The Female Voice in Violence project assesses the impact of serious youth violence, gangs and serious group offending on women and girls. ROTA achieves this by:
- Addressing the policy context of violence against women and girls, and serious youth violence, at a national, regional and local level
- Assessing the capacity of the third and statutory sector to respond to the needs of gang affected women and girls.
The project objectives are met via two main arms:
- The Female Voice in Violence Coalition
- The Female Voice in Violence Research Programme
We work directly with service users to collect our evidence – here is a quote from mother who recently took part in one of our focus groups:
"I agreed to take part in one of the focus groups for the 'Female Voice in Violence' project, because as the mother of a teenage son who is involved with gangs, I had a lot of concerns and experiences that I wanted to share. As my son is often in and around gangs, I fear for his life almost on a daily basis and I find it a very difficult subject to discuss, particularly with the police, YOT teams and similar agencies as I get the impression that they don't really care or understand what we are going through and that we are stigmatised by them. However, Carlene and the ROTA team really seemed to understand and genuinely care and more importantly I felt that that they wanted to help us and our children who are involved, often reluctantly, in gangs. Some of the issues raised by Carlene or panel members were issues that some of us had not considered before which allowed us to question some of our assumptions, to consider other perspectives and to learn from each other. Overall, we all felt that it had been a useful and positive experience and it was refreshing to be given the opportunity to have my voice heard."
Mother, Female Voice in Violence Project, ROTA
For more information on Female Voice in Violence Project, please contact Rahana Mohammed, Head of Policy.
