Happy New Year from LimeCulture

Happy New Year to all of you! 2013 promises to be another great year for LimeCulture.

Here at LimeCulture we are very excited about the coming year and what we have in store for us. We have got lots of work to keep us busy but we are determined to stay focused on improving the confidence and competence of frontline professionals responding to victims of sexual violence.

From now through until April we will be preparing for the National Conference  ‘Knowledge and Network: An Event for ISVAs’ and making sure that is as good as it can possibly be for this important workforce. See our previous post for more information about this Event and how to book.

We will also be focused on training professionals and have a number of training courses running over the next couple of months. Some of our courses are fully booked, so we will be announcing further dates for Court Skills and Crisis Worker in the coming months. We still have a few places left on the 2013 ISVA Development Programme so if you would like to join the June – November 2013 cohort, please contact us for further information.

The LimeCulture experts also provide support and advice to commissioners and funders of specialist sexual assault services. Last year, LimeCulture was commissioned to undertake a number of Independent Service Reviews to assess the quality of service provision on behalf of commissioners. Due to the unique blend of skills and experience of our experts, LimeCulture are able to identify strengths and challenges of service provision and make recommendations to improve the response of services to victims of sexual violence. In light of the changing NHS landscape and the new Police and Crime Commissioners and the impact these will have on commissioning arrangements for sexual assault services, we believe this year could be a turbulent one for sexual assault services who may have to compete against other services in times of dwindling budgets. Showing positive outcomes and value for money has probably never been so important for services who will need to show their value to cash strapped commissioners. Over the next year, LimeCulture will continue to focus on supporting commissioners and funders of sexual violence services, but we will also shift our focus to support specialist sexual violence services to achieve excellence and demonstrate their impact to commissioners and funders. Our aim is to help services to become ‘commissioner ready’ and to remain properly commissioned, funded and supported.

In 2013 LimeCulture will also be working internationally! As well as being asked to provide bespoke training to sexual assault services overseas, we have also been asked to visit and speak at a number of international events on sexual violence. While the UK very much remains our focus, we will be taking up a few of the offers in the hope of learning what other countries do to support victims of sexual violence and whether there is anything that we can learn from others. We will report back on our findings! Watch this space!

So there is lots to do in 2013 and LimeCulture is excited about doing it!! We hope 2013 is an excellent year for you too!