Safe houses

We run three safe houses in the east and south of London, housing eight women in total. 

There is high demand for rooms. When a room comes free in one of our houses, it’s filled within hours. Without a safe place to stay, many of the women we work with would be pushed back towards danger and re-exploitation.

If we can raise enough support, our goal is to open more safe houses so we can help more women. 

Recovery

All of our safe house residents have an Ella’s caseworker as their main point of contact. Our caseworkers are highly skilled, trained in areas such as psychology and social work. 

For some of the women in our safe houses, they need to rest and process before they can think too far ahead. It’s crucial they have space to do this and can recover at their own pace. 

As they settle in, we work with women to look at what will help them most in their rehabilitation. We treat each person as an individual, and know that they are the expert when it comes to their life, so our support looks different for each person. 

For many survivors, their past experiences mean they struggle with mental health conditions such as anxiety and the most serious types of post-traumatic stress disorder, and this is their biggest need. For others, they need help adapting to life outside of captivity, or support with skills and training. 

The length of time women live in our safe houses varies, but the average stay is one year. When they feel ready, we support them to find the kind of housing most suitable for them to move on to, and help them settle in their new home. 

We stay in touch with our safe house residents long after they’ve moved on, supporting them in the community, or just being on hand if they need some advice or just a chat. Community and friendship are at the heart of what we do.