How FRASAC Supports Survivors

Wed, Jan 12th 2022 at 12:50 pm - 2:00 pm

Mairi McAllister explained the community need for support for survivors of sexual assault.

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The Rotary Club of St Andrews was obliged, because of the pandemic, to revert to Zoom for its first meeting of 2022. The speaker was Mairi McAllister, from the Fife Rape and Sexual Assault Centre. Established in 2003, ‘FRASAC’ was one of the first such bodies to adopt a multi-agency approach, with the involvement, among others, of the Police and Fife College. Also unusual at the time was its recognition that, although women and girls are more often the victims of sexual violence, men and boys may need the free and confidential support services provided by this independent, voluntary organisation. Mairi presented police statistics showing how reported sexual crimes more than doubled in Scotland in the 10 years to 2019. Fortunately, FRASAC has itself been able to grow, from just 5 staff in 2003 to over 20 now. Even so, more will be needed as there is still a waiting list for appointments. Mairi emphasised that the best possible response to sexual violence would be to prevent it occurring at all and she mentioned that Madras College had been one of the first schools in Fife to engage with FRASAC’s workshops for young people, about gender, consent, sexualisation in the media and so forth. St Andrews University is itself supporting a FRASAC Counsellor, whose clients include students still traumatised by abuse that occurred before they came to university. Mairi concluded with an anonymous account of how a girl had been helped to regain her self-confidence and succeed in further education after leaving school early following abuse by a family member. It was in fact Mairi’s last talk on behalf of FRASAC, which she is leaving after 17 years. Ann Baird, whose eyes had been opened to the prevalence of sexual abuse when fund-raising for Childline, thanked Mairi for her work in this vitally important field.