Bailiwick of Guernsey Victim Support and Witness Service is a local charity providing free confidential support to victims and witnesses of crimes. They provide their services out of a small office space inside the Royal Court House. Since being founded, the charity had accumulated various donated furniture pieces that, while comfortable, made the space feel eclectic and thrown together. The charity approached us after seeing our work at Willow House and following an initial meeting we were eager to get started on the space.
This is a space where people’s trauma will be at the forefront of their minds, and we knew that a trauma informed approach was essential to helping this space function to its full potential. To make the rooms feel cohesive, a palette for the rooms was inspired by two prints kindly donated by local artist Olympia McEwan aka FlowerGirlOM. Soft pinks, blues and greens were drawn from the artwork depicting cherry blossoms. These are all brilliant colours to make a foundation of a calming space.
The two key rooms in the space are primarily waiting rooms where people could spend anywhere from a few minutes to many hours. It was very important to us that we changed the feel of these rooms from transient waiting rooms to secure, calm spaces. The rooms were irregular shapes but had plenty of space and good lighting which meant we could split the rooms into a few multi-use areas. Including desk spaces, communal seating areas and even a small play area for when families use the service. Providing a wide range of options for seating helps give small choices back to the users of the space helping them feel more in control of the situation.
The other rooms we remodelled are the main staff office and a video link room where victims and witnesses give their statements to the court. Unfortunately to access the video link room you must walk through the office. This means that there is a lot of noise bleed and issues with privacy. To combat this, we fitted a sound deadening curtain on the office side of the door to be closed if the video link room is in use. The interview room itself originally felt very bare and had a bad echo. As this is a room where incredibly sensitive and daunting conversations are held, we needed to make sure it felt like a warm, professional space. We fitted two further fixed curtains on the walls to eliminate the reverb as well as replacing the badly worn furniture with fresh pieces.
On the other side of the curtain, we made some major changes to the layout of the office. The staff and volunteers do an amazing job at Bailiwick of Guernsey Victim Support and Witness Service, and we wanted to give their office as much of a revamp as we had given the rest of the space. Starting by painting the office in a fresh pale blue, we reworked the floor plan to allow for better movement in the office. We also added in some freshly upholstered desk dividers to make each desk feel more private as well as some new storage solutions to work around the strangely shaped room.
We are so happy to be able to share this project with you. It is an essential service that this charity provides, and we wanted to help create a space that felt far away from the intimidating Royal Court House. Thanks to a very successful remnants sale at the beginning of the year we were able to donate over £4500 to this project. If you would like to enquire about our upcoming projects or would like to donate any funds or pieces of furniture, please get in touch by email or phone.
