Bawso Service User Engagement – August 2025

Bawso continues to embed a participatory ethos at the heart of its service delivery, recognising the vital role that individuals with lived experience play in shaping effective and responsive support. We are committed to fostering long-term, meaningful change by listening to, empowering, and building the capacity of both current and former service users. Through this approach, we ensure that our services remain relevant, informed, and reflective of the needs and experiences of the communities we serve.

This report provides a snapshot of key service user engagement activities carried out during the reporting period ending August 2025.

1. Welsh Government Survivor voice scrutiny panel

Bawso is proud to support the participation of two former service users who serve on the Welsh Government’s Survivor Voice Scrutiny Panel. These individuals play a crucial role in representing the perspectives of survivors of violence against women, domestic abuse, and sexual violence (VAWDASV), contributing to the development and scrutiny of relevant policies and practices.

· One panel member is a former service user from our Swansea service.

· The second representative previously accessed support through our Newport office.

Their contributions reflect a strong and growing survivor voice in national policy discussions, and we continue to provide ongoing support to ensure they are equipped and empowered to participate effectively.

2. Research

In 2023, Bawso coordinated service user consultation engagements with the University of South Wales. Service users were keen to be involved in a research project to look at how service providers can better understand their complex, and very often overlapping forms of abuse, and the kind of support that would be appropriate to victims. This consultation culminated in a research bid between Bawso and the University of South Wales, submitted to Health and Care research Wales.

Research title: ‘Listening is a Big Step: Co-developing a Multi-agency Framework with BME women for Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence.

The research project commenced in October 2024 with recruitment and project planning. It explores multi-agency working in relation to the needs and experiences of Black and Minority Ethnic women affected by Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence. The framework will inform the ways in which agencies can best work together to prevent, protect, and support BME women affected by VAWDASV. The project uses a variety of methods, including a literature review, interviews and co-creating Digital Stories (DS) with service users, and workshops to co-develop outputs.

The project is supported by an advisory group comprising of Bawso service users and professionals from key agencies. The role of the group is to support project implementation and delivery e.g. data collection tools, recruitment, feedback into emerging findings, co-develop outputs, and dissemination. The advisory group meets quarterly (mixture of online and face-to-face) throughout the project. This work will be completed in September 2026.

1. Research progress

• 2 Peer researchers have been recruited from Ex-Bawso service users who were supported by our Newport and Cardiff offices. The research offers opportunities for peer researchers to benefit from skills-transfer, working closely with researchers from the university. Peer researchers also have the opportunity to progress into academic training and pursue a career in research.
• Their roles include, contributing to all aspects of the research such as data collection, analysis, advisory group meetings, workshops and production of the framework, academic outputs and reports

2. Advisory panel members

Statutory agencies

1. South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner
2. Social Care Wales
3. Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS)
4. Lead Midwifery Educators (LME Group Wales)
5. Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB) - Health visitor
6. Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB) - Population Health and Business Change

Bawso

There are 9 current and ex- service users on the advisory panel, recruited from all our four regions in Wales.

3. Activity update

• 12 digital stories have been created across 2 multi-day workshops in south and north Wales.

o The stories share experiences of what has worked well for service users, journeys to safety and support, and issues that are important to them.

• 23 in-person interviews have been completed to date with up to 17 more to be completed by mid-September. Interviews have taken place in Cardiff, Newport, Wrexham and Swansea to cover Bawso’s provision areas. Initial observations include:

o A range of experiences with services and types of services.
o Service users often accessing support through personal connections/chance.
o Experiences tend to be very good or very bad – little evidence of middle ground or “good/satisfactory” experiences.
o Service users frustrated by having to share their stories multiple times to each service provider.
o The overall response varies considerably depending on who the first response was from.

• Qualitative evidence synthesis is underway with 63 papers currently being reviewed in full for contextual evidence.
• There has been one advisory group meeting online, and a second one is will be in-person in October 2025.
• First co-production workshop with service users and professionals is also planned for October 2025.

Contact person for the research project:

Nancy Lidubwi | Head of Policy and Business  

E-mail: nancy@bawso.org.uk

27^th August 2025