One year of Freedom in the Midlands

It’s coming up to a year since Freedom expanded to the Midlands, so we thought now was a great time to update everyone on what we’ve been up to, and what a year it’s been so far for the team!

The team in the East Midlands; Hannah and Delphi started in March and April 2023 with the team in the West Midlands, Lissy and Hettie joining in May 2023. We started the year shadowing the wider team to learn about how Freedom supports owners, dogs and our brilliant foster carers. We also spent a lot of time processing as many volunteer foster carer applications as we could!

During the first few months of joining Freedom, we attended various external training sessions to develop our understanding of the services and support available to domestic abuse survivors.

From the middle of May we were ready to start taking referrals and placed our first dogs ahead of schedule.

During the summer, whilst still working on new referrals, we continued with foster carer recruitment through attending local events along with reaching out to local organisations and companies to advertise for foster carers.

As well as ensuring the dogs are well cared for whilst in foster with us, we work closely with owners, giving updates on their dogs, receiving updates on their housing journey and providing support where we can. To aid this, the team completed a two-day training session with Shelter in the summer, to understand more about how housing works in England, Wales and Scotland for people trying to access social or private rented accommodation. It was really eye opening and highlighted how difficult it can be for people to access appropriate housing currently.

The Lifeline team at Cats Protection (our feline equivalent!) were also launching in the Midlands in 2023, so we have been working closely with them to share information about our services to key stakeholders. 

At the end of the year, we officially launched Freedom in the Midlands with an event in Birmingham which we hosted in conjunction with the Lifeline team at Cats Protection. It was a great day attended by various domestic abuse services across the Midlands and inspectors from the RSPCA. We had speakers from the service managers of Lifeline and Freedom as well as the West Midlands Police and local MPs, and it was a great way to round off a successful year.

In our first year, we have placed 54 dogs with carers across the Midlands and helped 38 people find freedom from domestic abuse. We’ve also successfully reunited 22 dogs with their owners.

The wider Freedom team and everyone across Dogs Trust have all been amazing at welcoming us into the fold. For 2024 we’re eager to continuing promoting the work we do and to support as many people as possible in the Midlands who are experiencing domestic abuse.

Best wishes,

Hannah and Lissy – Freedom Team Leaders