Home Truths: A Note on Women's Resilience in the Face of Crisis

Ellie Flynn is an investigative journalist and broadcaster who has made a number of documentaries for BBC Three, exposing issues that affect young people across the world - from landlords exploiting vulnerable tenants for sex, to child marriage in the USA. Ellie has also done a variety of short investigative films for BBC One's 'The One Show', covering topics such as housing issues to equal pay. In one BBC Three documentary, Nudes4Sale, she investigates how thousands of ordinary people and teenagers all across the world are making money from selling their own nude photos and videos. Another documentary series, Ellie Undercover, saw her expose crimes and injustices against other people her age in the UK. Ellie investigated for BBC Panorama, creating Failed by the NHS: Callie's Story on BBC One, which looks into the devastating effects of an understaffed and overstretched NHS. 

Pippa Hockton was an NHS psychotherapist until, frustrated with inequality in mental health care, she left to found Street Talk in 2005. Street Talk is a registered charity which takes therapies to vulnerable women, especially women in street prostitution, have been trafficked or have no recourse to public funds. She is the author of Not Angry but Hurting, which is a guide to the Street Talk model, therapy of presence.  

Debi Steven, having herself survived child sexual abuse, and driven by her belief that all women and girls should have the liberty of not fearing sexual violence, Debi has dedicated her life to serving communities in the UK, South Africa and India empowering and educating women. For over thirty years, she has been creating educative programmes that also engage young boys to feel empathy and become active bystanders to end violence Against Women and Girls (VAWAG), through the delivery of the Action Breaks Silence Community Intervention, which has awarded her many accolades. She is rated as one of the top Empowerment and Empathy influences in the world, and one of very few people that firmly believe that young boys and men need to be included when looking for solutions to end VAWAG.  

Through the Action Breaks Silence Community Intervention, in July 2013, Debi founded Action Breaks Silence UK, followed by the Action Breaks Silence South Africa, in 2016, working with the South African Board and a South African Programme Manager to ensure that 3000 young people are offered an opportunity to participate in the programmes free of charge. Debi has worked extensively in India and in 2022, she also co-foundered Action Breaks Silence India. All three charities have independent boards, but deliver the Action Breaks Silence Community Intervention programme. Her current focus is on black and minoritized women, girls, and communities that face multitude of challenges. To ensure the long-term success of the programme within this context, a multi-pronged approach was adapted through the Action Breaks Silence Community Intervention. In practice, the programme proactively engages, educates and empowers various members of school communities, including students, management, teachers and caregivers/parents. The goal is to stamp out Gender Based Violence (GBV) in schools and surrounding communities. The programmes tackle sexual harassment and sexual violence, with targeted strategies to address issues such as gender inequality and toxic masculinity, which underpin harmful sexual behaviour. Social Norms, and Active Bystander Theories guide the design and delivery of the interventions. 

Laura Guy works at Cripplegate Foundation and is leading their "Development Partners" Programme, which aims to improve how women in Islington experiencing Domestic Abuse are reached. This will include bringing statutory and voluntary sector partners together along with women with lived experience to decide on priorities and interventions to improve the system.  

Prior to this role, Laura has worked in a range of health and social care roles, including leading a Domestic Abuse outreach service, volunteering in the Met Police and working for the last 7 years in the homelessness sector. She has a particular interest in coproduction and systems change to share power and work towards a more equal society. " 

Lucy Campbell has worked in the homelessness sector for 15 years, in both frontline and managerial roles, and has a specialist interest in developing new approaches to supporting people experiencing multiple disadvantage, and women who are experiencing VAWG. For the last eight years, Lucy has worked as Operational Development Manager for Single Homeless Project's Fulfilling Lives in Islington and Camden (FLIC) programme, a National Lottery Community funded project working to change the way services are designed, delivered and commissioned to better meet the needs of people experiencing multiple disadvantage. During this project, Lucy led on a number of successful initiatives, including co-creating the Team Around Me case conference model, collaborating with Solace to pilot a specialist Housing First for women experiencing domestic abuse, collaborating with the University of York on an influential research project that explored women's hidden homelessness. She recently won a Homeless Link Excellence Award in the 'A Stronger Voice' category. Lucy has recently taken on a new role within SHP as Head of Multiple Disadvantage Services Transformation. 

Jade Tate has worked within the violence against women and girls sector for around 7 years mostly doing frontline work with women impacted by gender-based violence and delivering training to professionals. She spent part of this as a frontline worker for the wiser project and was co-located within Single Homeless Project's Fulfilling Lives in Islington and Camden (FLIC) programme as the gender-based violence lead. She is currently the deputy service manager for the Wiser project (within solace womens aid), a service that provides assertive outreach , advocacy and support to women impacted by gender-based violence and multiple disadvantages and aims to make this type of support accessible to women who usually are ostracized from services and society.  Her specialism is around supporting women impacted by abuse and multiple disadvantages such as homelessness, mental health, substance misuse issues, transactional sex and offending behaviour.