WE call on Scottish Ministers urgently to investigate the direction of their National Strategy for Survivors of Childhood Abuse, SurvivorScotland.
Current adult survivor strategy flies in the face of long-standing Government principles on opposing sexual violence, putting SurvivorScotland and its funding policy strongly at odds with Scottish Government strategy against rape and domestic abuse. We refer here not just to in-care survivors of childhood abuse, but also to the 80 per cent of adult survivors abused at home or in the community.
Adult survivor strategy is now wholly about care, treatment and personal outcomes. Survivors apply for help on their own, and heal on their own. We agree of course that all services, especially in health, need to become much more trauma-informed: survivors and their organisations, who have worked tirelessly for decades, have argued this vociferously. But treatment of post-traumatic problems is only one aspect of an adult survivor strategy.
Child abuse is not a disease, it is a crime. It is unthinkable that any political party at Holyrood, or any local authority, would make its priority on rape or domestic abuse the care of survivors as weak people with post-traumatic problems – a medical model, requiring “evidence-based interventions”. Interventions which now exclude the decades-long role of survivors supporting each other, finding their strength through collective support and action.
It is unthinkable that Government would support a policy where survivors of sexual abuse, people with wisdom and experience, now have no active role and agency in shaping Scottish strategy. Or that abuse prevention, awareness-raising by survivor groups and protection from abuse would fall off the agenda; and that proposals by survivor organisations for funding which helps them advocate for these things would no longer fit new funding criteria.
It is shameful that experienced third sector agencies supporting survivors are now treated as amateurish outfits, needing to get the basics of their whole organisation right before they have anything to teach.
This is unacceptable and unethical. SurvivorScotland strategy is now at odds with the original intention of this pioneering Scottish initiative. It was survivor-centred, working actively with survivors and their agencies in shaping it. We ask others working against sexual violence in Scotland to join us in pressing the Scottish Government to change the direction of SurvivorScotland.
We also ask for a wider debate on numerous other issues of concern about SurvivorScotland policies.
Sarah Nelson and Anne Macdonald, former professional advisers to SurvivorScotland; Ilene Easton, national prison manager Open Secret; Dawn Fyfe, Director Say Women; Sue Hampson and Irene Edgar, Directors, Safe to Say; Marley Hunter, 18 Plus; Jan MacLeod, Manager, Women’s Support Project; Laurie Matthew, Manager, Eighteen and Under; Janine Rennie, Chief Executive Open Secret; Dr Robert Eric Swanepoel, Writer; Kieran Watson, Co-ordinator Project No-1,
c/o 22 Seacraig Court, Newport on Tay, Fife.
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