Shelly Stoops

Shelly's work has been published in several academic and professional journals and books around the issues of sex work and policing.

In the late 1990s, Shelly studied Social Sciences at University. During this time, she initially worked as a volunteer at a domestic violence project in Merseyside and went on to be a full-time worker. She volunteered at a sex work support project in Liverpool between doing sessional outreach and supporting the sex worker drop-in. Alongside this, she studied for a postgrad in Gendered Criminology, rights, and justice.

She joined the NHS in 2005 as an outreach worker for street sex workers. In 2006, Shelly secured Home Office funding for a specialist post to support sex workers who had been victims of rape and sexual assault, she became the first Specialist Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (SWISVA) in the UK (or in the world) to work exclusively with sex workers, a project that went on to receive critical acclaim both nationally and internationally and is known as the ‘Merseyside Model’. This changed the way sex workers are viewed and policed strategically in the UK and has had some international impact too.

She became a Crisis Worker in 2008 when Merseyside opened SAFE Place, its adult SARC. She was then promoted and became its Operational Manager. She continues to do crisis work at the SARC. Shelly worked on many strategic projects and SAFE Place was part of a multi sited project to find the best service for rape victims in Europe. SAFE Place was ultimately voted as the best service.

Shelly sat on the planning group for the National Rape Action Plan for the UK alongside the DPP giving her expertise on victim care to ensure that the policy was trauma informed and victim centred.

She carried out the Home Office funded UKNSWP (UK Network of Sex Work Projects) consultation project around setting up a National ‘Ugly Mugs’ Scheme which she wrote up and published in Summer 2011 and presented to The Rt Honourable Teresa May. This meeting secured the for the implementation of National Ugly Mugs.

She was a director of National Ugly Mugs and a board member of UK NSWP, sat on the National Police Prostitution Working Group at the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC formerly ACPO) and is involved in several local and regional forums relating to domestic and sexual violence, sex work and CSE. Shelly is a passionate advocate of Decriminalisation for sex work/ers. She has been involved with sex workers and fighting for their rights since the late 1990ss.