What It’s Really Like Leading a Sexual Abuse Support Charity | WRASAC CEO Interview

In this episode of The Creative Conversation: The Start-Up Series, we’re joined by Katie, CEO of WRASAC Dundee and Angus a charity supporting survivors of sexual violence and abuse.

This is a slightly different episode to our usual business-focused conversations, but an incredibly important one.

Katie shares her journey into the third sector, what it really means to lead an organisation supporting survivors, and the emotional weight that comes with the role. We also talk about the realities behind the scenes — from funding challenges and team wellbeing, to the importance of raising awareness and changing societal perceptions.

Since working with WRASAC as a client, I’ve seen first-hand the impact of shining a spotlight on their work — and why more people need to know these services exist.

In this episode, we cover:

•  What sexual violence support services actually do 
•  Common misconceptions about getting support 
•  The reality of working in the third sector 
•  Leadership in emotionally demanding roles 
•  Why awareness and education matter more than ever 

Whether you’re interested in charity work, leadership, or simply want to better understand how to support others, this is a conversation everyone should hear.

If you or someone you know may need support, WRASAC offers free, confidential services.

Learn more about WRASAC: https://www.wrasac.org.uk/

Follow for awareness & updates: 

Instagram - @wrasac 

TikTok - @wrasacdundee 

Donate to WRASAC - https://www.justgiving.com/charity/wrsac-dundee

The Creative Conversation: The Start-Up Series is produced by Greene Creatives.
Connect with us: www.greenecreatives.co.uk | Instagram: @greenecreatives

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Creative Conversation the Startup series. Today's episode is a little bit different, but it's a really important one. I'm joined by Katie, the CEO of RASAC, the Women's Rate and Sexual Abuse Centre in Dundee and Angus. Angus. A charity supporting survivors of sexual violence and abuse. RASAC provides specialist support, advocacy and counselling for women, children, and young people across Tayside. Yeah. Working at the front line of some of the most sensitive and vital work in our communities. Now obviously this conversation is going to be a little bit different because we usually speak to business owners. But I want to hear about Katie working in the third sector and the emotional weight of the work she does, running a team and being responsible for them. But I also want to put a spotlight on the work you guys do because Rasak are one of our clients and I didn't know about them until they got in touch with us, and I am amazed at the work that you guys do. So thank you so much for being here, Katie. Thank you for inviting me. So quick intro just to get you going.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

What did you want to be when you were younger? Oh, so I actually wanted to be um an actress. Really? Yeah. Um and I did loads of drama and acting at school, and I don't know, it's really sad, isn't it? But as you sort of get older when you're teenage is I think Yeah, you get a bit more self-conscious and start to feel a bit more self-conscious. And I thought I don't I didn't know what I wanted to be. So I just tended to pick and stick to subjects that I liked at school, and then I decided I wanted to be a physiotherapist, probably led by my boyfriend at the time, which is a really sad thing to say. Um and I got accepted to do um a sports science and mass arch degree at Newcastle University, and unfortunately for me that's when the grants in England changed for unis, and my mum and dads are a working class family, and they could not afford to pay for me to go to university. So after my A-levels, a lot of my friends went off and took gap years, and I had to enter the world of work, which was fine.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah, is that when like it was no longer funded like it is in Scotland?

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Yeah, so you're very lucky in Scotland in terms of how your education is funded when it's higher education, yeah. But in England they reached a point where they like tripled the sa the cost to go to university, I think it was. I mean, maybe not initially, but I think that's what it is now. And you can get funding, but you basically borrow the money to pay. Um, and at that time in my life, because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, and when I sat and talked to with my mum and dad, we just they were like, we can't afford to pay those fees, and I was like, I'm not sure that this is what I want to do. So I'm gonna I was working actually at Pizza Hall. Um, so that's where I started my leadership journey. Um, and I was just worked there on a weekend, and it was a really fantastic place to work. They have a really good development programme.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Um, so yeah, that's I think that's so good to share though, because like the position you're in now, people assume oh, I must have went to CUNY, you must have done this, but that's so good. Did you ever imagine you would be in an organisation like this?

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Not at as a younger person, but it's been something sort of since my you know, following a couple of jobs that I did and then and working through those. I I I was working for Pizza Hut and whilst I really enjoyed the work and got a lot of experience there and as quite a young manager, I just I wanted to do more, I wanted to give something back, and then that's when my career path started to take me and the direction that I started to give him.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Okay, what's your coffee order?

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Oh right, so um a flat white, sometimes with almond milk, and sometimes if I've got enough calories with um without almond milk and just with normal milk.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Oh yeah, I'm sometimes an almond milk at all as well. Okay, so Rasak's Instagram. We usually ask what emojis people use, but I've actually changed this and said what is one message or post that you felt's really been powerful?

SPEAKER_02 4:07

For me, if it's okay I'll say a couple. So I think just the impact that it's had having um somebody with social media knowledge and understanding coming in, and especially I think what the advantage was is that you didn't know anything about our organisation. We were wanting to raise awareness of our organisation, and so you're coming at it from how somebody who'd never known and understand someone who doesn't know and understand us, you know, like how they would need to to get a feel for what our organisation is. So I think one of the first posts we put out was one where it's uh one of my colleagues, Sandra, talking, and it's all about like what happens when you pick up the phone and you come to service. And I just because I think people think they'll get asked loads of difficult things, they've got to start talking about everything that's happened to them. And I love Sandra's voice, I loved the wording of that and just the way it came across. And it's that's when I started to really see what the brands that we were trying to develop for Razak and what that looked like. So that was powerful to start off with because I really started to see the potential of social media, there was a lot of engagement around that post. I think referrals went up after that week, so I think for me, I was like, Oh, this is everything we wanted it to be, and more. So that was a really powerful one. And then the post that we did for when there'd been the gym's lecture at Abatei University. That was big. And I don't think any of us knew how big it would be, but I I remember ringing you up and speaking to you and being like, I really want to talk to the people who have been affected by this and for them to understand that we're here for them and that we're on their side, um, and the development that we did around that post and just getting that post out, and it was quite simple, yes, um, you know, on your advice, um, and I was really pleased because I didn't want to come down. Yeah, but um so many people contacted me, and I think what was so powerful about that is so many people felt seen and heard, yeah, and it was just it it felt like the right thing to do, and sometimes that's a real worry for an organization like ours, and but it ended up being completely the right thing to do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, okay. So you've touched on your career journey. You started at Pizza Hut. So, what how did you go from there to Brasak?

