D.I.I.verse Podcast: Will it make the boat go faster?

University Safeguards against Domestic Abuse: A Conversation with Jenny Cannon

• Adam • Season 1 • Episode 30

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Get ready to uncover the pivotal role universities play in protecting students from domestic abuse, as our guest, Jenny Cannon, joins Professor Elaine Arnull in the D.I.I.verse studios this week. Jenny's position as the safeguarding manager at the University of Wolverhampton, lends her a unique perspective that will enlighten us on the complex layers of abuse and the importance of providing bespoke support to victims. 

We dive head-first into the murky waters of emotional abuse, shedding light on its damaging effects and the need to take it seriously. Jenny shares her insights on how to support friends who may be trapped in abusive situations, and the vital role of the university's safeguarding team. Equally, she highlights avenues for seeking help from external organisations, ensuring we understand that victims are never alone.

Moving onto the urgent issue of forced marriages, we discuss the critical response time necessary to handle these reports effectively. Jenny reveals the proactive steps the University of Wolverhampton is taking to raise awareness of abuse - from creative endeavours like poster competitions to powerful conferences that amplify the voices of survivors. We finish off by emphasizing the need to trust your instinct and reach out for support when something doesn't feel right. This episode is an essential listen for those interested in the intersection of education and domestic abuse, and the support systems in place for those affected.

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Professor Elaine Arnull:

Okay, hello. I'm here today with Jenny Cannon. My name's Elaine Arnold and I'm a professor of social work here at Wolverhampton University, and I'm talking to Jenny today about her role here at the university and, more generally, about domestic violence and abuse and forced marriage and honour-based violence. So can I ask you to introduce yourself, jenny, and tell us a little bit about your role now and what you do?

Jenny Cannon:

Thank, you, elaine. My name is Jenny Cannon. I'm the university safeguarding manager at the University of Wolverhampton. I started this role about eight months ago and part of my role is dealing with safeguarding referrals that we receive across the university. But one of the obviously linked to the reason that we're here today and having this conversation is that one of the things that surprised me in the role is that actually the second highest number of referrals is regarding domestic abuse, and that's the number of referrals we get from our students linked to domestic abuse. And specifically, although obviously domestic abuse can happen in all different types of relationships and perpetrators can be male or female, the referrals that we receive through are all women who are victims of domestic abuse from men in their relationships. So really just wanted to, obviously with your background, to talk to you a little bit about that and what we do in the safeguarding team to support victims of domestic abuse, and talk to you a little bit about your expertise as well.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

Yeah, and you might want to explain for us or what safeguarding means, because I know, if you travel abroad, for example, people don't understand what the term safeguarding means that we use in the UK. So do you want to just explain?

Jenny Cannon:

it for us? Yeah, so safeguarding so we do some safeguarding training actually, and quite often people confuse safeguarding with, like a health and safety term and thinking about keeping people safe. Well, it is keeping people safe, but safeguarding where it differs from health and safety is rather than keeping people safe from, like hazard objects, trips and falls, etc. It's actually about keeping people safe from other people and other people's behaviours, so safe from abuse, different types of abuse that could be sexual abuse, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, forced marriage, neglect. And it's about raising awareness so that if people have got a concern or if somebody is a victim of any type of abuse, they know how to report that within the university and we work with different external agencies to provide support externally. And also we provide a huge level of support within the university as well with our mental health and wellbeing team. We also have a support to study team and a course concern group that meets weekly where we look at how we can support individual cases, both academically and pastoral.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

Right, okay, so that's really why, isn't it? And I know we started talking about this because I do a lot of research around domestic violence and abuse and also forced marriage and honour based violence. So I was really interested because there's actually not that much written about students, particularly in the UK. There's a bit more in the US, although that focuses much more on sexual violence, but not that much written about students and their experiences of domestic violence and abuse and what universities do. So I think it's just it was fascinating to me and I hope actually we might get to do some research about it actually ourselves.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

I know we're looking at that. So you were really surprised and I know suicide or concerns are the first generate the most, don't they? but very closely followed by concerns around domestic violence and abuse. So, in terms of if someone either contacts you because they're experiencing abuse, or that they're even not sure if they are, but they're concerned they might be, or if someone contacts you, either a member of staff or a student, that they're worried about someone else, what happens next? because people might worry that everyone will know or that they won't be allowed to study?

