UpFront Survivors
Funder
Home Office (Support for Victims and Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Fund 2022-26)
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Value
2022-25- £62,646; 2025-26- £20,000
PI and Project Team Members
Duration
March 2022-March 2026
Collaborators
The UpFront Survivors project is led by Somerset and Avon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support (SARSAS), in partnership with Viv Gordon Company, The Green House and Coventry University.
Project Overview
Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) lack representation on national and local platforms, as experiences of CSA continue to be hidden and taboo. Survivors live with ongoing silencing and censorship, and many are not able to safely self-identify or speak out about their experiences. Most have never met another survivor, so do not feel part of a community. Survivors of CSA do not have existing role models or cultural infrastructure like other marginalised communities and their voices are omitted from diversity and inclusion discourses. This calls for new approaches to addressing the needs and supporting the healing of survivors.
The UpFront Survivors partnership was established in 2022 to develop and evaluate a national survivor-led creative-arts focused community service designed by, with and for survivors of CSA, a partnership between Somerset and Avon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support (SARSAS), Viv Gordon Company, The Green House and Coventry University. UpFront Survivors is the first creative arts programme of its kind, promoting access and inclusion for CSA survivors through arts-based activities. UpFront Survivors aims to increase voice, visibility, community, and leadership through 4 key programmes of work: Finding the Words (6 week creative-arts group work); Creative Leaders Training (10 day leadership training); National Creative Social Change Network; and Cultural and Community Spaces.
Coventry University leads the evaluation of UpFront Survivors, examining the impacts arising from participation and identifying the mechanisms and factors that lead to such impacts.
Project Objectives
- Develop and evaluate a national creative-arts focused community-based service, designed by, with and for survivors of CSA.
- Promote leadership opportunities for CSA survivors, embedding a network of sustainable, thriving, powerful and connected survivor communities alongside support organisations.
- Increase provision of specialist creative arts focused support groups for both adult and young survivors (14+) of CSA across England and Wales.
- Develop a national community of CSA survivors and services committed to social change.
- Develop the evidence base on the efficacy of survivor-led creative-arts community-based interventions in resourcing survivors to rebuild their lives after abuse experiences.
- To improve the quality of approach employed in co-producing creative-arts services with survivors of CSA.
Project Impact Statement
To date, UpFront Survivors has achieved significant reach and impact through its novel integration of peer communities, activism and creative practice; enabling access for survivors, and emphasis on modelling survivor leadership. The ethos and practice applied in UpFront Survivors is a step-change for CSA survivors. It presents a promising new approach to support that could boost, or follow on from, therapeutic care or become part of an integrated offer and could inform the scale-up of survivor-led, community and arts-based interventions to reach CSA survivors nationally.
Survivor-artist Jemima Foxtrot was commissioned to collage a poem based on the words and experiences of people who participated in UpFront Survivors. These participants had been interviewed as part of the evaluation research led by Coventry University. The poem is accessible here.
