Domestic violence services

Domestic Violence is the biggest cause of death among women aged 19 to 44. That’s greater than road accidents, war or cancer.  It has more repeat incidence than any other violent crime, and a woman can, on average, experience more than 35 assaults before contacting the police. Often, a woman has no alternative but to flee in order to secure the safety of herself and her children.

Hestia supports around 1,600 women and children a year, in our domestic violence services in 9 London boroughs. We provide emergency refuge accommodation, second stage accommodation, floating support, outreach and children and family projects. Families often arrive at our refuges, with only the clothes on their back. They are frightened and traumatised, and in need of reassurance. They stay for around 6 to 9 months, which gives them valuable time to think about their lives, and make changes in the way they live.

Hestia gives practical support with finding permament housing and in accessing financial support, healthcare and education. We also help with the difficult emotions that surviving domestic violence can cause. We support individual mothers to rebuild their self-confidence, particularly in helping them to improve their skills as a parent. We also support individual children, helping them to talk about their feelings and giving them the space to play and be children again. Hestia is committed to providing dedicated support to the children in each if its refuges.

Hestia also has a dedicated fund to support women who have no recourse to public funding to take up a refuge place - to read more about this, please click here

In July 2011, Wandsworth Women's Aid (charity # 1054898) became a subsidiary of Hestia Housing & Support. For more information about this service, please contact the Refuge Manager, Lyndsey Dearlove at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

Click to read about Rachel, one of the women we've recently helped, or about Danielle and Jimmy, just two of over 200 children we've helped over the last year.

Download a copy of our domestic violence information leaflet here