This week (19.05.14) the team (Bina, Sheila, and Ray) went to Holland to visit the Fier Fryslân project in the north of the country. Fier Fryslân provides assistance to children, young people and adults who are, or have been, confronted by violence in the context of relationships. They aim to prevent this violence and help to stop it from happening and also offer assistance in dealing with the consequences of this violence. Fiers residential unit is placed in a large town, which was the old police station where they are now located as neighbours to the police. This promotes and demonstrates an open and honest relationship with them, very much working in partnership and building relationships between the police and the girls to break down any barriers and actively engaging with the local community with a strong ethos of normalisation for the girls in their programme. There model is very much a team around the child with self help promoted, as well as therapy for the young people and their families. Young people attend from all over the Netherlands. A highlight for us was to enjoy lunch with some of the young people who
shared their experiences with us in an open manner. Their model is to interpret violence as being, among other things, domestic violence, sexual violence or violence as a consequence of honour killing. They help people who have gone through an experience which has left them traumatised. They counsel and treat not only the victims of violence in their personal lives, but also the perpetrators, witnesses (usually children) and people connected to them, like neighbours, family or teaching staff. During our visit in which we shared practice experience in our two countries we were accompanied by network colleagues who are interested in developing CSE services in the UK. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Fier and watch out for their work at our conference next March.

 

 

In addition Sheila and Ray paid a visit to the Dutch Rapporteur Corrinne Dettmeijer-Vermeulen at The Hague to follow up on last years Experts panel which Corinne hosted last year. Her team are preparing reports from that panel. We discussed the potential of increased collaboration on the agenda of Human Trafficking and CSE. It was also good to meet up again with Frank Noteboon from her team who we also hope to engage (With his Passport!) at next years conference.