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Okay, so I worked at Pizza Hut just as like a you know, like a weekend worker or an evening worker while I was at college, and while I was there, one of my bosses was sort of like just was like, Oh, you know, you're really chatty and dead friendly. Would you be interested in being an in-store trainer? So I got put on a training course for that, and then started running inductions for the whole of like an area, and then from that I got put on a leadership development programme, and I'd never seen myself as any of those things. And I think my mum and dad always said I was quite bossy when I was growing up. I think that I would like to reframe that as I was quite assertive and I knew my own mind, and I think that's a word that's quite often used for girls and not for boys. And actually, I am a boss, so actually being bossy really serves me. So, but no one else, I didn't really think that would be where my career path would be. And when I got offered that opportunity, it was at that split moment where I wasn't going to go to university, I was earning money, and I was having a really nice life, so um I enjoyed that, and then in that organisation I got made a manager, well, like a support manager, shift manager, and then I went for a regional job, which was as an area training manager at like 19-20 years old, and I wasn't paid a lot of money for that, but I was responsible for a lot of business, and that's when I started to understand about operational work, strategic work, and understand what goes on behind the scenes of being a leader and a manager, but also I found it a little bit empty. I wanted to give back and do something a little bit more. I enjoyed the training side of things, I did enjoy the leadership side of things, and then I saw a job for a company called um YMCA Training, and I got a job as the learning advisor for them, which was working with 16 to 25 year olds, and I was only like 22 myself, so it did feel a bit weird. Um, but it was basically working with them around modern apprenticeships, improving their key skills. So for children and young people who kind of come through the school system, it had not worked out for them. I my job was to engage with them, and career advisors referred them in, they got referred in from social work and places like that, and then we would work with them to try and improve their maths, English, IT skills, and also get them into work, and they were paid like really not very much money, but modern apprenticeship to build up their skills. And within that, I was really good at engaging with the employers and getting people on board, and I started to see where some of my skill set lied, but again, I was really like, Oh, I really want to give something back. And while I worked there, I think probably my first understanding of gender-based violence. I worked with a young woman who was experiencing domestic abuse now. I I didn't even kind of know what that was. And then when I worked with that woman, and and that young woman and all the process went through, and and you know, she's the difficulties of helping and supporting her, how she kept going back, which is really common, it's a really complex issue, and that kind of sparked my interest in this field of work, but I didn't go into that line of work. I from that was carried on doing that job, but then I did like youth work on a night as like an extra job, started to do youth work qualification, came into contact with more kind of issues like that, and then I saw a job advertised for the police, which was a police training and development worker, um, a training advisor, I think it was called then. And I was like, oh, that'd be really interesting. I didn't think I would ever get it in a hut from hell. Went for the interview and got the job, and then they did oh no, I didn't get the job, went for the interview, and then two days later I found out I was pregnant. So I was like, oh so I thought, oh, they're never going to employ me now. And I was really upfront and honest with them, and they did employ me. Um I worked for the police for 13 years as a training advisor. Yeah, as a trainer, um, which ended up really leading into the work that I was doing, so doing project work for them, and I got a name for myself as being able to specialise or was good at writing training packages and helping to support projects and initiatives that were running in the police around the public protection arena and area, so around the not very nice subjects and put interesting and all the stuff that I wanted to do. So while I was in the police, doing that helped me so domestic abuse, sexual violence, trafficking. I wrote for um training packages and supported uh initiatives around child sexual exploitation, commercial sexual exploitation, and I just the more I did it, the more I really wanted to go into that side of work. While I was in that job, a friend of mine was sexually assaulted, and I watched her go through the criminal justice system, and I was like, This is not okay, and that was really really difficult to watch that. I just I remember promising her, I said, Are we gonna make I'm gonna do something that makes a change? And I thought that was gonna be within the police, and at one point I really undenied about being a police officer, but you know, I'd come with a lot of skills and experiences, I was earning a good wage, I was a single parent, and I couldn't afford, unfortunately, to take the pay cut to become a police officer. Now it would have worked its way back up to be more than what I was earning at that point eventually. But it's doing that jump to the market that you just couldn't do it, and I do really think in my you know, only my personal opinion, but they do direct entry in um England, so I could have done a degree whilst I was doing what I was doing and then maybe gone in at a higher level. I truly think that to be a really good police officer is you need to have done the beatwork to be a bobby on the streets to work your way through that, and I think that's something that's really fantastic and unique about the police is that the person who's running that organisation sat right at the top of it. When you're a probationer or you're a student officer, you're looking at those people and they've been where you are. And I think there's something that's really powerful about that. And then while I was in the police, I just really wanted to give back more and do a different job, and I started looking for other jobs. Um, and then I got a job after so I left after 13 years, and it was to go to a place called Foundation, and I was a service manager for them, and I loved that job. I worked as a service manager, so we managed I managed uh what was called a young person, two young persons projects, which was pathway one and pathway two, and that was um working with children and young people or 16 to 25 years old who are at risk of homelessness. So they in pathway one it was trying to support like relationship building with their families to keep them at home, and then pathway two was where that had failed, or where there were maybe young people coming out of the care system, and there wasn't really anywhere for them to go, and then we had a 19-bed hostel for children and young people, and then we had 36-38 dispersed units of accommodation. The idea was you were we worked with young people to teach them life skills, like they had like their own little room and then a shared kitchen, and we worked with them there, and then you moved them out into their own flat or their own kind of shared flat with other people in the community, with the hope you then move them on in a few years' time to their own independent accommodation, and then also within that job, I would manage a programme that worked with sex offenders and high-level domestic abuse offenders, so mapper level two and three offenders, and working alongside the police where they were homed and managed in the community as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

That's so interesting that you've worked for the flip side of it, yeah. Okay, yeah, because I was going to ask, like, what drew you into the third sector, especially the area that you work in, but you've obviously been exposed to it. I didn't realise about like the police career and stuff as well. How did you get to Rasak?

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Um, so I got to Rasak um because I was working within the police, and when I was working in the police I was a victim of sexual assault myself, and um and I was 32, 33 when that happened, maybe even a bit older. And I think that for a lot of women that felt like a safe age where that won't happen to me. I think you think, oh well, I've got through the really which is really sad, isn't it? But I think a lot of us have taught, told that it'll happen, it'll be a stranger, it'll be something that happens when you're in your younger years, and we go a lot of our lives where we'll have had near misses, where we'll have had things that happen that we kind of don't talk about, really uncomfortable about, we bury, we don't think about spell, you're like now.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

I'm 33. You think back and like maybe that should have happened, or like things like that. Yeah, completely. But so you don't expect it to be.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

I didn't expect it, I felt really safe. I'd just started seeing my now husband. I was in a really safe relationship, and I was in at the time it happened a really safe place. Wow, and it just completely turns my world on its head. And I'd watched my friend go through that experience, and I'd gone through it then, like would have been three or four years later, and I really I thought, well, I've got knowledge and understanding of what this process is like, it'll it'll it'll be awful, but it'll uh that'll maybe help me. I think it was a help and a hindrance. I worked within the police and I really loved working in the police, but I just got to the point where I was like, I want to not be involved in this any longer, I need to take a step away. Um, it took three years for my um court case to get to court, had like two or three cancelled trials, it was an endurance test. And whilst I really, really I'd always wanted to do that work, so I'd I'd volunteered in refuge when I was younger as well. Um, and I'd always been interested in getting into this line of work, and it's where my career trajectory was hopefully taking me. But when that happened, I thought, oh, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