Jenny Cannon:

No, absolutely not. We're here to support our students as they're going through this difficult time. There's no one size fits all support system. It's all bespoke. Depending on what the individual wants at the time. We'll offer a range of support. That support doesn't have to be taken up. It's up to each individual, what they want to do and what's right for them at the time.

Jenny Cannon:

What we would do initially say, for example, we talked about if we had and we quite often do have referrals that come through personal tutors, for example, because they've got that closer relationship with the students, and so we would work with the personal tutor or whoever the student has disclosed to, to provide support and we would meet with them, with their personal tutor, so they feel they've got that person of trust with them to support them through What we can do. There's a whole range of things we can do. Obviously, if people wanted to report externally to police, we can support them with that. We can put them in touch with external charities that we work with, such as Women's Aid Refuge, through external agencies that can support with housing etc, accommodation. We can provide financial support, mental health and wellbeing support within the university And also we can support academically in terms of putting extenuating circumstances in for exams.

Jenny Cannon:

We can do that in a really sensitive way as well through our report to study group that runs. So that would mean that if an individual, for example, wanted to have extenuated circumstances, through that first point of disclosure and that conversation that comes through to safeguarding, we can put in those extenuating circumstances without the individual then having to call up a help desk and go through explaining a very personal situation to somebody over the phone which they may not want to do that. So we'll put in that support across the board for them. So they've got just one point of contact and they don't have to sort of go through their personal story with lots of different people which could be very, very distressing.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

So then you've got to keep telling lots of different people. They could tell one person, and that person conveys the information.

Jenny Cannon:

That's it.

Jenny Cannon:

And it obviously dealt with in a really secure way that it's not that information isn't shared with multiple people, but the group, the support study group that meets each week actually the team there have a part of the extenuating circumstances panel, so very few people need to sort of know the information that key people are informed so that we can put the support that's required in place seamlessly, really, so that the student doesn't have to keep retelling the story and retelling their lived experience. Thank you. We also have a Safe Zone app, which I think it is. We encourage all students you know whether they're experiencing domestic abuse or not and staff to download the Safe Zone app. It's on our university website and details of how to download it are on the university website. If anybody is ever in distress, you can call an emergency button and help them will come. So that's really useful. It works on all of our campus sites and it's you know. We'll strongly encourage everybody to download the Safe Zone app.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

What does it look like, jenny, the little app? Is it of a particular colour, or?

Jenny Cannon:

It's just a. It's just got an S on it. It's just like a blue square on your phone and, yeah, it talks you through exactly what it looks like on the university website and how to use it. But, like I said, it links to our security system so you can. If you need help, people can get to you quickly and then we can put in extra support measures up as well. But, like I said, it's bespoke to each individual case as to what we can offer and what what that individual might want as well.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

And how do people actually know how to contact you? So I know because I know you, but yeah, so if, if, if someone doesn't know you, how do they know how to get in contact with you? What do they do?

Jenny Cannon:

So I'm part of the safeguarding team so referrals wouldn't come directly to me, to my personal email.

Jenny Cannon:

We have a safeguarding referral system.

Jenny Cannon:

So on the university web pages it's just wwwwlvacuk, forward slash safeguarding, and on that web page is a referral form so you could self refer or if you've got concerns about somebody else, or if it was a personal tutor, for example, referring on behalf of one of their students, you can use that safeguarding referral form that comes through straight away to us to our university safeguarding email which is safeguarding just the word safeguarding at wwwacuk.

