Hello

We hope you have had a good introduction to United Against Violence and Abuse (UAVA) and a good experience so far in the services they provide.

We would like to offer you the chance to be involved in a service user scrutiny and reference group. This group came about after we worked with a few service users on the assessment of service providers for the contracts UAVA now deliver. We fund these services and are keen to hear from people who have been in touch with those who are using the resource. This is so that we can have a direct sense of the impact of the work they do and so that we can continue to get better at providing services to those affected by domestic or sexual violence and abuse.

As part of your contact with UAVA, you should have received information from staff regarding opportunities to get involved in improving the service they provide. These will range from feedback forms, group meetings and online surveys (amongst others), dependent on the service you have accessed. We do see the findings from these, when providers summarise how they have ensured they are accountable to you in their reports to us. The scrutiny and reference group sits outside of the UAVA structures, to help identify themes and offer further opportunities to get involved. .

People involved in the group at the moment have come from a wide range of situations and have different perspectives and skills. What they have in common is their wish to see service provision improve for those affected. Some of the areas people have identified they can help with so far include reviewing policies and procedures, holding scrutiny style meetings with providers, checking quality standards are being met, promotion of the services and taking part in training.

If now is not the right time for you, we hope you will also consider this in a few weeks/months, or when you stop receiving a service from UAVA.

If you are interested in being involved or want to find out more about the group, please contact us directly – details are at the top of this letter. Alternatively, you might want to give us feedback on the support you have received via the following link below.

We look forward to hearing from you and wish you luck in getting what you need from your time with UAVA.

Kind regards

Sharon Bryan

Contract Monitoring Officer

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