So because you thought it would be like triggered then.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Yeah, and and I also think I do think that for survivors of sexual violence, you know, there is an element of really wanting to like give something back and to support and to help, but I think it's also about making sure that that is not it can be part of someone's recovery journey, but you need to have done you need to look after yourself and you need to heal, and I was just really worried that I'd never be able to do that work again, or well not again, but I'll never get into that work like I'd always wanted to because of what happened to me. So the job, you know, I did some work in the police, I stepped away from some of the things I was doing within there, and you know, it took a while, but with lots of you know, I had an amazing family and friends around me, it was really, really difficult to go through that process. Um, I was very, and I say fortunate because conviction rates are really, really shockingly low. I got a guilty verdict.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Um yeah, it was amazing, um, and it felt amazing, but it didn't take away some of those other feelings around it. And eventually I just I felt a bit disillusioned with some of the stuff in the police, even though some of the you know, like that process, it didn't feel like it was anything to do with them. That you know, I received a a fantastic service from the police. It was you know, there's no criticism of any of that, it was just I just felt a bit disillusioned with everything and I wanted to change. So I started going for the job, so that's when I got the job um at um foundation, and then my offender got sent to prison for seven years and he was released after three and a half years.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Oh, I was waiting to say that's quite long, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Yeah, so what was fun so while he wasn't in prison, I really felt I'd gone to be a shell, I didn't go out, I didn't do things, it really, really limited to my life before. And then when he went to prison, it really changed things for me, and I felt a freedom that I'd not felt. I still felt a little bit tricky, you know. There was some of his family there, it was a complex situation for me, it was somebody that I knew, and I guess I always felt in Scarborough was kind of living a bit of a half-life, and I thought I'm gonna do my job and I'm gonna change things and all of this. And I started to feel a lot better, and then when he came, or I knew he was coming out of prison, I started to get contact from the agencies involved talking to me about where he would be, exclusion areas, all these different things, and I started to feel really, really unsafe again. And I just thought me and my husband sat down and he could really see the difference in me, and he was like, I know you're not happy, and he was like, We don't have to stay here, and I was like, Oh, I had not even really thought about that. He was like, We can go live wherever we want, yeah, like and you can go do whatever you want. And I felt like I was really fully healed at that point, you know. I'd done all the I'd had I'd had therapy support, you know. I I felt like I was in a really good place, I was doing well in my job, I was managing that you know that big service, and and I wasn't, you know, like triggered by the work or anything like that. I felt like I was in a really good place and I started looking for jobs. Um and our dream was like we'd go live in the lake district or we've got to live in Scotland. And then this job came up and I went to apply for it and it'd gone. And I was like, oh no. So I thought, oh well, carried on applying for other things, and then it came around again and I applied for it and I got the job. And then two weeks later we went into lockdown. And so it took me another six months to move to Scotland because I couldn't get up here, couldn't get a house, you know, it was a very complicated time, wasn't it? So finally in August 2020, I began my role at Rasak. And I when I say it's my dream job, it's my dream job. I absolutely love what I do, and I think it's such a privilege to do it.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Yeah, yeah, it's an amazing organisation. So that actually follows on nicely. What is your role as CEO at Razak? Like, what do you do day-to-day?

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Oh my god. So as a CEO of a small to medium-sized charity, I think people think, oh, I'll be sat doing like finance and I'll be sat um but you know, doing lots of strategic things, and that is a part of my role, and it should be the main part of my role. But in an organisation like ours, it is so many different things. So, you know, it can be supporting staff. You know, for me, the survivor is at the centre of absolutely every single thing we do, but very closely after that, for me, as the leader of a CEO of an organization, especially one that works so heavily with trauma, is you've got to look after your team. So that to me is an absolute priority. So it will be supporting members of the team, it could be supporting members of the leadership team, it will be attending multi-agency meetings and partnership work. So for me, that's something that I learned in all of my roles. But definitely when I was in the police, is that you don't have the tools to do everything, and that for you to be effective to support whoever you're supporting in the best way you can, you can be a specialist agency, but actually being able to link into other agencies means that you can support that person more holistically and make sure they get as much as they need. You're not limiting their support or their journey or what they need. So partnership work, um, it can be HR, it can be health and safety, um, it's a lot of it's around funding, and I think that that's something that people really don't understand about some third sector organisations is we're not all funded by central government, we do get big funding pots, but we have to apply for those, they're not given. You know, the our organisations funded currently by I think 12 different funding streams that all have their own funding reports, all have their own requirements, and whilst we try and streamline that, and obviously we're quite specialised and focused, it's still a lot of work managing those relationships with funders, making sure that we're meeting all of our funding names and objectives. How do we evidence that work? How do we show that we're effective? Also, you know, constantly reviewing our service to make sure it's meeting the needs of the people that we work for, and things change all the time as well. So, you know, we after COVID, everybody wanted to. We thought they'd like to be running through the doors and wanting to come back to face to face support, but people didn't, and so you know, we we've kept an online support model that we didn't have before, so that's fantastic. We have developed an initial referral team. We have a women's hub now, a Dundee Women's Hub, which um you know I'm so proud of, um, and all the people who you know work together will. the whole of D to bring that to fruition.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

So funding.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

I hold my hands up. I don't really understand how but I know how front sectors work, but like you obviously get government well like was it government funding the central Yeah so but you don't get it automatically given to you.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

