Sep 11, 2024
If you meet with women in your day-to-day work, whether you’re a housing officer, a health care professional, a social worker, if you’re working in a domestic abuse service, or providing any kind of support to women, it’s possible that some of those women are involved in selling sex in some way or have been in the past. However, we understand that the sex industry is a contentious topic and, as a professional, it can feel daunting to know how to raise this with women you’re supporting.
This is where we believe that survival sex, as a concept, can be useful for professionals. We believe that an understanding of ‘survival sex’ can help you as a professional to consider the intersectionality of someone’s experiences and the potential vulnerability and risks they may be exposed to. It helps us to remain mindful of the link between structural inequality and selling sex and, in doing so, can help us improve the support available to women.
Our new resource and new training course are designed to equip you with an understanding of survival sex and to give you tools to help you approach this subject and identify when it’s the right time to do so.
The free resource is divided into two parts. In part one, we present the findings of a literature review into the term ‘survival sex’. We wanted to unpack the definitions used and explore the themes associated with the term. By sharing these findings, we hope to equip you with an appreciation of how use of this concept can help to do justice to the breadth of women’s experiences of selling and/or exchanging sex.
In the second part, we provide our working definition of survival sex, put forward a case for its use within service provision, and provide some basic tools for practitioners working with adult women who may be involved in survival sex.
These tools will help you to think about when survival sex may be occurring, equip you to initiate conversations about involvement in the sex industry, and support you to refer onto specialist organisations for support.
Our new training course, ‘Understanding Survival Sex’, has been developed to give you the confidence and skills to approach the subject of the sex industry with women you are supporting, and to identify when it is the right time to do so. In the 3-hour interactive training session, we explore the concept of survival sex, looking at what it is, why women might be involved in survival sex, and how understanding this term can enhance the support you provide to women. You will gain an understanding of what barriers women might be facing when accessing support services and will unpack what good practice in supporting those engaged in survival sex looks like. The session includes shared scenarios to practice and embed learning.
This training is suitable for professionals from local authorities, statutory services and the charity sector who want to learn more about a woman-centred, trauma-informed approach to working alongside women. No existing experience of working with women involved in the sex industry is necessary.
Book onto the course here.
We are also able to deliver this course to your team at a date and time that suits you so please do get in touch to discuss your requirements. Contact us at training@beyondthestreets.org.uk
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