Today

Rape Crisis Scotland currently has nine member centres, based in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Hamilton, Dunoon, Stornoway and Perth and covering the surrounding areas. (see ‘ local rape crisis and sexual abuse centres’ for contact and other details)

Our national office opened in Dec 02/Jan 03 with two members of staff and now has three full- and one part-time workers. Rape Crisis Scotland (formerly the Scottish Rape Crisis Network) received three years of funding from the Scottish Executive to set up the national office.

	Establish, develop and sustain a solid infrastructure for the rape crisis movement in Scotland.
	Work to ensure a consistent and high quality service is offered by member groups throughout Scotland.
	Help in the development and expansion of rape crisis provision.
	Work to address prejudicial attitudes towards female survivors of sexual violence at an agency, societal and institutional level.

Our centres offer a safe and non-threatening environment where women can talk freely and in confidence. We believe strongly in the benefits of this women-only environment. It is important for survivors and it challenges structures that discriminate against women. It also provides the opportunity for all the women involved — survivors and workers (paid and unpaid) - to empower ourselves and reclaim control of our own lives.

As well as providing women and girls with free and confidential support and information, the SRCN member centres continue to be involved in working at local and national level on relevant bodies to address the needs and concerns of survivors.

Excellent search facilities at the websites of both the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament allow easy access to some of the evidence rape crisis workers have presented to various committees and our responses to consultation documents over recent years. (Please see the news section for more information on this.)

An example of the range of work our member centres do on top of their support and helpline work comes from the recent annual report of the Rape Crisis Centre in Glasgow. They list 16 different talks and training events provided by them to various agencies and community groups between April 2001 and March 2002. These included schools, a lesbian project, Victim Support and forensic and gynaecology staff.

They also took part in multi-agency working with several councils including North Lanarkshire’s Domestic Abuse strategy, and Renfrewshire’s and Glasgow’s Violence against Women strategies. The Centre was also represented on the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Working Group on Men’s Violence Towards Women and Children and the Child Sexual Abuse Forum — September Month of Action.

Other member centres do a similar range of work in their areas and nationally and all centres provide regular training for new volunteering workers and ongoing training for existing workers, paid and unpaid.

None of the work of our centres would be possible without a massive contribution and commitment from all collective members, paid and unpaid, giving so much time and energy to enable this valuable work to continue.