You've got to have to you've got to look for funds that meet the needs of your organisation or that are funding specifically maybe balance against women and girls or sexual violence or or funding support for children and young people. So some of that funding is available through Scottish government or central government. Some of that funding is available through private funders. So we've had funding before from children in need we've got currently got funding from the national lottery you know we have a number of different funders then we um might have small small local funders so we've got the NHS charitable tearside trust they fund a role for us currently and there's CORA so there's lots of different funders and you're applying for different funding bids so and the difficulty is is that you get funding for at best sometimes three years sometimes five but that's really rare now it used to be you could get like really sustainable funding. A lot of funding now is one or two years and it's also standstill funding quite a lot of the time so it's you know it might then you might that funding might roll over so you might get another year or two but then it'll be standstill. So then how do you manage pay rises? How do you manage like development within your organisation? I was going to say that mouse affects like recruitment and stuff like people that work in that industry are they used to that I've never worked in third sector it's so mind blowing like you know and I think you become initially as a manager I was quite risk averse about it is to really I'm not saying that I don't worry about it now but I think I've learned that you know that stuff will come in quite last minute you know you're waiting for funding decisions like I'm in the process now like probably a lot of charity third sector CEOs at the moment I have it's nearly the end of the year of the financial year and I still have not got funding confirmation letters from the majority of the people who fund us so I am not entirely sure exactly how much money I'm going to be getting.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Do you know what that's so interesting because as a business owner obviously we've spoken to business owners on the podcast cash flow is a huge thing that we worry about. So like if I knew like what we bring in now if that was back in 2020 if I knew that was what we're going right I'd be like oh my god but you still worry about it the numbers are just different because you grow and then you need more money to sustain that. I don't know if I'm obviously being naive but working in third sector I don't I've never imagined you having to worry about that's the biggest worry.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Yeah it's the biggest worry and I think that's something that people really really don't understand about third sector work. I think a lot of people think oh and you know like donations so what I would say is that you know we try and fundraise and donate but sexual violence is not a very easy subject to fundraise and to get because if we've done our job right anybody who's been within our organisation what we've done is we've helped them to you know explore what's happened to them we operate like a three stage model and our first bit and our key bit is safety and stabilisation. We've got them to a point where when they leave our organisation they don't want to look back they want to look forward so then you know you do get some people who want to give back but you need to be really careful about what that looks like because you don't want to re-traumatise anybody and I think it is a really difficult area to fundraise and to raise awareness about and I think it's one of those areas where people always think this is not something that'll ever happen to me. It feels like it's something that doesn't happen to you know it happens to strangers and other people and so that can be really you know it's really difficult to raise awareness to get people to engage in it because understandably people and you want to move on and they don't want to keep thinking about it.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah yeah because I when I first started working with you guys I never thought to donate to anything like that. But yeah so if you're listening they have a just given page so please um if you want to donate to a charity because I would always like donate to like the food bank or because that's just like the top that comes to your head like in local communities but there's so many organisations like yeah and I want to say to people I get that times are really hard and that they're lean for people.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

So you know we're not if you can support us there's loads of different ways to support us without having to give us a donation or give us money. So like follow us on social media um share our social media posts raise awareness of our organisation talk to people just know like learn a little bit about us so that if you ever encounter somebody who's experienced sexual violence you would be able to signpost them to our organisation. Yeah talk about us and we do things every year like we do the kilt walk um you know there's there's opportunities for you to get involved in in fun ways and you could donate prizes to us that we can raffle and there's loads of different ways that people can engage and with fundraising and with our organisation.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

What are the other challenges that a charity like BASAC faces?

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Obviously we've covered funding that's obviously a huge one but yeah so funding insecurity is a really big one and I think probably the biggest challenge to charities um you know retaining and then on the back of that the knock on effects of those things so you know you we've got such amazing skilled workers there's not one person in my organisation that I would not want to be working for us and when that funding runs out sometimes you know we're always trying to find alternative roles or jobs but if there's no funding there you've got this totally trained specialist person and then they have to go find a work somewhere else and so you know it's the knock on impact on retaining the highly skilled staff on recruitment. It's so frustrating because honestly I am so privileged you think people think working in a women's organisation I think there's this kind of oh it'd be really bitch here it'd be really it's you've been in our organisation you've been to meetings like I am so proud of the culture of our organisation and it's got so many different people in it from different backgrounds with different experience and experiences you know and we all work together and everybody's so focused on the survivors it's like a really really there's a lot of different personalities but they all work together like give each other their own chance if that makes sense. But that's also fantastic for survivors yeah because what that means is is that if you come into our organisation sometimes like working with somebody about something that is so personal and so difficult to talk about or to work with somebody about you know quite a lot of people who come to us they've never told anybody about what's happened to them. So you know that's like such an amazing thing to be able to offer but sometimes you're not the right fit. Like I'm not everyone's cup of tea not everybody you don't want to be everyone's cup of tea we want variety. Yeah and so you know I think because we've got such and each support workers have got different skills so some come from a social work background some are psychotherapists some are trained counsellors some have worked you know depending on which um they're in um children in people some have come from a domestic abuse background so what we've got is a team of people who've all got specialisms in different places and it also means that because we've got lots of different people that they can that we can hopefully meet the needs of any survivor that comes along I think the next biggest one for us is the waiting list. So I would want somebody to come into service and receive support straight away but we have at the moment we're running with a three to four month waiting list which could be impacted that's good. Better yeah wow so like I'm not criticising all the words like I no I always say to everybody because I think that my colleagues and my team can really feel a lot of pressure about the waiting list and I'm like the waiting list is is it is our issue but it's not our problem in the sense that sorry it's it's it's our problem to try and manage it but it's not our issue. You know that's because we're not the in the area that we work in is needed so much and it's so underfunded and it's so not recognised in the way that it should be as being a I believe that we provide life saving services to people and you know it's so undervalued the work that we do and I think so unknown. So the waiting list can we've had times when the waiting list has been up to like nine to twelve months. We've had at the moment because of the resources in our justice advocacy team we've had to close to referrals and these are all things that we really try everything we can not to do loads of different ways of working but my big thing and I think is going back to sort of one of your first questions about like what does that role of CEO mean it's my role to not just look after the survivors but it's to safeguard my team and that is my I think that's the the key thing is yes but I've got to bring in something and I've got to make sure the organisation works effectively but the other big part of that is looking after the people that I work with who work with survivors because they work with trauma every single day they sit and listen to trauma every single day when they're not listening to trauma they're then working with other people they're educating people it really you know it's such involved work.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Yeah I wanted to actually touch on that because I didn't really realise that until a couple of weeks ago I went into the office when we were on holiday and KTD was like me and her were like running the meeting as such and we were just doing like brainstorm session for content with like a few people from the team and they were obviously telling me bits about their departments and like it was quite they were going into a lot of detail about what they were dealing with and I was just like yeah what we're speaking about I never really thought much about it. The next day KAD texts me and said hi Danny I'm just wanting to check in because that was a lot that you had to sit and listen to and obviously you guys work with with it every day whereas I hadn't heard of it like a lot of the stuff that they were speaking about. And then so yeah that's why I wanted to ask like a huge part of you like I look after my team but you need to do that even more so because of the trauma that they're dealing with.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

