Meet the team – Family Action and Atal y Fro

Family Action has teamed up with the charity Atal y Fro to deliver a new DVA service in Wales.

We’ll be working in partnership with this established DVA charity to run an early intervention programme. This partnership will bring together the agencies who need to be involved to construct and deliver an initial six-week ‘package’ for the whole family. It will work with the whole family; providing a service for couples who wish to stay together or separate amicably – providing one-to-one and group work for the victim, their partner and any children involved. It will also offer perinatal support across Wales with trained volunteer befrienders providing support to women in the community together with a family support service.

The service will also deliver the EPIC (Education, Prevention, Intervention in the Community) programme which uses restorative practice principles to run group workshops for everyone who has been affected by DVA, including offenders. This includes a programme for male perpetrators of domestic violence. This enables participants to identify and acknowledge their current / past abusive behaviour and use skills and strategies to make positive changes in their behaviour. This is done through conversation / individual and group exercises and practicing the skills and strategies taught on the programme.

It will run over 27 consecutive weeks on a weekly basis with each session lasting for approximately 2.5 hours.

Pictured above: Left to right is: Rebecca Arnold (South Wales Perinatal Coordinator), Lilly Walters (Project Administrator), Dawn Thomas (Project Manager), Miriam Merkova (DV Lead), Gurjit Kaur (Women’s Safety Worker)