitchen area for making teas and coffees, and a washing machine and dryer for any woman that needs them.
I try to make some time in the morning to chat to my colleagues before we all get stuck into our work. It’s important to build those relationships. Doing so makes it easier to ask for help, and it’s crucial to have someone to have a debrief with when an appointment has been stressful or a service you need is unresponsive.
My role is to provide support to women who’ve been to prison or are currently on probation with their rehabilitation into the community. We also have a pathway where women who want our help but have finished with probation can refer themselves to us directly.
Once I’m at my desk, I start responding to my emails, as I don’t like to be distracted by them when I’m in meetings. After that, I’ll make my first calls of the day. Often the women we work with have been contacted by several services and received inconsistent support after that initial call. This can make them suspicious or hesitant to engage with more people, so I always call to introduce myself, give them a chance to ask questions about the service, and explain the parameters of what I do.
My appointments with clients can be either over the phone or in person – generally, clients prefer telephone appointments given the cost of travel and the size of London. However, for sessions involving housing applications or debt paperwork, clients usually come into the Women’s Centre to make use of the reliable internet and access a PC. Visiting the Women’s Centre also allows clients to access our clothing and hygiene donations, which is a very nice perk! If the Women’s Centre is too far away, I go and meet clients in the community, at a library or a coffee shop. Sometimes I meet women at their probation office, so they don’t have to make multiple trips to see the professionals involved in their case.
I normally hold a caseload of between thirty and forty women, and as soon as a case is closed a new one is referred in. The rate of calls means that it’s very easy to fall behind on admin if you’re not careful! Every session I complete with a woman must be carefully recorded because the work she does with me can contribute towards the completion of her sentence. Once my introductory calls are done, and the notes recorded, I move onto the day’s more gnarly business.
The women I work with have very varied support needs. Sometimes they are struggling with social isolation and need someone to talk to and help rebuild their confidence after serving their sentence. Sometimes there are issues around homelessness, addiction, or child custody arrangements.
Take Susan, for example – she just got out of prison, and her children are in ‘kinship care’ being looked after by an aunt and uncle Susan has no contact with. She recognises that they are better off there right now, but she still wants to reach out to them and try and reestablish a connection.
I then ring Annie, who I have been working with for about a year. We are trying to get her moved out of a house of multiple occupancy (HMO) where she was being stalked and harassed by a man she knew when she was a sex worker. Although the council had moved her once already, it was to another mixed- sex HMO in the same area, so the problem persisted. Now, however, we have made some progress and got a supportive letter from the detective investigating the harassment, stating the importance of moving her out of the area.
My casework that day involved helping Annie gather all the documents she would need to provide to the housing department, including bank statements, benefits statements, a copy of her passport and the tenancy agreement her landlord had been incredibly reluctant to supply. Cases which involve housing are notoriously difficult because of the scarcity of affordable housing in London, the lack of communication between councils, and increasingly frequent recourse to an exploitative private rented sector.
Later in the day, I might have a multi-agency meeting. These are generally reserved for more complex cases where there are a lot of professionals involved; most frequently, I have seen them called for cases involving children, domestic violence, or a history of violent offending.
It is often difficult to get all the professionals involved in a case on the call, and non-attendance can sometimes feel a bit weaponised, especially when you are trying to get answers about the actions taken by the other professionals. The pressure on social housing stock in London means that housing is often the sticking point when trying to find solutions for a client. All the professionals involved can agree that a move is necessary, but it is often very difficult to persuade councils to take that step if a client is not at an immediate crisis point.
Of course, the aim of professionals like myself is, in an ideal world, to stop things escalating to a crisis point, so this can occasionally be very frustrating. However, usually I enjoy these multi-agency meetings – they’re often the most productive way of resolving any conflicts on how best to progress with a case. They allow me to connect with other professionals and make use of their skills and perspectives, which almost always gets us to a resolution faster.
An awful lot of this behind the scenes wrangling goes into almost all of my casework wins – the accommodation found, the therapy booked in, the course enrolled on. Sometimes, if I think a client would benefit from more specialist interventions, I will complete a referral so she can access support from one of our partner agencies, such as Women’s Trust counselling and Housing for Women. I also support clients’ engagement with Women’s Centre groups, including art, yoga and the occasional coffee morning. Social isolation is a huge problem for most of the women I work with, and these groups aim to provide relaxed social interaction in an informal, non-institutional setting very different from prison or probation.
I often wish there was more I could offer the women I work with; that I could provide them with the job they’re searching for, the flat they need, or an appointment with a specialist about their sexual trauma or PTSD. But the real privilege of this work is that, even when you don’t have the resources or the expertise to provide solutions directly, you can help women build the skills and confidence they will need to navigate those issues long after their case has been closed to you. You model persistence, in the hope that it will show people that vulnerable women cannot just be ignored; you model reliability, so that your client learns that there are professionals who are on their side; and, every day, the women I support model the importance of a sense of humour, determination, and a willingness to change.