Podcast with Sarah Hill, CEO, IDAS - Independent Domestic Abuse Service

“No. No thank you Prince Andrew.”

This episode is with Sarah Hill, CEO of IDAS, the Independent Domestic Abuse Service, which operates across Yorkshire. Sarah is passionate about tackling violence against women and girls, and providing specialist support for victims and survivors of abuse. As well as being CEO of IDAS, Sarah is on the Board of Women’s Aid Federation and is part of ACEVO’s Women’s Steering Group.

We chat about:

• The changes in the commissioning environment and how IDAS has responded to those and as a result seen growth from a few hundred thousand turnover to around ￡4m this financial year
• Sarah’s leadership journey with IDAS, shifting from managing a handful of people to leading an organisation of 120 staff
• The social and moral responsibility for larger and smaller organisations to work collaboratively
• Prince Andrew’s ludicrous interview
• The Domestic Abuse Bill

There are two key learnings that I took from the chat and they relate to commissioning and collaboration:

1. Changing your charity model isn’t necessary for each charity. But contingency planning is essential: understand your financial position and other funding models that could work for you, explore them early so that if you need to adapt, you have a plan in place. Your Plan B shouldn’t be to try harder to make Plan A work.
2. Smaller and larger organisations have a social and moral responsibility to work together. When we work collaboratively we’re better placed to ensure that the people we support continue to have access to the specialist services that they need, and that diverse voices and perspectives are brought into service development and delivery, which in turn strengthens the sector.

You can listen on SoundCloud,  iTunes and my website. I’d love to hear your feedback and would really appreciate it if you can be bothered to rate it and/or share on social media!

Wishing you a fab break over Christmas!

Notes:

• If you or someone that you know is a victim of domestic abuse, you can call the IDAS Helpline: 03000 110 110 (North Yorkshire and Barnsley) or 0808 808 2241 (Sheffield) 0808 2000 247 (National 24 hours helpline).
• www.idas.org.uk