DOMESTIC violence bubbles away underneath the surface of society, rarely being discussed in the public eye, instead being clouded by stigma. One charity saving women, children and, increasingly, men from years of trauma is sharing its story of decades spent on the frontline. HELENA VESTY reports.

PHYSICAL, psychological, financial and emotional abuse are still often kept as ugly secrets.

Burdened with fear of what may happen to them if they speak out, those suffering from abuse are coerced into staying silent not only by their abusers, but by a society which often judges those who finally break free.

Fortalice is the renowned service in Bolton providing refuge for women and children experiencing domestic abuse. 

With 22 apartments with a capacity for up to 70 children, they helped 2,200 people in the last year and have 17 projects running to keep up with demand. 

But more capacity is still needed to deal with the hundreds of people suffering.

Endeavour, a charity based in Chorley New Road, has been working for decades to connect those suffering abuse to vital services — helping 465 people just last year.

It was born in 1997 out of what some might consider the unusual plight of one domestic violence victim . . . she wouldn’t leave her pet dog to go into a refuge, where pets just couldn’t be accommodated.

But founder Carole Marsden discovered that the situation was common, along with others that she tried to address when she formed Paws for Kids, which later was renamed Endeavour.

She described how she came to the work: “My background, when in my 20s, was in youth and community work. From there, I moved to what were called “unemployed workers’ centres”, it was around the time of the miners’ strike.

“It became quite apparent to me that domestic abuse was happening, both in my youth work and in the unemployed workers’ centres.

“When there is extra stress put on a family, sometimes it is not the cause of domestic abuse but it can lead to domestic abuse.

The lacking funding and flexibility of refuges made itself painfully clear when Ms Marsden saw a victim make the difficult choice to walk away from a bed at a refuge.

She said: “The day that changed my life in all of this was when I was working in a refuge in Salford. An older woman came to the door and she had her dog with her. A Labrador dog.

“She had slept the night in the stairwell of a block of flats because she had left her abusive, violent partner.

“She was telling me that she had stayed at home while her children had been growing up but she had stood by him while he was being violent for years and years. Now she had enough and she wanted to leave.

“We could find refuge space for her, but we could not find anything at all for the dog. She just looked at me and said “well, I’ll be going home then because Barney is my baby.”

“She turned around and went home, I do not know what happened to that woman. I started thinking, there has to be something we can do for women who cannot access refuge for various reasons.

“The whole organisation started on my kitchen table. I had £73 in the bank to try and keep it going.

“I spent 12 months writing letters to everybody with this idea, saying we needed extra support services for when women moved out of refuge and extra support for people who had companion animals because it was stopping people leaving abusive situations.”

Ms Marsden said: “It was another way of controlling people. The woman who slept in the block of flats told me that she could not leave her dog Barney to suffer at the hands of her abuser. Her dog was a member of her family and she would have no sooner left her children behind than she would have left Barney behind.”

Now Endeavour is the only domestic abuse victims’ charity that provides foster carers for pets while victims are in refuge or recovering from abuse.

It also runs a host of services and the team have now had more than two decades of experience with people suffering from all types of abuse.

Ms Marsden said: “It is a gender based crime, even though it does happen to men, we get more women coming through here.“If a perpetrator is going to be abusive, they will use whatever is in the family home to control a partner. If there is children, he might tell you you are a bad mother and say “if you leave, I’ll have the children taken off you, nobody will believe you”. People’s self esteem goes down and down.

“If there are animals in the home, he might say “I’ll kill the animals, not feed them, I’ll turn them out” — it is just another way of keeping control.” It only has to be a threat.”

However, Ms Marsden says the stereotype of a domestic abuse victim is breaking down. She says that more men and young people are now coming forward because of increasing publicity and a better understanding of abuse.

The CEO says these cases have shaped the way Endeavour approaches people in need of help, becoming “the mortar in between the bricks”, connecting victims with the police and Fortalice to help them escape abuse.

Ms Marsden added: “I have been working in this field for so long that I have seen the changes.

“We have a holistic approach, what we call a whole life, whole family approach. Whoever is in your family, we can provide a service for them. Adults, children, young people, animals.

“No matter whether you are thinking about leaving an abusive partner or you have already left, or you left a long while ago but you are struggling by yourself and not managing, we can provide a service for you. We don’t leave anybody behind.

“We are trying to stop a revolving door of people in abusive relationships leaving and going into temporary accommodation or refuge, being rehoused, failing through no fault of their own and ending up going back because they are vulnerable.”

ENDEAVOUR has grown from strength to strength, now operating five projects.

These include the pet fostering service, the outreach service, the independent domestic violence advice service for those at high risk, the young people’s service and a service for people in temporary accommodation.

CEO Carole Marsden says the charity has a holistic approach to help guide people: “We try and cover every sector of the community. The service is not just for women, we provide a service for men and a service for people from the LGBT community, people in same sex relationships. We have a specialist worker for people who English isn’t their first language, and a specialist sexual violence advocate.”

She says that increasingly, those suffering from abuse want to remain in their homes, seeking to remove the perpetrator instead.

Ms Marsden added: “They want to get protection orders and get the man out. People can stay in their own homes if they wish to do so. They might have children at school or college so it would be detrimental to move them.

“We can do a safety plan for their home, help them write their own support plans and exit strategy, keep them safe and feed them into other services. They can get home-based support from our outreach service and when they are ready they can do various courses to build self esteem and move on with their lives.”

The charity runs a support groups for survivors. Ms Marsden said: “One is the Let’s Get Going group. That’s about looking at what you want yourself and your self esteem and body image.

“The other is the Believe and Achieve, which helps women move on that next step where they can look at what they want now after they have recovered from the abuse. Do they want to go to college, do they want to go back into work, do they want to become a peer supporter for other people here?

“It’s like a jigsaw of services here, everything does link together.”

THIS is the first in a series of reports on Endeavour that we will be running over the next few weeks, exploring different forms of domestic abuse and the experiences of survivors.

If you are affected by domestic violence or any of the issues raised in this report, there are services you can get in touch with.

In an emergency, call 999. This is when you are in fear of your safety and the threat to you or your family could endanger life. If you need to log or report any abuse that is not an emergency, contact Greater Manchester Police on 101.

For access to frontline domestic abuse services including refuge, counselling and support, call the 24-hour Fortalice helpine on 01204701846 or 01204365677.

Endeavour, which operates from 9.30am to 5pm Monday to Friday, can be called on 01204 394842. The team at Endeavour also works with people referred to them directly by the police and Fortalice. There is a freephone, 24-hour domestic violence helpline run by Women’s Aid and REFUGE which can be reached on 08082000247.

Visit endeavour project.org.uk