Lara Bundock, supporting survivors of human trafficking

Lara Bundock is founder and chief executive of The Snowdrop Project, a charity that supports survivors of human trafficking.

Her Twitter page describes her as a “speaker, adventurer, actress, human rights advocate – embracing a life of faith, expecting the unexpected.” So far ‘the unexpected’ has included advising the government of Turmenistan on how they can support the NGOs in their country to address human trafficking, and interviews with displaced persons in Libya against a backdrop of gunfire.

The Snowdrop Project supports adults who have been trafficked with long-term care in order for them to achieve a position from which they can live independently – they were the first charity in the UK to provide such long-term support.

They have a casework team comprised mainly of social workers who assist with finding a job and/or claiming benefits, child protection, and legal matters. The therapy team is made up of counsellors who help the survivors work through anxiety, PTSD etc. Their volunteers help with a mother and toddlers group, sewing, dance, and lessons in English as a Second Language. The fourth team within Snowdrop deal with housing renovations.

On a strategic level, Snowdrop works on national policy development and advocacy.

Lara trained as a social worker at Sheffield University. After a period in statutory social work she worked in a government safe house for victims of human trafficking. She realised that the statutory 45 days was not an adequate period of time to stabilise survivors: when they tried to live independently after that period, they typically experienced mental health issues, tenancy breakdown, and drug and alcohol addiction. They often returned to abusive relationships.

She says “I thought ‘I can’t do nothing’ because I’m not that type of person.” She started a training programme for volunteers and took it from there.

The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner set up pursuant to the The Modern Slavery Act 2015 says, on its website, that it “demands a consistent response across the UK to ensure that victims are properly supported…” but Lara says that the system is “pretty broken” and demand is growing exponentially: in 2011, 700 people were referred for support, last year (2018) the figure was 7000. An ongoing issue is the identification of victims of trafficking. Early intervention is in its infancy, and there is a need for the dissemination of best practice nationally.

30-40% of the 7000 referred never receive any support. Long-term reintegration support is a “post-code lottery.” Snowdrop and two other organisations provide it, but in most areas it doesn’t exist.

Laura’s typical day includes a senior leadership meeting, one-to-ones with team members, meetings with stakeholders such as the NHS and housing associations. In London Snowdrop is a member of The Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group and Lara is an advisor to the Anti-Slavery Commissioner. She sees her role as looking after the health and growth of Snowdrop on the one hand, and informing best practice and national policy on the other.

Her leadership philosophy embraces compassion and a willingness to listen, to be challenged and to take feedback and advice.

Snowdrop endeavours to look after its staff and volunteers. They pay for their staff to see external counsellors once a month. Paid case workers receive case and individual supervision, and volunteer case workers are supervised by a senior case worker. Volunteer case workers and befrienders receive group supervision. Snowdrop equips its teams through extensive training before they meet survivors of trafficking.

Snowdrop ran for the first three years without funding. Lara and her operations coordinator Rachel Medina didn’t receive a salary for two years. Then they applied to the Big Lottery Women and Girls Fund for £130,000 per year and were successful. Over the next three years they worked hard to diversify their income stream. They have just reapplied successfully to the Big Lottery, but now that funding represents 30% rather than 100% of the total.

Lara has become popular on the BBC, Sky and radio in connection with human trafficking. She has given evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, chaired by Yvette Cooper.

Along the Snowdrop journey Lara has made small mistakes, such as an inadequate allowance for interpreters in the Big Lottery bid, and larger ones around communication with staff during a recent office move. With regard to the latter, Lara was grateful for the help provided by businesses such as Arm (the computer chip manufacturer), Arup and John Lewis. She has learnt that it’s impossible to run a charity like Snowdrop without making mistakes and to listen, apologise, and move on without beating herself up too much about it.

Two people that have inspired Lara are her parents; their compassion towards others, their preparedness to listen, and also their ability to move things forwards.

Lara’s self-care regime includes exercise – running, netball and the gym - and acting. She finds exercise provides emotional resilience and helps her think more clearly. Friends and family are also important to her.

At present Lara’s work ambition is to develop all aspects of Snowdrop. But she is going to set aside time in 2020 for thinking about her work goals in more detail. In her personal life, she would like to be a mum.

The advice she would give to someone starting a charity is “be prepared that it will be hard, be prepared to constantly learn, be willing to have other people help you on that journey… try not to do it on your own”: Lara was advised at the outset to find someone to work alongside her. She took that advice and Rachel is still with her 7 years later.