Frieda's Hub / Research
Our research is where our frameworks and our tools begin, because we listen first to the survivors and the practitioners who know the gaps in services best.
Commissioned by NHS England and the West Midlands Office for the Police and Crime Commissioner
Sexual Assault and Abuse Needs Assessment for Racialised Communities in the West Midlands
Our mixed-methods needs assessment brought together a literature review, one-to-one interviews and survey data from across the West Midlands, so that we could understand how racialised survivors of sexual violence and abuse experience services and what has to change. The work was carried out between March and October 2024 by S. Dias, L. Stretch and I. Abdulakadir.
How to cite: Dias, S., Stretch, L. and Abdulakadir, I. (2025). Sexual Assault and Abuse (SAA) Needs Assessment for Racialised Communities in the West Midlands. We Are Frieda CIC.
The evidence base
The assessment was built from three strands of evidence, and each strand was designed to test and sharpen what the other two were showing us.
Prevalence estimates, police-recorded crime and service-level access data, read alongside the existing evidence on cultural competemility, anti-racism and intersectionality.
One-to-one interviews with survivors and with professionals in specialist and statutory services, analysed through reflexive thematic analysis.
One survey for professionals and one for survivors, written from the interview findings and analysed statistically alongside them.
A note on sampling
Key findings
The findings below come from the interviews with survivors and with the professionals working around them, and they run across every part of the system.
Survivors described thin investigation, poor communication and dismissive attitudes from police, and cases that were dropped without explanation.
Survivors were dismissed by general practitioners and mental health services, met inappropriate questioning, and some avoided healthcare altogether afterwards.
Support was often superficial, with the importance of cultural understanding recognised in principle and absent from day to day practice.
Every Black woman interviewed preferred services led by Black women, and matching on race alone was not enough without specialist knowledge of sexual violence.
Survivors navigated controlling images and the expectation of a perfect victim, and were disbelieved and ridiculed when they did not fit it.
Institutional failure left survivors advocating for their own needs and rights, usually without any support to do it.
Broad racial categories flattened distinct needs into one, and colourism shaped how survivors were treated inside them.
Staff had little specialist training in anti-racism, cultural competemility or intersectionality, and what existed was described as superficial.
Staff and organisations avoided the conversation for fear of being called racist, and that avoidance stalled anti-racist practice before it started.
Racialised staff carried the work of educating colleagues, were allocated racialised clients by assumption, and were supported in neither.
No organisation had a formal anti-racist policy in place, which left both staff and survivors without institutional backing.
They are bullies. They are supposed to serve us, but they serve themselves.
Survivor participant
They can have knowledge that racism affects people, but they need to have a passion so that they can take action.
Survivor participant
The data discrepancy
A survey of thirty-three professionals returned high confidence in anti-racist and intersectional practice. The interviews with those same services found little of the practical skill and depth of understanding that confidence implies.
of professionals reported feeling confident integrating intersectional approaches into their work.
of professionals reported being proficient in anti-racist practice and understanding.
Professionals may overestimate their competence, treating basic awareness as enough for effective practice.
Professionals may have reported higher confidence to align with accepted norms rather than with their actual capability.
Some organisations feared that naming gaps in anti-racism and intersectionality could put their funding at risk.
Recommendations
The assessment sets out fourteen areas for change, written for commissioners, for services and for the professionals working inside them.
Assess services across the six levels, co-designed with survivors and frontline practitioners, with an analysis of power built into it.
Mandatory, multi-tiered training in racial literacy, intersectionality, cultural competemility and anti-racism, with a ring-fenced budget in every commissioned service.
Peer learning and mutual support networks within and between organisations, so that harmful practice is challenged collectively rather than alone.
Independent audits with meaningful survivor involvement, and continuous feedback that drives specific, measurable and time-bound change.
Accountable policies on intersectionality, cultural competemility and anti-racism, reviewed annually and evaluated by commissioners for how they work in practice.
Culturally aligned choices for survivors, with smaller services resourced rather than overshadowed, and evidence of culturally competent practice required.
Advocacy models designed for intersectional need, reaching beyond crisis support into system navigation and long-term accompaniment.
Community-based, culturally sensitive outreach, adapted on the basis of what those communities say about it.
Stronger referral pathways, co-location models and equitable partnerships with grassroots organisations through collaborative commissioning.
Sustained funding for by-and-for services for survivors who identify as Black and Black mixed heritage, with outcomes monitored consistently across providers.
Funding models that carry grassroots decision-making power, and survivor advisory panels with real authority over how services are designed.
Multi-agency hubs and an operational framework that reduces fragmentation, piloted and evaluated in the areas of highest need.
Research into the intersections of sexual violence, race and sexual health, including pregnancy, coercion and control, and disparities in healthcare.
Funding tied to anti-oppressive outcomes, with cultural audits, readiness assessments and metrics on survivor outcomes and systemic change.
Conclusions
The findings show widespread systemic and institutional failings in how racialised survivors of sexual violence and abuse are supported across the West Midlands. These failings are not isolated incidents, and they are embedded in the structures and the cultures of service provision.
The findings also point to a way forward, because survivors and practitioners articulated a clear vision of what equitable services look like. That vision is culturally aligned support, intersectional advocacy, long-term accompaniment and services grounded in lived experience. Grassroots and by-and-for organisations hold the trust of their communities, and they were recognised throughout as vital to this landscape.
Meeting the needs of racialised survivors asks the sector for a structural and cultural shift, led by those most affected by the harm. Without that commitment, racialised survivors will continue to fall through the cracks of systems that were never built to protect them.
Frameworks and tools
The Friedom Framework, the Intersectional Risk Tracker Tool (IRTT) and the practice guides in the Hub all grew out of what survivors and practitioners have told us across our work and our projects.
The framework reads a survivor's life across six levels, with three navigational principles running through every one of them.
Read the framework →We take on commissioned research and needs assessments for all communities, with a specialism in racialised communities.
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