In 2017, Agenda and AVA published Mapping the Maze, which provided a broad picture of the support that homelessness, substance misuse, mental health and criminal justice services are providing to women. This report explores the experiences of local areas across the country that are seeking to bring such services together to develop a more coordinated response for individuals facing multiple disadvantage, either using the MEAM Approach or as part of the Big Lottery’s Fulflling Lives programme. 

Young women remain more likely to be on low pay, job insecurity has increased, debt levels have risen and young women’s mental health concerns are skyrocketing.

Our 2018 annual survey, It's (still) a Rich Man's World, once again shows that young women remain more likely than young men to be
affected by job insecurity, money worries and debt. 

This report sets out growing evidence that being detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 can be detrimental to women and girls’ wellbeing, with little attention paid to their particular needs, including their experience of trauma. This can have devastating consequences for women and girls, as shown by previously unpublished figures on self-inflicted deaths outlined in this report. Women and girls are slightly less likely than men and boys to be detained under the Mental Health Act. In 2016/17, 21,291 women and girls and 22,716 men and boys were detained.

More than 13,500 women are imprisoned in the UK every year. The reasons why are complex but they must be understood if these numbers are to be reduced. This research has been commissioned by the J Leon Philanthropy Council to gain a better understanding of women’s pathways into and through the criminal justice system.