It's like the number one priority as a leader in our organisation is to make sure that we safeguard survivors but that we safeguard our team so ways that we do that is we cap a caseload so I'm like the waiting list is high but I'm not going to start piling on more work onto people because that is just not an effective way to do that. And I've seen that in when I've been a worker I've seen that in other organisations I just don't think that's the right way to go about it. Like there are there's a finite resource that is not our fault and we what I want to always provide the best service we can and the people who work within Razar cannot do that if they are feeling like really stretched and overburdened. So like we have a we have risk assessment meetings every single week in each individual team where we flag whether risk has gone up or down to make sure that we might decide that we're not going to you know someone might claw somebody because they've finished their journey with us and we might go we're not going to give you any extra work for a couple of weeks because actually you've got really high risk on your caseload we might decide like we said you know it might affect the way that we look at a service there might be a common thing coming through so then we might need to go and get more training and support so to say like in the time that I've worked at Razak complexity of the cases has really really increased and just you know you want to make sure that we're providing all the right support and that we've got all the knowledge that we can to make sure that we're staying in our lane and we're being able to provide support to survivors but also that we've got the knowledge and understanding that to recognise things and to refer them on to different places if that's what's needed as well. We make sure that so this has been something that I've been really passionate about because I've worked in organisations where it's not been possible where it's not been a priority and I just think it's so important to look after your team so we have regular team days we have team meetings we have you know we we really check in on our team if I just even think someone's like you know like I might be in the office and I might notice that someone just seems a bit down or quiet I'll go and have a chat with them and they might just be working away but we check in with each other regularly the team support each other in that way and they sometimes will email a leader and be like hi so and so today didn't see in themselves so we have like a really good community way of looking out for that. We do like you know we have like a a team day at the end of every year where we're close to everything and they all get to be together so like this year we held it in one of our offices we made sure that we met the needs of every single person who attended nobody had to do anything because I think forced fun is also not a way that people relax either so they actually shot off yeah completely and that's not you know like that's not nice that's not looking after your team making them go do something that they really weren't comfortable with and we've tried loads of things like I've definitely I don't make people go do any of the activities but we I think we've kind of hopefully got it down to a fine art now but our kind of end of year celebration everybody bought their own food in so that that took the pressure off and we all brought different dishes in we had a cinema room set up we had a mobile disco in one room and then we had a room where everyone could just sit and chat in the other and that was the day things love that and everybody just did what so one room was really dark and closey some people came in the pajamas some people came in a sequin dress everybody just got to come and be who they wanted to be on that day have some really good quality time with survivors. You know we have clinical supervision for all of our team which I think is so so important. They have regular supervision with the line manager yeah um and I think there's other ways that I've probably forgotten but it is a really I think that's one of the biggest focuses for me is how do I look after and protect my team or how do I support the managers to do that.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

From an outsider point of view you are very good at involving your team like considering you're like CEO when we obviously started speaking about doing the social media it was like we had a chat and then you went and spoke to the team and then I came and spoke to the team like do you know what I mean it wasn't just like I came in and was like right guys Katie's decided that we're doing social media so that's what we're doing now.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

Yeah and I think that that's because again we all learned so like I've worked in different organisations you know I've seen some fantastic leadership I've seen some really really shit leadership and I have you know I'm not perfect. I also like say to people you know I try and meet every single person as soon as they come into the organisation so that I can take away that barrier because I can see people tense up sometimes when they're quite new members of staff but I I I guess I'm not what you would think of as a typical CEO I I think that I run it our organisation and encourage the leaders to do so in a feminist leadership model. So our model's not hierarchical it's like a concentric circle with the survivors right at the centre very closely followed by the support workers and the team and then for me the leaders are further out and I think about it in terms of the survivors we're all focused in on them but for the support workers they're totally focused in they've got tunnel vision on them I can only know about what the survivor what's needed for the survivors by engaging with my team and knowing about them. I can't things change I can't know about that I can guess I can look at trends I can read industry you know material and keep up to date with all of that but the best people who know and understand what service they need are our survivors and so the best people who know and understand that after them are the support workers. So I want them to be tunnel visioned and I don't want them to be worried about things like waiting lists and that you know that's why health and safety and things like that are so important because you don't want them to be worried about the building or where they are and things like that. You want them to feel safe because if they're safe they're going to be able to deliver the absolute best support that they can to somebody.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

So following on for leadership what qualities do you think is are important when you're leading an organisation like FASAC and you've obviously worked on quite a few so but it's really hard isn't it answering these but I guess um I think you need to be compassionate.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

100% like you absolutely you know that's the skill for me I think you I guess you need to be able I think uniquely maybe to our organisations is I need to be able to move between operational strategic you know I need to be able to wear a number of different hats be comfortable wearing those hats but also know when I need to step back and delegate to the team and not make the manager and something I want the team that I work with and the people that I work with to feel empowered again that helps them deliver the best support they can if they feel like that's why we consult with them so much and where we give choice um and freedom within where somebody works because that's where we're happiest. You know in workplaces there being workplaces which are really you know dictatorships almost yeah and it's like oh the their role d dictates how they speak to somebody else and stuff like that. I don't want anybody like I like I laugh and joke along you can take the mick out of me and my team definitely do. And you know I I think the the key thing is it's about being human. Like I think that leaders sometimes feel like they need to pretend to be something else or to be something else. So I think actually a word that I would use is compassionate but authentic. I own my mistakes I apologise when I've made a mistake so like I won't get things right all the time and somebody will flag something to me I'm not gonna lie like as a leader like it stings when you've got something wrong because you're embarrassed because you don't want to I won't want anybody ever to be not having uh you know the a uh experience in a positive workplace so I would feel uncomfortable with that but that's for me to sit with my uncomfortableness and for me then to think about that and then and then and yeah and how do I change that and how do I own that I think it's about modelling like the behaviours that you want to see in your organisation. So you can't be like I like everybody to be open and honest and then like shut door and don't talk to anybody. So I think they're really important characteristics. I think being friendly and approachable but also I guess the last one and I probably keep going on a list of these but is boundaries and I'm not always great at it I know I'm not it's probably the thing I'm worst in terms of my own time management and boundaries because to me the survivors and the team will always be the most important thing and so sometimes that means that I'm like oh I'm gonna leave what I'm doing which is you know important work and it can't be left so it means that I you know my homework life balance sometimes is not where it should be I was just about to ask that so we've spoken about like obviously the nature of your work how you look after your team but how do you personally like process like difficult days like if you're looking after them so it I've not nailed it I think I want to be really honest about that like I'm really working on it all the time but things that do work for me is um we always say I need to go touch grass and so you know like I just try and try and get out of the building or at the end of the day so I you know I'm up really early like ridiculously early you wouldn't even want to think about it and that's because my husband gets up for work early and I want to see my husband before he goes to work and he wants to see me and actually having just a coffee together or a bit of connection together first thing on the morning I think like really helps set my day up and I really notice when that doesn't happen. I go to the gym a lot of mornings or I go want my dogs every single morning. I just have a bit of space because I am somebody who could really just like deep dive into work really quickly and lose myself in it because I am in a healthy and unhealthy way a little bit obsessed with Razak like it is a vocation it's a passion it's something that you know I guess I always want to be working better and making sure that I'm doing the best for everybody. I check in I'm really good I have a fantastic operations manager Katie Katie um two Katie's you don't have to be called Katie to work at Razak but and I also have a fantastic leadership team and they all check in on me and I check in on them and just the support and the trust that's within that team like it's taken a while to get to that structure because initially that's the other thing about being in third sector is your structure's always behind the size of your organisation. So I feel like we've got that good structure in place and yeah I've got a leadership team who I think we all in a really healthy way like I don't like the idea that we're a family that's not healthy in a workplace but we're all really good strong colleagues for each other we check in with each other and we understand. So and we the month a weekly meeting where just like we manage risk for the our teams they come into that meeting and I'm like right where are we at? Like where's everybody at this week what do people need how are they feeling and then I try my hardest to not work on a weekend. So if I'm gonna work I work later at night or early in the morning and I try and protect my weekends that's not always possible unfortunately in the world that I'm in but it is the majority of the time and I've learnt that through experiencing the time that I've been here and I go and like walk in the countryside and do loads of lovely things that are not to do with Razak.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah so because you've said you're a little bit obsessed with it is that what keeps you motivated in a role that could be quite emotionally heavy?

