West Mercia Rape & Sexual Abuse Support Centre (WMRSASC) was established within Worcestershire in 1986 as a telephone support service for women only.
Services expanded gradually to include counselling support and the launch of the first Independent Sexual Violence Advocate (ISVA) within the West Mercia Police area in 2007.
2011 saw the expansion into Herefordshire with support from the Ministry of Justice’s New and Emerging Centre Initiative. In 2013, we were able to extend our advocacy services to men, children and young people (aged 11+), with the counselling service being extended in 2015.
In 2016, both the counselling and advocacy services began supporting children from the age 5 years, in 2019 services were established in Shropshire and in 2020 Purple Leaf (our early intervention and prevention arm) started assessing and working with children who had exhibited problematic/harmful sexual behaviours.
2023 saw the launch of their wellbeing hub and client portal, as part of their vision to eliminate all forms of sexual violence and the harm they cause.
Within DICM (West Mercia), WMRSASC is one of a number of key providers helping meet the strategic community safety objectives - preventing Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) supported by business social value contracted through the public procurement of emergency services, councils, NHS and criminal justice services.
A deliberate support designed to protect key providers like WMRSASC from being affected by a lack of resources, which in 2021 saw their wait times exceed two years.
CEO Jocelyn Anderson reported at the time:
“All caseloads are over capacity and we’ve already cut the therapy service to the bone,” she said. “We’re starting the new financial year with a significant shortfall; if we cannot raise additional funding, we will lose staff, close the list again and clients will suffer.”
Now, through the DICM (West Mercia), collective social value across the region's public suppliers can lock-into supporting both organisation and services in line with publish community safety objectives of the buyer groups.
WMRSASC joins the DICM (West Mercia) in September 2025, and welcomes discussions for social value support from businesses who supply into the counties of West Mercia.