People Experiencing Trauma and Loss (PETAL) was founded in 1994 by two mothers, following the death by murder of a member of each of their families. These two volunteers made home visits to people facing bereavement of a family member, through murder. The volunteers with first hand experience, worked on a shoe-string budget of donations to provide self referred members with:
- Counselling to help individuals cope with and manage their emotions,
- Advocacy offering practical advice on and accompanied support through the legal system and court process
We registered as a Scottish Charity SC23398 in October 1994, operating through a voluntary management committee of service users. The management team are making significant changes to the structure and PETAL was incorporated in September 2009 as Petal Support Limited, a Company Limited by Guarantee.
Clients continue to welcome and value our services which they access either through self or agency referral. Increasing numbers are referred through local authority, health, police and other agency departments.
Hamilton
We have firmly established a base for our operations in our new Support Centre in Hamilton and it is from here we will provide the operational and administration facilities for the outreach service.
Our premises at Barrack Street, Hamilton are open five days each week from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm hours and we will continue to provide Telephone Support from opening hours to approx 9.00 pm each day. Counselling, Therapies, in house training and all other services will be delivered at flexible times to suit the needs of clients between 9.00 am to 8.00 pm in Hamilton, Monday and Friday.
Glasgow, Edinburgh & other areas
The outreach service will improve access to psychological interventions and therapies, promote recovery and social integration. The services will operate over a period of 3 days and opening times will reflect fluctuations in demand in each location.
Petal Aims and Outcomes
To implement an outcome based approach to manage our resources effectively, provide equal access to therapeutic and holistic therapies, client centred and cognitive behaviour services to people experiencing trauma and loss through murder, culpable homicide and suicide of a family member or friend.
Petal’s services aim to give clients increased skills and techniques to identify their own needs and consider a range of solutions to:
- Make positive changes in their lives.
- Increase their confidence in dealing with challenging circumstance in the short, medium to longer term.
- Improve their self esteem and increase their motivation to interact with family, social networks, education, training and or work
- Increase skills and ability to identify their own needs and consider a range of solutions to make positive changes in their lives.
- Be more able to deal with many issues including the legal system and process over the short, medium and longer term.
- Reduce their dependency on main stream health services and medication associated with anti depression. Address thoughts and actions of self-harm through focused intervention techniques.
- To support 100 children and young people under the age of 24 and 300 clients over 25 years old in each project year.
We are constantly developing and improving skills in helping young clients manage diverse issues within their family, social and other networks.
We involve clients in the management and decision making of the organisation and its services and are committed to providing equal access to support, supervision and training for staff, sessional workers and volunteers. This provision has resulted in management and staff reporting improved skills in measuring and tracking outcomes, setting goals and objectives to better manage resources and improve delivery of services and the ability to improve practice by sharing experience and knowledge. Staff and volunteers are more able to identify the value the organisation adds to national programmes, objectives and priorities and feel that they have a positive influence on policy in areas that affect our clients.
Support Service Development
We continuously implement change, which benefits the people who engage us and engage with our services. Our volunteers are recruited from our clients and their personal experience is invaluable to the organisation and the people we support. The peer support is focused on matching people with similar circumstance for example: parents of a suicide victim are matched where possible to a volunteer counsellor who has experienced the loss of a son or daughter through suicide.
We carry out workshops with volunteers, sessional counsellors, supervisors and staff to help us identify ways to involve our clients in the monitoring and evaluation process.
Differentiation & Added Value
National organisations such as Victim Support are set up and funded to provide support to victims of diverse crimes and do not provide rehabilitation or therapeutic services. CRUSE is for bereavement generally but neither organisation deal specifically with murder or culpable homicide. Suicide organisations have been in existence for decades but we are dealing with suicide in most cases in the context of families already affected by murder or culpable homicide and can deal with it holistically as a result. Our organisation has a specific focus and concentrates on people experiencing trauma and loss through murder, culpable homicide and suicide.
National organisations, community and church leaders, agencies and people working in the community refer their clients to us because of our good reputation and quick response. Clients access our counselling within 14 days of their initial contact or where appropriate are referred to organisations which better suit their needs.
General Policies
Petal is a registered charity, has no affiliation to any religious or political party and is open to all sections of the community.
Petal is free and confidential and provides support to murder and suicide victims’ families and friends – irrespective of time.
As an organisation we comply with the Standard Conditions required by our Funding Bodies which includes the requirement to have in place a range of policy statements such as:
- Equal Opportunities
- Volunteering
- The Protection of Children Act
Our organisation also complies with the requirements of the following Acts in terms of employment and service provision:
- Disability Discrimination Act 1995
- Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000
- Sex Discrimination Act 1975
- Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions) Orders 1975
- Human Rights Act 1998
- Equal Pay Act (as amended) 1970