Charmaine Cole – IRIS Advocate Educator
Charmaine Cole (BA hons) has supported vulnerable women for the past decade and has been in her latest role as IRIS Advocate Educator for Herefordshire since February 2024. Charmaine started working within this sector as a volunteer supporting vulnerable women to exit sex work in Coventry and has also provided domestic abuse support for women offenders and women living in refuge. Before working in Herefordshire, she was an IRIS Advocate Educator in Dudley for 18 months where she was responsible for the training and support of over 30 GP surgeries, working with Black Country Women’s Aid.
Sarah Petter – IRIS Clinical Lead
Sarah Petter Msc RN is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner at Much Birch GP Surgery and Clinical lead of the IRIS specialist primary care domestic violence and abuse (DVA) training and support referral programme. She has a background in Primary Care, Out of hours, Urgent and Emergency Care. She has a special interest in Domestic Abuse and was involved in the Bristol Domestic Abuse Forum, on Next Link Domestic Abuse Services’ Management Committee and set up an Independent Domestic Violence Advocate Service in University Hospital Bristol’s Emergency Department in 2011 which is still running.
Catherine Collis – IRIS Manager
Catherine joined West Mercia Women’s Aid (WMWA) in May 2023 and combines management of IRIS in Herefordshire with her wider role as WMWA Domestic Abuse Services Manager for Herefordshire. Catherine has a background in housing and support which began as a volunteer with Women’s Aid in Wales in 1993 and includes 17 years in the domestic abuse sector.
Our first clinical and administrative training session took place on March 5th 2024 at Much Birch Practice, where we received enthusiastic reviews and, shortly thereafter, our first referral. As our Clinical Lead worked to raise awareness within the NHS network in Herefordshire, our IRIS Advocate Educator engaged directly with GP practice managers, resulting in an increasing demand for training.