Maze Project, Calderdale Women's Centre (Yorkshire)
The Ace pilot is known locally as the Maze Project and is based within the Calderdale Women's Centre in Halifax, West Yorkshire. Calderdale Women's Centre provides a range of services, adopts an holistic approach and is a one-stop shop – a resource for women to gain confidence and skills relevant to every aspect of their lives.
The Maze Project works with women who are experiencing domestic violence and who are not accessing support. The women will also have other issues that are negatively impacting on their lives such as housing, mental and emotional health ,financial problems and substance abuse resulting in social exclusion and/or physical isolation. The clients are referred to us by other agencies that are aware of the issues but have been unable to positively engage with them. Referring agencies include Children's Social Care Services, Health Visitors, midwifes, substance misuse workers, the Domestic Violence Support Team and probation officers.
The cases are co-worked enabling meetings to be held both in the community and at the women's home to facilitate clients' engagement. The Maze Project supports people to make positive change by identifying specific services, agencies and local resources and matching them to individual needs. It enables individuals to engage, navigate and commit to working in partnership.
Women may be choosing to stay in an abusive relationship and that decision may be a major factor in her not accessing support or engaging with agencies. A unique aspect of the Maze Project is that it can engage with abusive men. One of the four caseworkers is a male employed to work with men when women want their relationship to continue. The Maze Project can engage with the couple separately or work with them together to facilitate improvements in their relationship and enable them to access appropriate services.
The Maze Project also provides an outreach drop-in service to meet the needs of isolated women in the community in a neutral environment. The project offers the women the opportunity to build a support network enabling them to gain confidence and improve self-esteem. This service aims to meet the needs that are identified above for women who may have language and cultural barriers and additional issues such as immigration, forced marriage and women with no recourse to public funds.
