Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust is backing the fight against domestic abuse – with an extra three-year grant of up to £33,659 to New Heights charity.
The charitable organisation provides support services for domestic abuse victims in North Birmingham including Sutton Coldfield, and the new funding is set to allow its free, specialist, domestic abuse services to continue until 2025.
With the current cost of living crisis, the demand for domestic abuse services is at an all-time high, with new research revealing that one in four women will suffer some form of domestic abuse in their lifetime.
New Heights was founded in 2004, began delivering support to victims of domestic abuse from 2012 and over the past decade has pushed to ensure that the needs of vulnerable people in the Erdington and Sutton Coldfield constituencies are met. The charity is run by a team of around 100 volunteers, a small staff team and twelve elected trustees.
In 2019, New Heights was awarded its first three-year grant by Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust (SCCT) to help in supporting individual and group therapy sessions. After a successful three years, supported by the Trust’s grant, New Heights re-approached the Trust last October following which it was awarded its second grant.
The grant has allowed the charity to continue to provide a wide variety of discreet support services including a Domestic Abuse Counselling Service, The New Heights Community Café, training for volunteers and advisors and a telephone ‘befriending’ service.
The benefits of the Trust’s grant, along with the hard work of the New Heights’ team, have seen a total of 895 domestic abuse survivors provided with free support services, 1,667 counselling sessions delivered between May 2021 and April 2022 and 751 clients provided with one-off, advice, support and information.
Sean Flynn, New Heights chair, said: “With support from the Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust, we have been able to expand the delivery of free counselling support to probably the most vulnerable people in Sutton Coldfield – those who are victims of physical, emotional, sexual, financial abuse and/or coercive control.
“It’s so important we enable them to get to a position where they see themselves as survivors rather than victims of domestic abuse.”
Clare Haines, grants manager at Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust, added: “We are so pleased to announce that we have awarded New Heights an additional grant for the next three years to help financially support the incremental services that they deliver to domestic abuse survivors across North Birmingham.
“With new research revealing that domestic abuse referrals are rising, the Trust believes that it’s vital to continue to support charities, such as New Heights, which are helping to support the individuals that need it in the borough of Sutton Coldfield.”
