Real Life | Donna
We started helping Donna* when her probation worker referred her to My CWA. Scroll down to read more.
DONNA
Background
Donna’s* probation worker referred her to My CWA following a short prison sentence for assaulting her ex-partner.
Donna met with her probation worker weekly at our centre in Crewe and attended our Evolve programme for women who harm. When we first met Donna, she was living away from her young son, with contact for a couple of hours every other week, supervised by her ex-partner’s parents.
Contact required a significant journey and when Donna started the programme, there had already been two occasions when she’d arrived at the meeting place for contact, but her ex-partner had called and cancelled, which she found really upsetting.
How we helped
Donna engaged well with support. She took responsibility for her behaviours, but it became very clear as the programme progressed, that she’d also been a victim during her relationship. Donna had experienced verbal, emotional and physical abuse.
Donna successfully completed our Evolve programme. She was court ordered to provide an alcohol test, which she had to pay for herself. The cost of this would have been twice her monthly benefits at the time and this caused Donna great anxiety. We used our specialist services fund to help Donna pay for the test.
Following a lengthy court case, Donna was granted shared residency of her son. Thanks to generous gift donations from our supporters in the run-up to Christmas, we were able to make sure Donna had some Christmas presents to make her first Christmas Day with her son even more special.
The Future
Donna attended our survivor group, which helped her to build confidence and improve her social support network. She also used our New Leaf project to access training, which she hopes will help her find work.
Since Donna became part of the My CWA family, she’s worked closely with us to help shape our service for adults and children. One of her greatest concerns lies around the impact that domestic abuse can have on children’s long-term health and life chances.
*Name changed to protect the identity of our service user.