"ONUS supported us to get our policies in place"
“Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council has been working with ONUS since 2012 when, the then Lisburn City Council developed its Adult Safeguarding Policy. Domestic Violence was one of the first issues targeted under the Policy and we drew on the advice and support of the Onus team to achieve this.
We developed guidance for staff and line managers and set about training front line staff in how all our facilities could be Safe Places and line managers in how to support any member of staff who were victims of abuse. Trusted Colleagues were identified to support and work closely with line managers and staff in conjunction promotional work done to ensure that all staff knew about the work being carried out.
This saw us achieving the Gold Workplace award in 2012 and we have progressed to Platinum
Status through the outreach work of the Council’s PCSP which has funded additional ONUS training for the public in the Safe Church and Safe Place.
The links with ONUS have allowed LCCC to deal with cases of Domestic and Sexual abuse with confidence; officers whose day-to-day work is far from dealing with adults at risk can get expert advice from Onus officers where it is needed.
The Platinum Workplace Charter has put us in a firm position when approached by the DOH/DOJ at the end of 2020 seeking information on how Councils deal with the issue of Sexual Violence and Abuse. Regular training requirements and the annual workplace review help to keep the topic fresh as language surrounding the topic changes regularly and having members of Onus at the end of a telephone, or now a zoom meeting, is a source of confidence for Council officers.”