SPEAKER_02 43:07

I think what keeps me motivated is that you know I I think that we don't talk about the lived experience of people in roles like mine. I think as a a woman and as a a CEO you especially and working my way up through leadership um in you it's something that I think we're told we need to keep a secret we don't talk about you know we're not identifiable as human beings we've got to be this like professional person that exists just within the workplace and that nothing else impacts us or affects us. So I think that one of the things that keeps me going and that is a bit of a superpower for me is actually being a survivor of sexual violence having gone through the court system and having that unique understanding that drives me on. I read the feedback and comments that the women leave I could get really emotional here but that sometimes when you're working on a funding report or a A funding bid you know that you've seen and you're like, can't miss going for that, and it's late at night, and you're like, Oh god, I just I don't want to be doing this, I'm so tired. Or I'll just like I'll go and on and read what the survivors have said about the service and the support.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

I can imagine because obviously, like us getting reviews is amazing, and I was like, Oh, we've made a difference to them, but doing it on that level has to be like I really think it's such a privilege.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Like, I for it's such a unique job for everybody who works in this sector, any gender-based violence sector and third sector, but I just think you know, like women, I women, children, young people, you you know, they come to us and they trust us, and I think that that you just don't ever want to let them down. I want to make sure that when they walk into our office or when they phone us up that they get the best support that they can, and I know that that's what drives a lot of my team as well, and what everybody strives for within Rasak.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

Yeah. You're leading Rasak, that part of it obviously brings you hope and reminds you why you're doing this. Is there but it's obviously not all plain sailing, and I've learned a lot about it from working with you guys. But is there an ongoing frustration or barrier that you wish you could change in the system?

SPEAKER_02 45:19

I think that people oh god, how to not sound angry. I think so. I mean, I think we can take the example of what's going on in the world at the moment, you know. So let's talk about the Extinct trials. You've had thousands of women and children come forward for years and years and years and talk about and tell people what's happened to them and no one's believed them. There's now evidence, there's photographs, it's all out there, and still people are saying that those women and children are liars, and still nothing's happened. So I can very much say that in the last even while I've been on holiday, it's really hard to disengage from this stuff because it's on your social media and your algorithms. And there's a lot of stuff and content out there right now, like this is what we do, bread and butter, and I have read some things that have really upset me. And I just think that that is really, you know, I wish that people would believe survivors. This myth that women in particular, but men as well, lie about being sexually abused or lie about being raped. It it's it is a myth. It doesn't happen very often, you know, like it's so so tiny the numbers, it's less than any than other reported crimes. It is if you think about like I remember I used to draw a diagram for police officers to explain it, and I used to draw a big circle. I used to be like, this circle represents all the people who have been who've experienced sexual violence in the last 12 months. This tiny bit here represents all the people who tell somebody. This tiny bit of that circle represents all the people who will go forward and go to the police. This tiny circle here represents how many people will then have the offender of that charged, and this tiny, tiny dot right in the corner represents the number of people who will be prosecuted and found guilty of an offence. And people talk about it like it's something that you know that there's something to gain for women. It's by or anybody reporting sexual violence going through the criminal justice system from personal experience, from the experience of survivors, it is an endurance test. It is there's nothing, there's nothing to be gained from going through that process. We sometimes sit down with survivors and we talk to them about the reality of what that is, and we try and help them to understand like what that process will feel like because sometimes that's not the right thing for some people, they're not gonna get out of it what they want, and it could hurt or damage them even more.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

We chatted about that when I was last in at RASH about like how justice to each survivor is different, completely, and that's so important, and I was like, Yeah, we do need to do like a focus on that on socials. As you said, Katie, obviously, there's a lot going on in the world just now, and I obviously you know so much about it, and I only know my tiny little bit, but I feel like it's a huge society. Obviously, I asked you what is something you could change with frustration. I feel like as a society we need to think differently, yeah. And that's obviously been ongoing, but as a leader, how do you deal with that for your team?

SPEAKER_02 48:19

I think it something that is really important to do is I need to find hope every day. So we have really open and honest conversations, and I don't shy away from that. So I think radical candor is really important. So I've not been at work for three weeks, have been luckily have been on holiday have come back. The world outside feels like a complete shit show with everything that's going on, and that is gonna have an impact on survivors, and it's gonna have an impact on my team. So I just went in, and that first morning I've made sure that I've tried to be in a few days this week, speak to different people, and just acknowledge and I said, I'm feeling like this. How's everybody else feeling at the moment? And then we had a conversation about it. Some people talked about how survivors had talked about it to them that week, and then I was like, right, so how can we, you know, my idea is that we maybe put some posts out that are about how we can support survivors, not share more of this information, but how we can give them hope. And I guess that that is how I see my job within the organisation as well, is how do we give hope to our workers? And sometimes it's just as simple as like pulling that worker to one side and sitting down with them and telling them how amazing they are, yeah, and reminding them of the fantastic work that they do.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Because I never even thought of it, like obviously the Epstein files, we just see it as like a news story, the whole thing that's going on. But if you are a survivor and you're like there's three million pages or something in them, and they're probably thinking, Well, if they don't believe that, yeah, why are they gonna believe me? So, yeah, I've never ever thought of it like that.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

And a lot of news stories, the way that that sexual violence is reported, I think I think we talked about like another thing with like frustrations and what we'd like to change is I would like you know that the Giselle Pilaco talks about like shame needs to change sides, but you know, I totally agree with that. It does the women and children and survivors, and you know, and men, any survivor of sexual violence carries that shame, they will carry blame, they'll carry guilt. You know, like the easiest way I think for a survivor to try and like change what like the like a life-changing thing that's happened to them and maybe happened to them more than once, is that they try, you know, the easiest way to do that is to internalise that guilt and blame and some if you can then be in control of that narrative in that situation, but actually it's never their fault, they've never done anything to deserve that. It's always the fault of the person, you know, who has perpetrated thankfulness. Yeah, it's always the responsibility of the person I was gonna say tired over that. Yeah, I know I was thinking of it. So it's always a responsibility of the person who's perpetrated that violence, that sexual violence onto that person, but then society, the way that you've socialized as you're growing up, so you talked about it being a societal issue. We need to like educate people to understand about this, and I think even the way that we talk about it, the language, violence against women and girls. Well, actually, it's men's violence against women and girls. We don't even the perpetrator, predominantly men, are not named in any of it. And then, like, you look at organisations you know that that are set up, and my organisation came from a collective, a group of women who were working at women's aid, who set up a helpline on their own with no money, no funding 40 years ago, and look where we are now. Now, what would without those women what would have happened? And then I think this, you know, like is it's about addressing the issue of men's violence and the social like the socialization and normalization of violence towards women and girls, but also to children, you know. If we think that one in six people have experience, I think that's the current stack within the UK child sexual abuse. You know, that it's not something that's happening to other people, you it's happening to people that we know and people that we care about, and I think that that that is what people don't understand about like the language that we use and the way we talk about things. You don't know who's in your audience or in your room when you're putting across some of the views that you have, and I think that that is something that I think really fundamentally needs to change, is just people understanding the impact of sexual violence, like it's like a ripple effect, it's not just this person who's experienced it, it's their family, it's the people who then maybe work to support them. It it has such a massive effect, and you know, hopefully people heal enough from it that they can continue, but the impact of that for some people is is so high that that it changes the way that they function in the world or that they exist in the world. It's so big.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

