Our Door of Hope Service has been operating within the borough of Tower Hamlets for over a decade. Door of Hope provides support for women who are involved in selling sex on-street, or those selling sex off-street who are at high risk, within the borough. The service also supports women who have a connection to Tower Hamlets. We work in collaboration with local statutory and third sector partners to achieve the best outcomes for women. The service model is women-led, holistic and trauma-informed. Below is an outline of the service provision. Women can self-refer into the service or be referred by other service professionals.
Every week trained staff and volunteers provide a twice weekly street outreach service. It runs between 5am and 7am on Thursdays and from 11:30pm Fridays through to 2am on Saturdays. We engage with women, listen to them and build trust. We provide hot drinks, food, harm minimalisation packs, other essentials, and sexual health support; alongside sharing information, raising awareness of our services and signposting to other services.
We also offer drop-ins, from time to time, at other sites within the borough.
At the drop-ins we create a safe and relaxed environment and offer creative and mindfulness activities and refreshments.
During these sessions, we find women often feel able to open up about engaging in selling or exchanging sex and wanting support with this. We gain referrals into our daytime support service via the drop-ins, but importantly, it enables us to stay in touch with women who aren’t ready to take that step in their journey.
We also run open days for women accessing our services which are attended by partner organisations who work within the homelessness, drug and alcohol services, psychotherapy, and sexual health sectors. The open days offer access to other service professionals, a clothes bank, a food bank, other essentials and refreshments. Women also have the opportunity to participate in a creative mindfulness activity and access sexual health testing and advice.
During the day we provide practical support across a range of areas relevant to the women’s lives. We provide information, advocacy and referrals to specialist organisations and agencies, as well as befriending and mentoring.
Our trained and experienced Women’s Support Workers provide 1:1, in-depth, holistic, trauma-informed support over the long term. The sessions are a safe space for women to process feelings, learn grounding techniques, and safety plan. We advocate so women can access vital services including appropriate housing, mental health support, and drug treatment and recovery. We have essential items we can offer women, when they are in need. We attend meetings with them and work with multiple agencies to enable on-going engagement and secure the best outcomes; journeying alongside women as they reach their self-determined goals. Due to our local connections, women can often access services quicker than normal via fast-track referral agreements.
Addressing mental health needs and processing trauma is a vital step in women’s journeys. Therefore, women engaged in our daytime support service can access 24-30 free sessions with an experienced qualified Psychotherapist. Varied approaches are used including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Mentalisation-Based Therapy, Transactional Analysis, Trauma Therapy, and Arts-Based Therapies.  In line with our women-led model, we collaborate with women to determine the location, time, and frequency of their sessions. If women miss sessions, we actively seek re-engagement, maintaining their access to the service.
We co-ordinate and chair the Women’s Exploitation and Safety Panel (WESP), a monthly meeting where staff from local statutory agencies and non-statutory services come together to make sure that women involved in selling sex, who are at risk, are able to access the support available for them within the borough. It enables the creation of more effective holistic support packages, through co-ordinated support plans, including risk management. If you wish to find out more details regarding the panel or you want to refer a women, please click on the Service Professional link below.
Women’s confidentiality is taken seriously. The WESP is not a public meeting, and attendance is strictly limited to agreed staff that are able to support within each individual women’s case. For further information or any comments you would like to make, please contact us via: [email protected]Â
We signpost women to local support and work with other agencies to give women a range of options. Below is a link to the service directory from Tower Hamlets Council which may be of use.
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