Women & Children’s Services

Changing Lives support women with experience of sex work, survival sex and/or sexual exploitation across the North and Midlands, as the largest national provider of services in communities and in prisons.

Our services are informed by long-standing experience supporting women whose experiences of survival sex, sex work and sexual exploitation are diverse.

We understand the stigma associated with sex work, survival sex and sexual exploitation, and risk of violence experienced by many of those we meet. Our services also reach out to those women and girls who may have been groomed for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

We support women through a journey of ‘being, becoming and belonging’ to meet immediate needs, validate trauma, learn new skills and develop healthy relationships.

Our approach comes from the voices of those who use our services, raising awareness through our unique peer research studies. See the Expertise page for more information.

The thousands of women who use our services each year tell us that domestic abuse is the predominant harm in their lives.

We deliver a range of services to support women within their relationships and if they choose to leave.

We understand the impact of coercive control and violence on women’s safety, emotional wellbeing and sense of self.

We provide a range of specialist domestic abuse services including a refuge, independent advocacy for domestic abuse and sexual violence, and outreach to support women with a range of complex needs.

We support women involved in the criminal justice system to move past previous offending and build a stronger future for themselves and their families.

Women represent a small minority of those in the criminal justice system, and their reasons for offending are often different to men’s, often related to experiences of victimisation.

Despite this, many women are disproportionately affected through harsher sentences and separation from children.

Our experience is that solutions for women usually lie outside of the criminal justice system through:

• access to therapeutic support
• substance misuse recovery services
• specialist domestic abuse services
• improved housing
• debt management
• skills training
• improved healthcare

We provide community and custody support as well as schemes to divert women from the criminal justice system altogether.

Our trauma-informed and strength based approach is focuses on empowering women to meet their individual needs, with the aim of diverting from prosecution and prison, and reducing the likelihood of reoffending.

Families who use our services often experience severe economic hardship which places an additional stress on family life.

Furthermore, the impact of past trauma results in additional support needs with relationships and parenting.

We deliver recovery services for families whose children are at risk of being placed in care and families facing extreme stress.

Our strength-based therapeutic family work has supported many families to stay together by building on skills and resilience.

As well as refuge accommodation, we have a number of women-specific accommodation projects.

These allow women experiencing homelessness to get back on their feet in a safe and trusted women-only environment.

This is particularly important for women who have been impacted by trauma or abuse.