- Anna Carr, Information and Fundraising Worker
Happy Birthday Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre
Today is a special day for us; firstly it is our 37th birthday and secondly we are announcing our new organisational name. This is a way of marking 37 years of good work and signalling our confidence in developing our services to make sure they are fit for the current and future needs of survivors of sexual violence in Edinburgh and the Lothians.
37 years ago today, on 1 July 1978, Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre opened with a vigil on Princes Street and extensive coverage in the press and on the TV and radio. We were the third rape crisis centre to open in the UK (the others are London and Glasgow). The Centre was set up by women who were involved in the Women’s Movement, who wanted to provide a safe and confidential space for women who had been raped. The original premises were on Forth Street, not far from where we are today on Leopold Place, and the Centre was funded by private donations.
The ways of working established then still provide the framework for our work 37 years on. These are confidentiality; individual face-to-face support sessions; refusal to use the word victim; work towards changing attitudes in society towards rape; and we still have the same helpline number 0131 556 9437. In 1978 there were 10 phone calls to the helpline from women. In 2013-14 we responded to 2,489 calls to our helpline, delivered 2,502 support and counselling sessions; and supported 414 survivors of sexual violence and their family members, friends and partners.
Over the last year we have been talking to people about developing our service and we commissioned a study into the support needs of male survivors, which identified a significant gap in services for male survivors in Edinburgh and Lothians. Therefore, we have extended our support to include young men and boys who have experienced sexual violence at any time in their lives (find out more about the STAR Project for young survivors here). Like many other centres from the rape crisis movement we had been a women and girls only service for a long time, up until 2009 when we became the first centre in Scotland to offer support to all members of the transgender community who had experienced sexual violence at any time in their lives. However, in recognition of increasing need from young men and boys we believed it was time to open out our service to them. We will continue to provide women-only spaces for survivors as it is important to us that we protect and maintain our safe women-only services and spaces for those who want and need them. We will continue develop our services thoughtfully to support as many people as sensitively as we can.
Therefore, the reason we are changing our name is that our old name (Edinburgh Women’s Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre) does not reflect our new service provision for boys and young men, and may be a barrier to them accessing our service. Earlier this year we held a public consultation on our name change and had nearly 200 responses. Following this we have decided to change our name to Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre.
