Tina’s Haven: A Sanctuary for Healing, Recovery and Resistance
Dr Sue Robson has worked across the North East for decades to support and uplift the rights of women in our communities. With a background rooted in the feminist youth work movement of the 1980s in Sunderland, Sue’s journey has been one of commitment to rights-based community development and the empowerment of overlooked and underrepresented women.
From her early work in the independent welfare rights sector through to her leadership of the North East Women’s Network and CEDAW (2006–2015), and later the Women’s Commissioning Support Unit (2015–2018), Sue has placed women’s voices and lived experiences at the heart of her work.
In 2020, Sue’s beloved daughter Tina tragically passed away at the age of 35 in supported accommodation, leaving behind her adored 11-year-old son. Tina’s death occurred during the Government’s “Everyone In” campaign, a time when the Museum of Homelessness reported a 37% rise in homeless deaths. In the same 28-bed temporary accommodation in Stockton, Sue became aware of four other women—around Tina’s age—who also died within a short period.
The four-day inquest into Tina’s death was a turning point that led Sue to act. She began working with other practitioners to develop a new model of practice—one that places ‘marginalised’ women, especially mothers severed from their children by
The Birth of Tina’s Haven
Founded in September 2022, Tina’s Haven is a radical, feminist response to systemic harm. It is a catalyst for emancipatory practice, rooted in nature, creativity, and collective healing.
The pilot project brought together The Barn at Easington a rewilded farm on the East Durham coast, Addictions North East, and The Women’s Liberation Collective . Their differing approaches were woven into a holistic, trauma-informed model of support.
- 28 women, all homeless at the time, participated in the pilot (2022–23).
- Around 70% were mothers separated from their children.
The women’s collective biography revealed common threads: childhood trauma, violence against women and girls (VAWG) from adolescence, estrangement from families and communities, and deep marginalisation. Many had been retraumatised by state systems—blamed and punished for the violence they endured, often being ‘severed from their children’ to adoption or to the male perpetrator.
This practice fosters: female identification and solidarity, self-empowerment and mutual support, spirituality as a source of survival and resistance, critical consciousness and collective action, transformation of everyday practice through connection and the self as central to healing and activism trauma-based addiction, at the centre.
A Feminist Model Rooted in Nature and Creativity
Tina’s Haven centres arts and nature-based practice. Women connect with the land, with each other, and with themselves. Through growing, creating, and collective land recovery, they begin to heal.
This practice fosters: female identification and solidarity, self-empowerment and mutual support, spiritualism as a source of survival and resistance, critical consciousness and collective action, transformation of everyday practice through connection, and the self as central to healing and activism
What Has Grown from Tina’s Haven
From this pilot, a number of initiatives have emerged:
- Women sustaining long-term recovery and beginning to heal.
- A National Lottery-funded Women in Recovery & Empowerment (WiRE) project.
- A growing network of female-led grassroots recovery organisations.
- A thriving market garden and “Hope-Box” social enterprise.
- The WISHED project, commissioned by Sunderland City Council, supporting women with enduring unmet needs.
- Tina’s Haven Nature Reserve and a “Tree of Hope” on the East Durham Coast, in collaboration with the National Trust.
- “Together We Heal and Recover”, a diversity project funded by the Mayor’s Fund, delivered in Horden and Easington Colliery.
Find Out More
Email: sue@suerobson.co.uk
LinkedIn: Dr Sue Robson
Facebook: Truth and Justice for Tina and The Barn at Easington
Read the full pilot report: In Love & Anger
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