We Care Project
8th May 2026
Stepping Stones is proud to be participating in this crucial cervical screening research project. The project started through the Next Steps groups at Stepping Stones North Wales, with women voicing their concerns and fears of attending personal medial appoints such as cervical screening, after meeting with Dr Ceryl Davies, a social care economist, based at the Centre for Health Economics and Medicines Evaluation, Bangor University. she was so taken by the subject that she applied for funding to run a project to research into this issue and see how services for survivors could be improved. Ceryl secured funding from the HCRW and NIHR 5-year Advanced Fellowship: Measuring the impact of enhancing the cervical screening care for women who have experienced sexual violence, the first time this funding has ever been awarded to Wales, as well as Wales the project is now linked with, England, Australia and Sweden, alongside several universities: Bristol, York, Swansea and Monash (Australia), clinical services: Cervical Screening Wales, MyBodyBack clinic (London), Sexual Assault Referral centre and other support services including, Welsh Women’s Aid, Survivors Trust and BAWSO.
Stepping Stones are a key partner (as a member of both the Project Steering and Project Advisory Groups, Stepping Stones, a central project partner). The initial impetus for this study originated from female clients of Stepping-Stones, which was critical to the success of this advanced research project. During group and individual sessions, the Stepping-Stones clients stated that they have experienced difficulties in attending for routine cervical screening, and that on attending cervical screening the experience is often very difficult. During the development of this research proposal, these women voiced that improvements to cervical screening services should and could be made to support women’s diverse and intersectional needs. As such, the project was developed with Bangor University, through a multi-disciplinary grant capture working group.
This is a huge project and we feel an important step in changing services to survivors, if you have any clients that would like to join the advisory groups or participate as individuals by phone, text, in person or on-line please do share the poster with them, their voices really matter and will make a huge difference to the success of this project. Thank you all for taking the time to read this and sharing this information with any clients you think may be interested.
These are also links to the We Care Cervical Screening website for the project and recent podcasts that may be of interest to you and clients.
Please see the links below to the new project website:
Links to 2 podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/we-care-project/id1882018311?i=1000752890948
