Neil Henderson, Chief Executive of Safeline and Founding Member of the Male Survivors Partnership

‘Pursuing independently accredited best practice quality standards is a strategic priority for Safeline. We are an inclusive organisation and want to ensure any survivor accessing our services gets the support they want and need. The Male Quality Standards (MQS) are critical to delivering that goal.

‘Comparing our service against best practice standards immediately identified numerous opportunities to improve our support for male survivors. External verification that our support for male survivors meets the MQS has led to an increase in males accessing our services: they are confident that the support they will receive is high quality.

‘Having external experts assess your services as meeting best practice standards has created a real sense of professional pride within the charity and has helped us retain and recruit staff. Meeting the standards has also helped us secure additional funds to support more male survivors.’