Definitely. So, one of the main things I wanted to do bringing you on the podcast was like raise awareness for what I think. So, I what are some of the most common misconceptions about getting sexual violence support and that you'd like to clear up? Kind of touching on the post that you said that was really powerful about what happens when you get in touch. So when I thought I was coming to meet you at Rasak, I expected it to be dead clinical. I don't really know what I expected, but I just pictured being in really white rooms.

SPEAKER_02 52:59

Like a doctor's surgery or something.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

But it's not like that at all, and I can I've obviously I'm not a survivor, but I can imagine people would expect it to be quite like that.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

So I think misconceptions that people have are that they will need to talk about and tell us in detail what's happened to them in order to access support. So that is just we have people that we've worked with who've never ever told us in detail or explained to us what's happened. We focus on safety and stabilisation, and if we get to do any extra work, that's great. But that's our main focus. So it's not if you want to come in and talk about that, then you can. If you want to come in and focus on like how it's been making you feel, the fact that you've maybe not been sleeping, the fact that you have really struggling to go outside, it's made you feel really lonely and isolated, they're the things that we will work on, and they're the things that we will focus on. That support is not driven by us in the sense of some survivors come in and they don't quite know what they want, so we might try and steer them in the direction, but actually, our support is totally centred on that survivor and what they want, and so you, if you come to us, you get to steer what that looks like. So, you know, you might want to work on one specific thing, or you might not know what you want to work on. We will help you explore that and help you understand that that we will just be able to fix everything, and that coming along to a few support sessions will sort everything out. So, very rarely for some people that might happen, but for most people, it is a journey of recovery, and we might be the first step, we might be the seventh step. It just depends where people are within that recovery journey. But we will work with you to try and help and support you, yeah. And sometimes you might come to us and we might work with you for a bit, and it might not be the right thing for you, and you might not identify that, and we might talk to you about that, but a lot of times survivors will then just stop coming. It's totally, totally fine to not decide that it's not for you because actually we we look at a range of different ways. We're not we're a therapeutic support service, so it's not pure counselling where you come and sit in a room and you talk to somebody, and then it's it's counselling all the way through. All of our staff are you know trained to some degree, they all bring different life experiences. Like I said, we've got counsellors, psychotherapists, we've got people who've worked in social work, so everyone brings different tools to the table, and that means that your support can be tailored to you, and it might not work for you to do talking therapy. We have people where we do crafts with them, we with young people, we do play therapy, we approach it in a way and we might try a couple of different things to help support you in that. So it's not, I think people think they're gonna come, they're gonna have to tell us, they'll come, we'll then ask loads of questions and then and help them fix themselves.

SPEAKER_00 55:51

I think people associate with like reporting it as well.

SPEAKER_02 55:55

Yeah. You don't have to report to come to us. In fact, we have a specialist service, a justice advocacy service, that works with people who are wanting to, who have reported, who want to report, or are going through the criminal justice system. You can be in that service and you can also be in our trauma support service, which is where the one-to-one work goes on. You can come into our service, you can self-refer in. So I think that's another misconception that they'd need to go to a service and get them to refer them in, or their GP needs to refer them in. Up until a few years ago, the majority of referrals we got was from self-referral. You can come to us, we don't have to jump straight into therapeutic support either. You can come, you can have a look around the building, you can come and meet us and have a proper tea. It is really nice, and I think you know, with the opportunity to move buildings last year, the office that we're in before was okay, but it was not how I would want it to be set up. And that has been a labour of love in the last year, and that's been my husband and I decorating on weekends, which you don't think is ego. Um, thanks shout out to my husband Chris. Yeah, we've managed to, I hope. So we consulted with this team, we consulted with survivors around like what different people would want in therapeutic support rooms, and we've got a really bright one which is like sunshine, and it's really light and it's really big. There's loads of big windows, it's yellow, it's really sunny, but it can also be made really cozy. And then we've got a dark room which is like a really nice dark purple, and we can have a light thing on, you can lay on the floor on a row, you can sit in a chair.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

I'd love to do that in that room.

SPEAKER_02 57:32

I feel like I might need to go do that sometime. Where will you be?

SPEAKER_01 57:35

I'm just gonna be laying down in Juniper having a little rest.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

You know, we've got another room that's kind of like quite natury, natury themed, um, and you know, we can come and meet you out in the community. So we've been training with our young people's team um how to do like proper war and talk and and outdoor therapy. So, like to working with children and people so we could do like um you know, like crafting stuff while we're out there. Uh, we don't have a one-size-fits-all model, and so I think if you're not sure about what you want or if we can help you, I think you just need to come and have a chat with us because we deliver support in such a variety of ways, and our goal is to absolutely make sure that we meet you where you're at and provide you with the support that you need in a way that feels safe and comfortable for you. So, you know, it might not be in the town centre in Dundee because that makes you feel unsafe. We've got an office in Thorfow, we can meet you at a doctor's surgery, you can fall, we can phone, we do online support, you can move between models, so you might not be very well one weekend, but you might still want your session, so we could move that to be online. There's we try and be as flexible as we can to support the survivor, but be bounded in that work as well because we are a free and confidential service, yeah, and so that means we don't have an infinite amount of resource.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

So, anyone that's listening, they are a survivor and yeah, they're thinking about getting support, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_02 59:02

I would say to them that you know, where we ask a question at the end of our um uh exit reviews for our survivors um who've been through the service, and we ask them a question which is what would you say to other survivors who um would be thinking about and all of them are things like don't hesitate, I wish I'd picked up the phone sooner, and this service is fantastic, it's all you won't regret it. Yeah, so I think it is really, really scary to reach out. You know, I've done everybody's circumstances will be totally different, there'll be different barriers for people, and the hardest thing you'll probably ever do, you know, is pick up that phone and ask for support or ask for help. I think people worry about being believed, and a lot of women say, I just didn't think what happened to me was serious enough, and I don't want to take support away from someone who really needs it. Yeah, if you think you need support from us, then you need support from us. You're the best person to decide that. We're there to worry about all the other aspects of it, so pick up the phone, get in touch with us. If you're worried about phoning us, reach out through our we've got an email so you could reach out there, and then one of us will phone you back. The sooner that you reach out to us, the sooner that we can like help you and support you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

