Our New VAWG Lead Sarah Clarke spoke to us a bit about her new position, following from her previous role as Service Manager of our Red Umbrella service.
Tell us a bit more about yourself!
I am mum to 2 adult (children) and also a cat mum, I have 2 adorable Sphynx hairless cats who I love very much đ I feel honoured and privileged to lead teams at Changing Lives who advocate fiercely to end violence against women and girls. I have previously worked within Womenâs Services, more specifically within Domestic Abuse services.
How long have you worked at Changing Lives, and what roles have you had in your time? Tell us a bit more about your roles.
I have worked at changing Lives since August 2023 â I was previously Service Manager of Red Umbrella in Merseyside. A service that supports on street sex workers and people who may be experiencing/or at risk of sexual exploitation.
During my time as Service Manager I have built strong working relationships with multi-agencies from statutory and non-statutory agencies across Merseyside which has led to Red Umbrella delivering some really positive work to advocate for those people are being sexually exploited. This has involved the Red Umbrella Team working really closely with Operation Sanctuary, the modern slavery team from Merseyside police, to safeguard a number of women who have been trafficked into the UK.
Through the work we have been doing, we were successful in bringing the sexual exploitation project to Merseyside for the most recent round of funding. This has led to the recruitment of 2 specialist ASE caseworkers, one focusing on brothels and the other on supporting women navigating the criminal justice system.
What does your new role entail?
In my new role as National VAWG Lead have strategic responsibility for sex work and sexual exploitation services across Changing Lives and I oversee 5 projects, along with our Netreach service and ASEP (Adult Sexual Exploitation Partnership) where Changing Lives leads a consortium of womenâs organisations to support women and girls 16+ who have been or may be at risk of sexual exploitation.
I was recently asked to co-deliver some Modern Day Slavery training with the National Crime agency and Merseyside police at Lancashire Police Headquarters. This was a great opportunity for me to talk about the amazing work that changing Lives sex work and exploitation services undertake to advocate for the women who are often âunseenâ by many professionals and society in general.
This is a National role which enables me to travel to some of the other fantastic womenâs services, within Changing Lives.
How does your role differ from your former role now you hold more responsibility?
In my previous role, I had operational responsibility for the service and service delivery and no two days were the same. During busy times that involved spinning lots of different plates, including managing the safety and wellbeing of staff and service users whilst ensuring that any safeguarding matters were dealt with in a timely manner.
Whilst working in the service manager role, I developed a real passion for sharing my knowledge and experience to bring about positive change and identified I have a good eye for service development. I have been able to take this forward in my new role and really enjoy working with Business Development on new tenders and looking for new business opportunities.
I canât forget also working alongside policy and research colleagues at Changing Lives to influence change at high levels to end violence against women and girls. I also advocate strongly for partnership working, We cannot achieve positive outcomes for the people we support in silo - strong multi-agency partnerships make such a difference to a person's recovery journey.
How do you feel you had to develop professionally (and personally) in order to secure your new role?
One thing I noticed quickly at Changing Lives is that executive teams give you autonomy to be able to carry out your role and to me, thatâs really important.
In my role I support managers to lead teams to achieve positive outcomes for the people we support. Sometimes we deal with sad or tough, challenging situations and for me whatâs important is to bring my authentic self to work everyday and show up as human.
It's really important we meet people where they are at and see and hear the âunseenâ people we work with. Work life balance is really important for me as is having a supportive senior leadership team above me. Strong professional boundaries play a key part in my role also.
It's an honour to work for Changing Lives and I wouldnât want to work anywhere else.