Jenny Cannon:

So you can either email us through the safeguarding at wwwacuk, but what we prefer to do when we have a referral is to fill in the referral form which gives us all the details. We then track you know the support offered and where we are with each individual case, securely through a university system, our safeguarding system, where we track exactly. You know the contact we've had with people, what measures we've put in place. But that's all extremely secure, with only the safeguarding team have access to that. So it's not just me working in the team alone, there's a group of us and, yeah, we all have access to the safeguarding inbox and those systems and our designated safeguarding leader, should say, is Samantha Waters. So she actually is the designated safeguarding leader for the whole of the university and is our boss essentially for the safeguarding work that we do.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

And if someone say, fills in a form or drops you an email and they're not really sure like they don't, because lots of people aren't even professionals sometimes will focus very much on if there's violence in a relationship. But if there's not violence in a relationship but actually someone's being controlled, either financially or through who they can speak to or where they can go or whether they're allowed to marry certain people or any of those sorts of things and they're not things that they or have relationships with certain people that and they're not of their choosing, I think people are more aware now that they are also abusive behaviours, but they're not always very sure. So if someone isn't really sure and they made a referral to you and they were already a bit worried about it and then you said, no, that's not an issue, we don't think that's an issue, Would you be cross with them for making that referral or would you rather they made that referral and you're able to talk it through with them?

Jenny Cannon:

No, absolutely. I think if something isn't sitting right with you as an individual and you've got real concerns about somebody, we always say it's better to report because actually we may have other pieces of information that have come through centrally to safeguarding, and actually that's another piece of the puzzle that helps us put together a picture of what's happening for an individual, so that it's really important. What I'd say is what you got feel on this. If something's not right and it's playing on your mind, then probably you need to make a safeguard or referral or talk to us, because then at least we can have the conversation, see what support we can put in place. Thank you, either reassure you that it's not a safeguarding referral or reassure you that it is.

Jenny Cannon:

And, like you said, emotional abuse is. You know, it's a big part of domestic abuse that we see and that coercive control, which is harder to pinpoint and, like you said, is a bit more perhaps Something that people are not sure about. Whether this is a form of abuse. It is a form of abuse And it's a form of abuse that we take seriously. So we would you know anything that you're concerned about, rather than sort of Not talk about it or put it down to, you know, just a poor relationship.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

We would really encourage you to talk to us about anything that's disclosed around You know that could come under that emotional abuse banner, because it is still a form of abuse Which which we need to hear about in safeguarding so we can put And supportive measures in place for people and if, like, i'm worried about my friend and I've said to my friend I think you should go and talk to someone, and they've says I, i Can't, because I'm too frightened to, or I'm not ready to, or I don't want to, what would you say to me would be the right thing to do? Should I come and have a chat with you, and how would you deal with it? Because I'm worried my friends now going to be really cross with me, but I'm really worried about them.

Jenny Cannon:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously At the university our students are all Adults, so they have that. they have choice with what they want to do. And If you, if you had a concern, then we could you that you want to raise with us, i'd say, bring that to us and and we can sensitively reach out and To your friend, for example, and talk to them about what we can offer in a supportive way.

Jenny Cannon:

And I think Sometimes some of the fear is around us contacting them at the wrong time, for example, when perhaps People are around that they don't want to hear. You know they don't want to have the conversation at that particular time. So it might be just a bit more about reassurance in terms of when we make contact, how we make contact. You know what we can do, what, what we're here to do, to offer support, because it's certainly not a, i think, sometimes people and think that we're going to swoop in and and sort of Change, change their world. But actually it's not like that. It's more about listening to people what they want, working with them and putting support measures in with them, listening to their voice, and not actually making those decisions for people, because Domestic abuse is very complex. There's, it's not. People are on different journeys with it and It's about listening to the victims of the domestic abuse and and And supporting them with what they want at that particular time. There's no, you know, right or wrong Situation for each individual and it's just about listening to them.

Jenny Cannon:

I think sometimes people are a bit Reluctant to report because they think that things will be done to them and they won't have a say, and that's just certainly not the case.

Jenny Cannon:

So what I'd say to somebody, if they're concerned about their friend, is come and speak to us. We would go back to the friend, say you know, can we have permission to reach out? You know, can you ask your friend If we, if there's a certain time that we can call them, can we have permission to call them? because we wouldn't want to be calling them out of the blue without their permission. They're adults at the end of the day and we would want them to be on board with engaging with us. But then obviously you know it could be causing distress to the friend And because they could see, you know, their friends in distress. So it's about us. You know, if people are in that situation and they're struggling, reach out to us because you know, it might be that That's triggered some things for the, for the friend or the person who's supporting them, and they might actually need some individual support for our mental health and well-being team as well.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

Yeah, and I know you work with lots of external organizations, don't you as well? So if people wanted Not necessarily to speak to someone in the university, but they wanted to speak to someone outside, are you able to help them have those conversations?

