RSACC CEO Isabel Owens leads renewed call for government to confirm funding for sexual violence services in Channel 4 report
RSACC CEO Isabel Owens is leading a renewed call to the government to publish its overdue Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy and confirm what funding will be available for specialist services for survivors in 2026.
In a report published on Channel 4 on Friday, Isabel explained how RSACC is one of many rape crisis centres across the country having to make tough decisions about services as a result of the government’s delay in publishing its strategy and confirming funding.
Isabel explained to Channel 4 News Social Affairs Editor, Jackie Long: “It has never been like this before. There’s just such insecurity in funding in a way that I’ve never experienced before. [It] makes it so hard to plan to support survivors in the future, when we don’t know what money we’re going to have past March.”
The report comes a month after Isabel announced RSACC was having to temporarily stop accepting new adult referrals to the centre’s counselling service, as a result of rising referrals, increasing costs and insecure funding.
In her call to the government to clarify its funding position Isabel added: “This makes me so angry. I don’t think it’s a lot to ask that if you’ve been raped you can speak to a specialist counsellor.”
Vicky, who has been supported by RSACC’s counselling service, contributed to the report, explaining that RSACC’s counselling service changed her life: “There were times where I felt I can’t continue like this, what’s the point going on when I just feel like this every day. If there hadn’t have been someone to reach out to at those critical moments, I dread to think where I’d be right now.
“I can’t comprehend how a woman would be able to go through what I’ve just gone through and not have that support there.”
The report also explained that half of rape crisis centres across the country are having to make decisions similar to RSACC’s, despite the government’s previous promise to halve violence against women and girls.
When asked by Channel 4’s Jackie Long about how concerned she was about the delay in publishing the VAWG strategy, Dame Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales said: “I’m very worried. It is the first sentence out of my mouth in every discussion I have to any civil servant, any minister, it is very much on the minds of all people who are working day-to-day in this area.”
In response, the Home Office told Channel 4 that it was essential it took the time to get the VAWG Strategy right, in order for it to be both ‘transformational and deliverable.’
Isabel concluded: “We are currently doing everything we can to overcome the challenges we face and reinstate our full service as soon as possible. In the meantime, we hope the government listens to our plea and makes the right decisions for survivors who so vitally need this specialist support.”
RSACC is continuing to accept counselling referrals for children and young people aged 18-years-old and under. All of the centre’s other services are continuing as normal. To read more about the decision to temporarily stop accepting adult referrals for counselling and what you can do to support RSACC, click here.