THANKS to funding support from the Fermanagh and Omagh Policing and Community Safety Partnership (PCSP), Fermanagh Women’s Aid, in partnership with Omagh Women’s Aid and the PSNI, are now able to extend their domestic abuse and violence awareness training programme to businesses across the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council area.

The ‘In Safe Hands’ programme had previously been offered to salons and pharmacies in the Enniskillen area, but now due to PCSP funding, Fermanagh Women’s Aid are able to open the project up to other businesses across Fermanagh and Omagh, including banks.

Fermanagh Women’s Aid will be the lead organisation in this project, with its Training Coordinator, Michelle Alonso, delivering the domestic abuse and violence awareness sessions, including providing an understanding of services available at Fermanagh Women’s Aid.

Speaking about the upcoming sessions and how the programme can now be opened up to different sectors in Fermanagh and Omagh due to the provision of funding from the PCSP, Michelle said: “Due to demand, we’ve now got funding [from the PCSP] to open this out to all of Fermanagh and Omagh, and a lot more businesses that we weren’t able to [facilitate] beforehand.”

She went on to explain that alongside the training for salons and pharmacies, they are reaching out to target banks for the first time.

“We’ve never done anything with the banks before, so that’s going to be a big plus as we have had bank staff say that they have been aware of, or have seen what they have thought were examples of, what could be domestic abuse cases, in the form of financial control.

“So we’re going to be targeting the banks and doing a lot of work on financial control and how that would manifest itself to them; what are the signs,” she said.

A promotional video for the training is to be launched imminently to encourage businesses in the area to apply if they believe training in domestic abuse and violence awareness could benefit their staff and, subsequently, their customers.

Michelle added: “This is open to any business, any employer, any employment sector that feel that they would be interested in learning more about this issue that may be affecting their staff, or people who are entering their premises.”

Starting in September, there will be 12 dates that the training will take place on, with each date allocated to a particular sector.

“We have one date for salons, then the next week it’ll be the banks, the following week will be the pharmacies, and then there will be an open session for any business to come and sit in on that one,” said Michelle.

To deliver the project, Fermanagh Women’s Aid will partner with a representative from the PSNI, who will attend each session in Fermanagh and Omagh, to enable participants to increase their knowledge on the role of the police in supporting and protecting women and children who experience domestic violence, and improve their confidence in the PSNI.

Women’s Aid NI have a joint working protocol with the PSNI. This partnership aims to provide an effective coordinated inter-agency response to support women and children who experience domestic violence, improving women’s confidence and their capacity to access and engage with the civil and criminal justice system.

Talking about the PCSP’s funding contribution, Councillor Keith Elliott, Chairperson of Fermanagh and Omagh PCSP, said: “Domestic abuse is one of the key priorities for the PCSP and we are pleased that we can fund the ‘In Safe Hands’ project.

“We have a long history of working with Fermanagh Women’s Aid and Omagh Women’s Aid to deliver targeted supports in the district, and having recently participated in the training myself, I can recommend it to others.”

As Training Coordinator, Michelle will also work in conjunction with Omagh Women’s Aid to deliver domestic abuse and violence awareness sessions in the Omagh area.

Omagh Women’s Aid will be actively involved in the delivery of the project by providing preparation support and local input of the services available.