Jenny Cannon:

Yeah, we can put them in touch. I said we work with women's aid, refuge, haven different charities, so yeah, absolutely We can put them in touch with external charities. That can. That can support If they didn't feel comfortable talking to somebody within the university?

Professor Elaine Arnull:

Yeah, brilliant, okay. So if I'm not sure what to do, so Are there ways in? so I'm worried about friends. I've maybe spoken to you. My friends said they don't want to talk to anyone yet And they're things that you say that staff and students, that are those of us as part of the university community that we can Do that would be helpful or help support people. Are there things more generally, you think we can do?

Jenny Cannon:

I think it's just about a lot of the people we speak to and feel shame and guilt, and that's because the people who've been abusing them have made them feel that this is all of their fault, that they're deserving of this abuse. So I think it's really important if somebody does disclose to you whether it's a friend or you know or you remember a staff and it's a student It's to remind that person that they've absolutely done nothing wrong and actually they're not alone. They're. You know, we're here to listen, we're here to support There's no judgment And I think, those sort of values and behaviours. It's important that we all uphold those and just to be there to listen to people, rather than force people to make any decisions, you know, just to have that opening, listening, to provide support to people, and then you can sign post and see what support or next steps might be appropriate for them, having listened to the situation and providing that, just providing comfort really.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

And university might be a great place for someone who is experiencing abuse to come. Might next there might be. This is the place where they have fun, where they are surrounded by friends, where they feel quite safe.

Jenny Cannon:

Yes, they've got a community of practice. they feel comfortable building their confidence, gaining lots of knowledge. Yeah, so I think there's many positive aspects for people who suffer in domestic abuse, you know and everybody, but particularly for those groups in university, lots of groups people can join And we are looking at setting up, actually, domestic abuse survivors group within the university as a sort of a further community of practice and we're looking at setting that up from a safeguarding side of things.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

I know when you started you said that when we started the conversation, you said you were really surprised by the level of referrals that you received for domestic violence and abuse and concerns about forced marriage or on a base violence. So and in a way, i think it's surprising that it still comes as a surprise to us. We know that approximately two women a week die at the hands of somebody there in a relationship, with a woman being killed by a man, and I know you said that most of the referrals are women who are experiencing violence and men who are either being violent or abusive, and that's the national pattern, it's the international pattern. So I think in another way, there's no need for us to be surprised by that.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

Violence and abuse can occur in any setting. But we also have to recognise the pattern. That's the most common pattern and it's overwhelmingly the most common pattern, and think about that. But I also do a lot of work with Roshni, who are going to be doing some work with us later in the year as well, and they work with forced marriage and on a base violence and they're often the structure slightly different because it can involve whole families, and one of my PhD students is currently also looking at that from a social work perspective And I just wondered if there are any ways that you think that people might want to think about forced marriage or I know people don't like the term on a base violence, but it's what it's commonly termed as. So, whether that you think there's any other ways that, within the university, you respond to that or anything you wanted to make sure people understood because it does have a different. It's not usually one person, it is often a group.

Jenny Cannon:

I mean, obviously, if anybody had a disclosure where they suspected there was forced marriage or had a disclosure that somebody was being forced into a marriage, we would need to know in safeguarding about that straight away. What I would say about the safeguarding in boxes it's like a Monday to Friday 9-5 at university. So it may even be that you need to consider calling the police. We do take forced marriage very, very seriously because, like you said, it might not be actually safe for individuals to return home following disclosures. They might not be safe because, as you said, there are potentially other family members involved. So we need to act quickly to make sure individuals are safe.

