Utilising Big Data in the Practice of Torture Survivors' Rehabilitation

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Many third sector and charitable organisations routinely collect information on those using their service but often are not able to fully use this information to improve the service they offer. This is due to the way in which the information is collected and recorded which, while suitable for some purposes, does not enable easy interrogation of the data to fully understand how their service is being delivered and where it could be improved. There is also scope to link the data held by charities to other national and international data sources to provide an opportunity for a much deeper analysis and understanding. This project will explore the feasibility of carrying out these linkages while protecting the confidentiality and rights of the victims themselves.For this project a charity concerned with the rehabilitation of victims of torture, Freedom from Torture, has partnered with the University of Essex to explore how the data they collect and hold can be re-structured and cleaned to make it suitable for research and analysis. Freedom from Torture (FfT) is a national charity established in 1985 and has grown to have centres in London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and Newcastle and a service in Yorkshire and Humberside. They provide services to over 1,000 survivors of torture a year, who reside in the UK, most of whom are asylum seekers or have been granted some form of international protection. Their clients have experienced serious abuse and trauma and have complex needs and FfT prioritises helping those whose needs cannot be met by the National Health Service (NHS), social services or other voluntary sector organisations. FfT also provides other organisations that offer health and social care services with support for training, capacity building and promoting awareness of the unique needs of torture survivors. The work FfT carry out is informed by the experiences and voices of survivors of torture who access their services and FfT involve clients and former clients at every level through Service Users groups. FfT provides holistic care for each individual client and family following a comprehensive needs assessment. This approach embraces crisis intervention, long term rehabilitation, practical assistance, and / or the preparation of medico-legal reports which forensically document torture related injuries. Freedom from Torture's overall strategic aims are:(1) Rehabilitation: That survivors of torture in the UK realise their right to as full rehabilitation as possible; (2) Protection: Survivors of torture in the UK receive effective protection and are not returned to their countries of origin to face the risk of further torture; (3) Accountability: States responsible for torture are held to account publicly and the human rights of survivors are guaranteed nationally and internationally.With these aims in mind this project will also explore how the Freedom from Torture information can be linked with other external data sources such as geograhical information or international information on human rights. We will explore what data can be made available in anonymised form to users in the third sector, academic and social policy researchers while protecting the identity and confidentiality of the victims themselves. A major aim of the project is to provide a data infrastructure that will support the development of best practice in the delivery of cost-effective and successful social support and therapeutic treatments for victims of torture. The project will therefore feed into many policy debates about how services are delivered and the best practice standards that should be applied. Being a victim of torture is a traumatic and scarring event in people's lives and supporting their recovery and rehabilitation in the best way possible underlies the core activities of this project.