Venue: St Andrews Church, Arbroath
On 28 October 2019 the Angus Community Planning Partnership held an event to bring practitioners and services users together to discuss the barriers within the newly published Hard Edges report from Lankelly Trust.
Hard Edges Scotland was commissioned by Lankelly Chase and supported by The Robertson Trust to bring separate datasets together to reveal how some harms interconnect in the lives of people in Scotland. It follows a similar study based on English data, published in 2015.
The Scottish report included much more qualitative evidence from people with lived or frontline experience of severe and multiple disadvantage, as well as case studies from local areas.
Additional data about people’s experiences of mental health problems and domestic abuse also helps shine more of a light on the experiences of some women. This latter development is particularly welcome, as the definition of severe and multiple disadvantage used in the English study generated a largely male profile.
Perhaps the most serious finding is described as “the pervasive role that violence continues to play throughout the life course of people experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage – whether in their childhood home, at school, in the local community, on the city centre streets, in hostels, in intimate relationships, or other settings in adulthood." The authors argue that the psychological effects of this “ever-present threat” mustn’t be under-estimated.
Also striking is the extent to which some disadvantages appear to be growing out of failures to deal with others. Attempts to ration increasingly scarce resources, for example, are pushing demand elsewhere, creating further harm in the process. We hear from people whose housing situation or mental health has become so desperate that they offend to access help through the criminal justice system. This whole system effect cannot necessarily be attributed to the shortcomings of any one service and helps explain the frustrations of frontline workers, and those they support, who are contending with dynamics beyond their control.
In total 51 participants registered for the event which included an opening brief from Gary Malone of Voluntary Action Angus followed by 5 workshops on the themes of Domestic Abuse, Homelessness, Offending, Metal Health and Substance use. The session was also captured by a graphic minute taker.
The five workshops were facilitated by specialists in their field and each had a scribe to take notes.
The following workshop reports have therefore been recorded in different ways but all reflect the key themes and calls for action under each of the five areas of multiple deprivation.