Working The Edge: The Emotional Experiences of Commissioning and Funding Arrangements for Service Leaders in the Sexual Violence Voluntary Sector

Gunby, Clare ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8428-6621, Isham, Louise, Smailes, Harriet, Bradbury-Jones, Caroline, Damery, Sarah, Harlock, Jenny, Maxted, Fay, Smith, Deb and Taylor, Julie (2024) Working The Edge: The Emotional Experiences of Commissioning and Funding Arrangements for Service Leaders in the Sexual Violence Voluntary Sector. Violence Against Women: an international and interdisciplinary journal, 30 (8). pp. 1783-1803. ISSN 1077-8012

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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 paper 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 wellbeing. We examine how these edges are ‘worked’, for example, by circumventing and remoulding the edge. We offer an original way to theorise participants, make visible the emotional toll of service precarity and offer suggestions for support.