Domestic Abuse Commissioner of England and Wales' Services Roundtable Event at the Home Office: Service Provision. The experience of accessing specialist support services and ideas for change

This event constituted a round table of 10 invited presenters that took place at the Home Office. The invitation was from Dame Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner of England and Wales.

Dr Beverley Gilbert made a presentation contribution discussing service provision for disabled survivors of domestic abuse and the positive potential of peer mentoring within community located, peer support groups.

A model of women's peer mentoring practice for multiple and complex disadvantage was presented by Beverley to Ministers at the round table for consideration and funding potential in communities. Ministers were Jess Phillips (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls), Alex Davies-Jones (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Victims) and Josh MacAlister (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families). This model was created through research undertaken within Beverley's PhD thesis and a model of ethical practice was created when working alongside women surviving domestic abuse across England. Such women had longer term, unmet need for support required for recovery from trauma and abuse.

Beverley suggested to Ministers that 'by and for' domestic abuse support services should be funded to enable this specialist work to continue, not just for disabled or multiply disadvantaged women, but for a range of survivor groups requiring more specialist service provision to survive trauma.