Salford Women's Aid have updated their operational procedures in light of Covid-19.
Please see below for details of the Salford Independent Domestic Abuse Support Service (SIDASS) Operational procedure:
SIDASS will continue to provide the same advice and advocacy service. However, in light of the coronavirus pandemic we will be offering telephone support only.
To ensure safety for both our staff and clients (particularly those who have underlying health conditions), Face to face appointments are being suspended until further notice. This is not a big change to our service delivery as most of our client contact is via phone call.
All group work has been postponed until further notice due to the closure of the Women’s Centre and the government advising social distance.
The service will now be extending the support offered through the telephone helpline service into evenings and weekends.
The helpline extended hours will now be 1pm until 9pm Monday-Friday, Saturday 10-1pm, and Sunday 1-4pm.
We will be monitoring demand on the service.
We will provide SIDASS information packs electronically.
As per our normal procedure, we will provide our duty system whereby the duty worker will deal with all helpline calls and enquiries, requests for information and screen all referrals. We will be prioritising helpline calls which are from survivors.
The admin/case manager will check all referral inboxes and referrals will be processed as usual. We respond to all referrals within 48 hours of receiving.
Case manager/admin will triage all cases. Cases will be allocated to an IDVA in the same way.
Criminal court trials are currently being adjourned.
The family law solicitors who support our service are still available for emergency civil advice /injunctions.
We are providing some dedicated refuge space for Salford residents.
We will be providing emotional support where there is no practical intervention.
Team meetings and external meetings will be taking place by video call.
The IDVA’s are in the process of contacting all of their current clients to complete safety plans and to explain that we are now supporting over the phone only/email only. New clients will also be informed of this current way of working.
We will prioritise and provide regular updates to allocated Social workers who are supporting children on CP plans. We will give updates about what advice and support/safeguarding has been implemented on cases that are open to SIDASS.
We will be part of the MARAC exceptional delivery model and will be linking in daily with the CMT to safeguard the high risk cases.
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