Ten Percent Foundation Donates £500 to Hillingdon Women’s Centre

We recently donated £500 to the Hillingdon Women’s Centre and sent our graduate trainee (from Jonathan Fagan Business Brokers, part of the Ten Percent Group), Mehak Gupta along to meet one of the directors of the centre. Mehak has completed the note below on her visit.

Ongoing Needs & Funding

• Not many services for women, and lots of competition for funding.
• Get some money from the local council (small contract).
•  Work hard to get different funding sources, so they don’t rely on just one.
• Looking to get more money from businesses (corporate) in the next few years.

• Started in 1986
• 40 year anniversary in 2026, still in the same building.
• Began with a group of women meeting in each other’s homes.
• Wanted a safe space for women, so they got the building.
• Helps women in Hillingdon with different needs.
• Recently got money to fix up the building and paint.

• 80% of cases are domestic abuse related.
• Women can refer themselves or be referred by professionals.
• Calls are answered by staff who check what help is needed.
• If it’s about safety/domestic abuse, they get urgent support.
• If it’s something such as a disability (PIP) application, they receive general help.
• Help can be a one-off, six months, or up to a year (after 6 months they encourage independence).

Key Programme: Pathways to Healing

• Helps women understand domestic abuse, set boundaries, see the signs and reduce victimization.
• A 6 week programme that focuses on education and recovery.

• Women supporting women – only women can work or volunteer there, and only women can access services.
• 7 staff members (used to just be volunteers).
• More staff hired after Covid, but funding decides whether they are full time or part time.
• Volunteers still help out.

Donations and use of funds

• Donation from Ten Percent most likely went to Pathways to Healing:

Paying facilitators, creating materials for women, comfort kits for attendees, maintaining the building.

Challenges & Support for Staff

• 80% of women coming in are survivors of abuse (past or present).
• Funding for domestic abuse work is difficult to receive, even though it’s a prevalent issue.
• Other charities focus on specific groups, but this centre helps ALL women.
• They mostly handle standard to medium risk cases, but Hillingdon in general has many high risk cases.

• Helping women in crisis can be emotionally draining, so staff support is a priority.
• Staff get external supervision (psychotherapist), team days, and even had therapy dogs in recently to help with stress.
• If someone has dealt with a heavy case, they get time out and extra support.

• Want to offer domestic abuse training to local voluntary groups.
• Need to secure funding to keep expanding this work.

For more about the charity, please visit https://hillingdonwomenscentre.org/