The Castle Service

Victim Support Lincolnshire provide specialist services for children and young people under 18 years old who are victims of sexual offences, including rape, sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation, and more.

The Castle Service is run by our Children and Young People’s Sexual Violence Advocates (CHISVAs), who work to help children cope and move forward from their experiences, whether that is recent or historic.

What the Castle Service can help with:

  • worries
  • safety planning
  • healthy relationships
  • consent and safe sex
  • self-esteem and confidence
  • cyber safety
  • police updates
  • CICA applications
  • advocacy.

Specialist outreach support is also provided within court settings. This is a Queen’s Award-winning element of the service, and involves:

  • explaining the process of going to court
  • working with the Witness Service to organise pre-trial visits
  • attending court with the victim on the day
  • providing post-court support to review the outcome and experience.

Additionally, our CHISVAs have undertaken specific training that helps them to help victims, such as supporting those who are neurodivergent or completing Section 28 training relative to court settings. Our caseworkers have also completed Mental Health First Aid training, allowing them to better support issues surrounding mental health for any individuals.

Referrals

If you need help, we can accept referral from professionals or from victims directly (or through parents/carers). Typically, we receive referrals from Victim Lincs who signpost and refer people to appropriate support services in Lincolnshire. Your details may also have been given to us by other agencies and organisations you might be supported by.

We will only contact you if we have received your explicit consent for us to do so. Our CHISVAs will make contact within 24 hours of receiving the referral.

Consultation service

We also offer a consultation service for any professional with a client that they feel may benefit from our support. Please contact The Castle Service at castleservice@victimsupport.org.uk or on 01522 542687.

Please prepare information on:

  • the client’s age
  • what the crime is and when it happened
  • brief description of incidents if possible
  • if it has been reported to the police
  • any other support currently in place.

What is a CHISVA?

A CHISVA is a Children’s Independent Sexual Violence Adviser. They are trained in working with victims and survivors of any form of sexual violence.

As a team, we have completed lots of other training in order to help as much as we can including suicide awareness, supporting trans and non-binary children and young people, Section 28 training, domestic abuse and more.

The Castle Service CHISVAs won’t talk about the crime itself – that is not for us – but we talk about the impact it has had on you. We help you think about how you are coping and how you can keep well and healthy in the future.

We have all joined Victim Support because we are caring people who want to help you. We are all professionally trained and we are all committed to giving you the best advice we can and to be there for you.

It is important to remember that CHISVAs are not counsellors, detectives or social workers. They will happily signpost you to the appropriate professional to help with an issue if it is not in their area of expertise.

Contact us

If you want to chat with a member of our team, email us at castleservice@victimsupport.org.uk or on 01522 542687.

We love hearing from our clients, parents and professionals. Feel free to get in touch to provide feedback at any point during or after your support.

If you have made a referral or been referred and have not heard back from us, please send an email to castleservice@victimsupport.org.uk or call our main office on 01522 542687.

If you have not heard from your CHISVA while support is ongoing, please also send an email to the mentioned inbox.

Leaflet for children and young people [PDF]

Castle Service (for Professionals) [PDF]

FAQs

Yes! All CHISVAs have completed training as adult Independent Sexual Violence Advisers and add-on training to specifically work with children. Anyone that works at Victim Support also completes lots of interesting and helpful training such as domestic violence, safeguarding, cultural awareness and inclusion and more.

Everyone deals with crime in their own way, and sometimes that means not reporting to the police. We will work with clients whether they have reported or not. If you’d like, we can discuss the processes with you so you can make an informed decision.

When you turn 18 years old, you will be referred into the adult service for sexual violence called Spring Lodge. Your CHISVA can arrange a meeting with you, them and your new ISVA so you feel as comfortable as possible.

Everything between a client and a CHISVA is completely confidential, so it stays between you and them. If your CHISVA ever thinks you’re at risk of harm, or someone else might be, then they will need to speak to a safeguarding officer here at Victim Support and your trusted adult.

All CHISVAs are supported by their team, managers and a clinical supervisor. They have the chance to speak about anything that may be worrying them, every 4-6 weeks for 1.5 hours, in a confidential environment with a trained professional.

What our clients have said

“I just want to say you’ve helped me a lot, before our very first session I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror, now I don’t have to cover them.”

“I always feel heard with you and you don’t make me feel like I’m dramatic. Thank you for everything and being there for me and standing up for me. I’m so grateful to have you.”

“Since I met you, you’re my favourite person in the world.”

Have your say

If you would like to give us feedback at any point, you can here:

You can provide feedback in this survey.

If you’re 16-17, you can fill out this survey.

This survey can be used by parents and carers to give feedback to our service.

If you’re a professional and want to give us some feedback, complete the this survey.

If you decided to not continue with the service, we’d still love to hear from you – complete a survey. All feedback is anonymous and used by our team to find ways to improve our service.

Get in touch

If you’ve been impacted by crime in Lincolnshire, get in contact on 01522 542687.

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