The website's also very easy to close if you need to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

Yeah, so it will hide you, it will close quickly, and we definitely want to revamp our website. It's uh needing a little bit of work, but all the information that you need is on there. Yeah, and if you follow us on social media, there's some really good videos if you look back through that show you all the support rooms that talk to you, you know, like I said, Sandra's post at the beginning about like what that sounds like, exactly what you'll hear.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

Yeah, yeah. Anyone who's listening who isn't a survivor but they would like to support RafSAC, what would you tell them to do?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:46

So I would say follow us on social media, that's the easiest thing that you can do. Yeah, share our posts. Please educate yourself a little bit about sexual violence. So we run courses in the community sometimes, there's stuff online, we share different things, understand about sexual violence and and educate yourself about the impact that it has. Believe survivors, when they tell you, support them to do what they feel is right for them. So think sometimes people immediately are like, oh my god, like phone the police, or we've got to do this. That's not what that survivor might want to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

And it fits something to back in themselves as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:20

So you just you need to say to them, I think that the best thing that you can say to somebody if they disclose to you that they've experienced sexual violence is I believe you, like, how can I help you? Like, what do I do and what do you want to do? And go from there. And then say to them, you're unsure about things that they're saying or they're asking, I've heard about there's the rate crisis help plan if it's you know not yet out of hours, there's our there'll be other support services locally to you. Advise them to go and get some help and advice from a specialist support service.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

So we're looking to the future next. What's your vision for RASAC over the next few years?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:58

So my vision for RASAC over the next few years is uh is sustainable funding, um, which is tricky but constantly will be my dream.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:06

Um, it is to we work with young boys under the age of 18, we work with not very many men in the justice advocacy service, but we can work with men in that service. We currently don't work with men in our main service, so we're going to be looking to develop that in the next 12 months and open our service up our one-to-one trauma support service up to men. Amazing. Because I just really believe that anybody who's experienced sexual violence needs help and support and they need to be able to access that. I think that there's definitely pockets of the community around Dundee that don't know about us, would struggle to access us, and so want to, you know, develop awareness of our organisation and listen to those communities about what we could do better so that they felt more comfortable and safe accessing support from us.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:56

What would you like to see change in like policy or like public understanding?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:03

I would like in guessing policy is for there to finally be a sustainable funding model and for it to be funded in the same way. Like we are an em a life-saving service. Yeah. We support the work of statutory services, you know, us having to. I think the thing that people don't understand about the funny situation is that so my view of it is it just sometimes feels like you're kept poor. Like I have so many ideas, we've invented and done different things in our service, and we've so many different ways that we'd like to, but if I'd like to deliver support and we want to be constantly changing to meet the needs of people, we want to take support out and take it to people, but we're really limited sometimes in what we can do because if I've got 12 different funders, I've got 12 different funding reports to write. I've also got to keep that funding sustainable over the next two to five years. So I guess I think what I'd like to see in policy is which has started to happen a little bit, but if we are looking at funding from central government, that and it's not going to be something that is given out like it is to statutory services, then can we have longer term funding? What I would really like is for um funding models to not just be one or two years, and whilst we started to see that, um and there's been a commitment from Scottish Government for some of our funds to be two years long, actually for us to really do the work and for our staff, specialised staff to feel safe and secure, it would be having a funding model where it's a five to ten year funding, which would really allow us to develop our services and to develop the work that we do. And then I think in terms of message to people, I think I've said this a few times, but it is you know to believe survivors and also that I guess people to understand that I think the difficulty with sexual violence is that with domestic abuse, people have got to a level of understanding where they accept domestic abuse happens, they accept that perpetrators will be people that they know. And I don't think sexual violence is reached that yet. And I think that is a big barrier for because people cannot see that people that they know could be perpetrators of sexual violence. But if we're looking at, I don't know what the exact figures are at the moment, but is it like one in four women and one in six men across the UK have experienced sexual violence at some point in their life? That's not just a few people, that's a lot of people, and that comes from societal attitudes and understanding, and so they're the things that we need to change and recognise you know the value of women in society, and the you know, there's a lot around the control of their bodies and things like that at the moment. That's us taking a step back and a step away.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

What advice would you give to someone considering a career in the obsequent?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:41

I would say that it is the is such a rewarding career to have, and probably what you don't earning money, you earning soul points. I don't know, but yeah, the way that the work makes you feel like satisfaction. I have huge amounts of job satisfaction. I'm incredibly proud of what I do. Um and proud of everybody who can't put money on that. No, you can't. I don't think I I could go and in other sector, I have the skills to go and earn maybe two or three times what I'm learning now, and I'm not, you know, I understand people's life choices are totally different, but for me, I just can't imagine doing anything else. And I think that I am really truly happy in my job. Is it hard? Are the days when I'm upset, frustrated? Yeah, it is, but it's such a rewarding career, yeah. And the difference that you get to make and the people that you meet in in the work itself, but the people that you work alongside is is something else as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

Okay, quick fire round. Okay. One word that sums up rasak.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:43

Empowering.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

Yeah, love that one word that sums up your leadership journey. Developmental. Oh and you've already said this, but if you weren't working in this sector, what might you be doing? Oh, I think it's changed since I was younger. Some people have said they don't have a plan B job, so I don't.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:06

I really don't. I feel like I'm in the job that I'm meant to be in, and I love being in it, and I have no intentions of going anywhere else.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

So at the end of the episode, we let the guests ask me a question. So, do you have a question for me?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:19

Yes. What's one thing that you've learnt about yourself and since becoming the founder of Green Creatives?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:27

Um I it's hurt a bit of one thing. You can have two. Okay. I've learned that I'm quite an empowering person. Like I really do get job, not job satisfaction, but I feel good if I'm helping other women in their business or organization do well. And I've learnt that more. I think I think I've always been doing that, but doing this podcast I've learned it more. Yeah. Like the amount of people that I've sat that are business owners, and one of the questions we ask them is, How do you see yourself as or what do you think makes you a good business woman? And they go, Oh, I don't feel like a businesswoman, and I'm like, No, you are because you do this, you do that, and you do it. So I think I'm good at that. And I've also learned that I'm just I'm not scared to work hard. Like I'm not scared of it. I moan about it. Yeah. But I get it done, and I'm pr I'm proud of being like that. So yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on, Katie. Thank you. You do such a good job. Your organisation is amazing, and I will leave all Rasak's links to like social profile website and their just given page in the podcast the episode description. And yeah, it was great to have you on. Thank you so much, thank you.