Our North West Health Improvement Team has been working in partnership with Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis (GCRC) to provide outreach support to women and girls in the north of the city.

The outreach idea was introduced in response to low referral rates to GCRC in the north east and north west of Glasgow. 

The low referral rates are due to complex barriers to engagement in the area, including cultural stigma, language and communication blocks, fear of disclosure and wider issues such as poverty, generational abuse and violence. 

Additionally, it was identified that travelling to the city centre posed as a barrier and resulted in only 3.5% of referrals to GCRC coming from the north of Glasgow. 

In response to this, Health Improvement staff in the North West and North East utilised their community knowledge to identify local partner organisations who were available to host a GCRC outreach worker once a month. 

This created a variety of outreach drop-in services to support women and girls to access services in the north of the city. 

Currently, there are seven new locations across the north east and north west where women and girls (aged 13 and older) can access support and one-to-one sessions with a support worker. 

The service is for any woman/girl who has experienced sexual violence at any stage of her life to feel supported. The sessions also welcome friends and family of survivors. 

The aim of this new project is to mitigate the barriers women or girls might face in accessing sexual violence supports. 

The new drop-in service is available in Drumchapel, Maryhill, Possilpark, Calton, Shettleston and Easterhouse. 

Fiona Sinclair, North East Health Improvement Practitioner, said: “We’re thankful to our community partners for opening their doors to this new service and supporting this important work. By having local outreach services spread across the north of the city, we hope that more survivors will access whatever support they need and want.”

For further information please contact: 
 
Fiona.Sinclair3@ggc.scot.nhs.uk 
(North East Health Improvement team) 

Mhairi.Shepherd@ggc.scot.nhs.uk 
(North West Health Improvement team)