Citation

Gunby C, Isham L, Smailes H, Bradbury-Jones C, Damery S, Harlock J, Maxted F, Smith D, Taylor J. Violence Against Women 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/10778012241239945

PMID

38509824

Abstract

The specialist voluntary sector plays a crucial role in supporting survivors of sexual violence. However, in England, short-term funding underpins the sector's financial stability. This article examines sector leaders' ways of coping, resisting and being affected by funding practices. Using the concept of edgework, we show how funding and commissioning dynamics push individuals to the edge of service sustainability, job satisfaction, and emotional well-being. We examine how these edges are "worked," for example, by circumventing and remolding the edge. We offer an original way to theorize participants, make visible the emotional toll of service precarity and offer suggestions for support.

Language: en

Keywords

commissioning; edgework; emotion; sexual violence; specialist voluntary sector