What We Do
AWRC is a voluntary sector grassroots organisation, based in Harlesden, which has been providing services for women who are, or have been experiencing domestic abuse, for 44 years.
Our approach to supporting women is holistic and person-centred. At AWRC, we use our understanding of women's issues to provide practical and emotional support, ensuring that women are able to make informed choices about their future. Our services include the professional provision of advice, information to survivors of domestic abuse, to support in securing safe housing, advocacy and interpreters, access to counselling and legal advice. Our project works closely with local, statutory and non-statutory bodies, aims to deliver measurable outcomes and create best practice serving the needs of BME communities whilst working with them to eradicate violence against women.
We provide support in the following languages: Arabic, Azerbaijani (Azeri), Bengali, Bangla, Dari, Dutch, Farsi, Gujarati, Hindi, Hinko, Konkani, Kurdish, Marathi, Pashto, Patwari, Persian, Punjabi, Somali, Sinhala,Tamil, Turkish and Urdu. Our service ensures cultural sensitivity, confidentiality and listening time in a safe, non-judgemental environment. We have an open-door policy to all women in need, from all ethnicity and backgrounds.
This year the AWRC is celebrating 40 years of service, 40 years of providing life-saving support to women and children who have been affected by domestic abuse, forced marriages, honour based and faith-based abuse.
We offer the following women only services
Domestic abuse support
Domestic violence and advocacy services: The AWRC offers safety planning, advice and information, advocacy and support services to women who have experienced domestic abuse. Services are delivered through one to one intensive casework, telephone support appointments which also include on the spot appointments for women approaching the AWRC in crisis and emergency situations. All our services are free & confidential.
Advice & Information
The AWRC offers quality advice and information services to all women in need. This service is to help reduce poverty in BAME vulnerable group's by delivering positive outcomes. Our trained staff are dedicated to providing linguistically /cultural appropriate generalist advice services through appointments, drop-ins, outreach, and telephone advice. We offer support services around housing, welfare benefits, debt (signposting) & employment. We also run immigration surgeries for those in need of specialist immigration advice.
NRPF - No Recourse to Public Funds
AWRC provides support to women facing domestic abuse with no recourse to public funds. We accept referrals from voluntary, community and statutory agencies. Each referral will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Minimum criteria must be met to access this support. For further information please contact us.
Signposting & Referrals
We work with many other specialist services and are able to provide referrals to other services that can offer support to women. We are also able to signpost women to other services that are able to help them with their needs.
Domestic Abuse Support Group
We run groups throughout the year which enable women to work together with one of our caseworkers to overcome the trauma that they have been through. Helping them to overcome difficulties and find solidarity with others who have also experienced domestic abuse.
Community engagement activities
We run activities and workshops throughout the year to help support women to learn new skills and help them to be empowered and meet their goals. Workshops also run through the year around health and employment.
Workshops on rights and entitlements
We run regular workshops at our centre to educate women about the services that are available to them.
For information about any upcoming workshops please contact us.
Emotional & practical support
We have caseworkers available to support women in need.
We accept self-referrals and referrals from agencies.
Please use the referral page in the contact section for further information.
Read our evaluation report commissioned by The Big Lottery/Community Fund for our SAARL Project - Surviving Abuse & Rebuilding Lives
Outreach surgeries
We attend regular outreach surgeries in the following boroughs:
- Brent
- Harrow
- Barnet
- Hillingdon
- Hounslow
