National development

The National Development Team was established in 2000 to ensure that survivors of torture can receive the support they require wherever they are in the UK.

The vast majority of people seen by the Medical Foundation are refugees fleeing from persecution in other countries. Before April 2000 about 85% of asylum seekers lived in and around London and most of the other 15% lived in a few cities like Greater Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds.

In 2000, under the Government's "no choice dispersal" programme, people whose claim for asylum were still being assessed by the Home Office began to be housed away from London and the South East, in areas with low cost housing where poverty, social deprivation and unemployment were high.

This made huge demands on already overstretched services such as GPs and local schools and often led to resentment by local communities.

With the help of training from MF experts, a core group of skilled workers providing healthcare, community support and legal services in many dispersal areas, has been established to provide basic services for asylum seekers, including survivors of torture.

Partnerships have been forged with organisations in various parts of the country that have led to MF centres being opened in Manchester, Glasgow and Newcastle, with another two planned for the West Midlands and Yorkshire.

After mapping the resources available to torture survivors in a particular area, the MF offers advice and training to all those who might engage with such survivors, ranging from housing officers to GPs to mental health workers, with a view to supporting these professionals in their work, and increasing the treatment resources available.

The centres also provide psychological support through counselling and group work to small numbers of torture survivors with more complex cases.

Through its national training programme in London, the MF has extended its reach into many other parts of the country too, training those working with torture survivors in places as far afield as Plymouth and Norwich, while in Birmingham it is working with an NHS trust and the voluntary sector to improve services there.

The National Development Team has also set up a database of over 600 agencies and individuals who are able to provide some assistance to survivors of torture in most parts of the country. The team both works with these agencies to help them develop their services and ensures that torture survivors know of the services available in their locality.

In addition, we have also worked with the advocacy group REDRESS to produce the new National Edition of the Torture Survivors' Handbook which gives details of services in many parts of the country. http://www.redress.org/publications/Handbook_En.pdf.

To encourage frontline personnel to start working with survivors of torture as part of their normal caseload, the National Development Team provides support, networking opportunities and specialist training and consultancy with MF staff. If you are working with survivors of torture outside London and would like to speak to the National Development Team please contact Mary Thompson at national@torturecare.org.uk