Jenny Cannon:

It's very, very serious. We take it very seriously. Again, we deal with each case in a bespoke way. It depends on this and I don't want to disclose too much, obviously, about individual cases, but it's important that we get people to a place of safety urgently. So if anybody did have a disclosure about forced marriage, whether that's a friend at university or whether that is a member of staff, they need to report that to a straight away. But it may be actually that if that happens over the weekend, it may be they need to inform the police.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

And I know one of the things Rosni talked about and they're very keen to do campaigns around these before and after holiday term times When people are perhaps not wanting to go abroad but being taken abroad, perhaps for a marriage and things like that. So I know they talk about that as one of the times of concern and help.

Jenny Cannon:

Definitely I was just going to say and you know maybe that people think, oh, they are going on a family holiday. This is nothing. But if you again, it's if you've got that concern or somebody said something to you that just doesn't feel right. It's better to report than regret And we have got really close links with the police through our safeguarding work So we can be able to please as well. But, like I said, depending on timings of disclosures, it might be that individuals need to contact the police themselves, or, if it's more early stages, they can come to us and obviously then we can liaise with police to provide support. But the police that we work with are very good And so, for example, you're talking about holidays there And they can withdraw passports and things that people actually can't be taken out of the country and we can keep them safe. So things can be done. But obviously we just need to know about these disclosures, and we need to know quickly so that we can act.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

Yeah, i think time can be very much of the essence, can't it? So just thinking, finally, really looking forward, what are the university's future plans to like? further improve support. What do you want to do? What do you? I know I'm sort of very keen for us to do some research about this and look with other universities that they're patterns and stuff in the UK as well. But what are you burning to do? What would you? you know what's going to happen.

Jenny Cannon:

What we're going to be doing is raising awareness about safeguarding and how to report the safeguarding concern at university. Obviously, that covers domestic abuse, but all types of abuse. We're actually going to be embedding some training and awareness raising, enrollment for students across the university so that they know how to report a safeguarding concern before they're even enrolled. Joined with us And we have. We've got our mandatory safeguarding training for all staff, which has to be completed as part of our mandatory set of training requirements. We are also going to be setting up these support groups for our survivor support group months later, create this community of practice for people. And also it's just about further awareness raising. So we've already had, through our mental health and wellbeing champions, we've had a women's aid come in onto campus raising awareness, speaking to our students. So we'll continue to work with charities to you know, to spread awareness and to make people aware of the support that's out there for them as well.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

And the mental health and wellbeing champions are students, aren't they as well? So it's like getting students involved in supporting other students as well.

Jenny Cannon:

That's it, yeah, definitely.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

Yeah. So I think that's really interesting and I know we've got the mental health and wellbeing champions are going to be supporting. We've got a conference coming on the 21st to the 23rd of June which is the European Network on Gender and Violence. If anyone's interested in registering, registration will open for people outside of the network probably in the next week or so And the link will come out in university news and students are very welcome.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

The mental health and wellbeing champions are going to be having a poster competition and we're going to be doing that. So it's an academic conference. But all around that conference on the Wednesday evening and then on the Thursday evening We're running the conference in conjunction with organisations in the region domestic violence and abuse organisations in the region and we're actually co-hosting with Roshni themselves. So we're going to be having survivors coming to speak about their own experiences of having survived abuse and what they do now, and we're going to have a youth group coming to talk about the way that they're working with young people and about changing attitudes and especially things like misogyny, which plays a really big part in the perpetration of abuse. But so I think there's some really exciting things happening and getting really joined up and it's really good that we're working with partners on that and with students on that, and it's not just university trying to do something all by itself.

Jenny Cannon:

Yeah, yeah, definitely. That sounds brilliant. I'll definitely become Ingeley.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

Brilliant, that's fantastic. Well, it's lovely talking to you, jenny. Is there anything else that you think I should have asked you? that I didn't ask you Any burning thing.

Jenny Cannon:

No, that's great. I think it's just to remember, you know, if you've got a gut feeling that something's not right, reach out to us if you need support. You know where we are and that's it really. We just we're here to help and we're here to support. So reach out to us. And the email address, Jenny again, is It's safeguarding at wlvacuk.

Professor Elaine Arnull:

Lovely, okay, thank you. It's brilliant talking to you. Thank you, you.