VIDEO: Police and Crime Commissioner Paddy Tipping on the re-branding of the Nottingham Rape Crisis Centre.

A Nottingham support network for rape victims has been given extra funding to help more people and open a specialist counselling centre for men.

The Nottingham Rape Crisis Centre, based on Chaucer Street, ran for 39 years and offered counselling to female survivors of rape and sexual abuse.

It started providing support to men in 2007, but after receiving £180,000 in April last year, it has expanded its range of resources.

It has also opened an extra building at Clarendon Chambers for men, along with more counselling rooms for women at its Chaucer Street centre.

And the organisation has changed its name to Nottinghamshire Sexual Violence Support Services, known as Notts SVS Services.

The re-branding process has taken more than a year and managers say the organisation can now offer ‘more accessible’ support to victims of rape, sexual violence and childhood sexual abuse, for people aged 13-plus.

The news comes after figures showed the number of people coming forward to report rapes in Nottinghamshire has increased by nearly 150 per cent in five years.

Novlet Holness, chief executive of the organisation, said: “We always had a waiting list for our services. One in four women at some point in their life suffer some kind of sexual assault, and the figures are roughly one or two in 10 men will suffer some type of sexual assault.

“If you think about the population of Nottingham, a lot of people have suffered some type of sexual assault.”

Police and Crime Commissioner Paddy Tipping welcomed the relaunch of the organisation.

He said: “Historically men and women have not come forward. The reporting of rape and sexual violence has gone up – it’s a real issue. We’ve got to persuade people to come and report.

“And, even when they’ve reported [crimes] and with the cases going through the criminal justice system, we’ve got to support them emotionally and physically.”

He added: “It’s [sexual abuse] horrific and we’ve got to make sure that we’re putting a lot of resources into this and I’m delighted with the work of the centre. It’s a fabulous organisation and it’s going forward into the future.”

Notts SVS Services has launched a new website and a free five-week course called Mindfulness to offer meditation to clients who have already received support.

And a group of volunteers have been trained to provide support over the phone.

“It’s about providing them [victims of sexual abuse] support with the telephone helpline, face-to-face counselling, email support, Mindfulness courses. It’s about any support the survivor would need to help and recover after a sexual assault,” Novlet said.

She added: “One of the issues was that when we were called the Nottingham Rape Crisis Centre, some people didn’t like the word ‘rape’ and see the word ‘rape’ as they continually used our services. It left them feeling really uncomfortable.

“The other issue was that with the word ‘crisis’, quite often people didn’t think they were in crisis as quite often we deal with historical abuse – and some people’s abuse took place 20, 30, 40 years ago.”

Notts SVS Services won a joint funding bid and will receive a total of £180,000 in each of the next two years from Police and Crime Commissioner Paddy Tipping, Nottingham City Council’s Crime and Drugs Partnership, Nottingham City Clinical Commissioning Group, NHS England, Nottinghamshire County Council, the Rape Support Fund, and the Home Office.

Notts SVS Services will discuss its re-branding at the Antenna business centre, Beck Street, this afternoon (Wednesday June 7).

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