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GamCare

Women’s Programme

Raising Women’s Voices

Our Women’s Programme looks to steer systemic change across policy, research and treatment to address the under-representation of women seeking support and accessing treatment who are impacted by gambling-related harms.

Why does GamCare offer women-specific training?

Each year, at least 35 per cent of callers to our National Gambling Helpline identify as female, 23% of whom call about their own gambling and 84% about someone else’s. One fifth of all clients in our treatment services are women.

Women can be disproportionately harmed by gambling-related harms, experiencing financial difficulties, relationship problems and mental health issues.

Evidence also suggests, for many women a compulsion to gamble may be influenced by trauma, domestic abuse, and other pressures such as caring responsibilities.

In turn, these problems can cause a sense of isolation and have far-reaching impacts on their families, communities, and personal lives. However, they are often hidden from support services.

More about our Women's Programme:
What can our Women’s Programme offer your organisation?
  • Fully-funded CPD accredited training to increase your knowledge, skills, and confidence to discuss and support individuals experiencing gambling-related harm. We offer webinars and face-to-face training, half or full-day.
  • Fully-funded advice and ongoing support for your organisation from our Training and Engagement Leads about how to identify gambling harms, the services that are available, and how to make a referral.
  • Free information and resources for staff and your services users about gambling-related harms and the support and treatment options available.
  • Opportunities to engage and consult with staff and women you support by attending networking events, team meetings, and women’s groups.
  • We can also provide direct engagement and support to women who might be at risk of experiencing gambling-related harm.

Interested and would like to know more? Email us on [email protected]

What is the objective of our Women’s Programme?
  1. To engage with diverse communities to amplify the voices of women with lived experience.
  2. To raise awareness amongst professionals across the public and third sector services and local communities highlighting of how gambling is linked with a range of issues affecting women and girls and helping to better identify women in need.
  3. To strengthen referral pathways into support and treatment services.
  4. To develop tailored support and treatment services for women identified as underserved by current services.

All insights from this work will be shared, informing future policy, research, and frontline support.

What has our Women's Programme achieved so far?

Since its launch as a two-year initiative in 2019, our Women’s Programme has been taking the lead in women and gambling-related harms. Women as a group are at risk of experiencing disproportionate harm from problem gambling and are under-represented amongst those seeking support and treatment.

In the first two years of delivering this programme, we focused on barriers to women accessing help. We worked with 800 organisations and more than 8,000 professionals to deliver our CPD-accredited training, thereby increasing skills and confidence for professionals when they talk to women about harms caused by gambling.

We have been successful in raising women’s voices and drawing out important learnings to ensure more can be done to help those harmed by gambling, bringing their experiences into the wider debate on gambling harm.

Read the full report from the second year of our programme >>

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