Domestic Violence
Violence Against Women Initiative
| This document is published for archival/historical purposes. It will not be updated. |
£6.3 million of the Crime Reduction Programme (CRP) funding has been allocated to local agencies/multi-agency partnerships to develop and implement local strategies for reducing two types of violence experienced by women: domestic violence, and rape and sexual assault by known perpetrators.
The Prospectus and Invitation to Bid was sent to local agencies and multi-agency partnerships in February 2000 to invite them to apply for funding. It set out what would be funded and explained the application, selection, monitoring and evaluation procedures. Guidance was produced to assist bidders with collecting and managing data, ‘Guidance for agencies: Collecting and Managing data’. In addition, summaries of a series of literature reviews to investigate what was effective in reducing domestic violence, ‘Reducing Domestic Violence …What works? Briefing notes’, were published to disseminate good practice and to help agencies/multi-agency partnerships wanting to apply for project funding under the CRP. The Briefing Note Pack is available from PRCU, Room 415, Clive House, Petty France, London, SW1H 9HD Tel: (020) 7271 8232/8225 Fax: 020 7271 8344. The full literature reviews will be published later in 2001.
Two hundred and fourteen applications were received from throughout the country and thirty four projects have been successfully selected for funding (twenty five in reducing domestic violence and 9 in reducing rape and sexual assault by known perpetrators). The successful projects are listed and summarised briefly below under the following headings:
Education and awareness raising
Multiple Interventions
Rural
Civil and Criminal Law
Minority Ethnic Focus
Health
Prevention and Protection
Rape Services
Perpetrator Programme
Data Systems
Further details of these projects can be found from the full project list.
Project Summaries
Education and awareness raising
Zero Tolerance Education / Awareness Raising
The project will pilot an integrated approach to the prevention of rape and sexual assault in Thurrock. It will enable the implementation and evaluation of a Respect integrated approach that brings together all the existing interventions in one area for the first time.
Southampton Education (Rape and Sexual Assault)
The project aims to harness the extensive expertise in agencies across the city to establish a creative and innovative education programme that pro-actively reaches young people most at risk and aims to reduce rape and sexual assault. The target group is 12 to 18 years olds – with an additional focus on reaching Looked After young people and other particularly vulnerable young people.
Bridgend Education (DV)
Raise awareness of and change attitudes to domestic violence, and ensure that those seeking assistance know where to access help. A drama vehicle will be developed and live performances will be given to year 11 children. The production will be filmed and the video used to widen the audience to include teachers, health visitors, magistrates, magistrate clerks, prison officers, tenants and residents, parent and governor groups.
NSPCC Patchwork Education / Awareness Raising
Provide easy access to information and support for victims and children living with domestic violence within their own communities by training and mobilising workers and individuals within the community to encourage positive intervention, using the local secondary schools as a focus, and supporting this with inter-agency policies, procedure and protocols and training of trainers within agencies.
Multiple Interventions
Cheshire Multiple Interventions
This will particularly look at domestic violence in rural areas by providing an outreach service. It will also provide police cameras, mobiles, training and personal safety videos, a video and training pack for use in schools and legal seminars.
Northampton DV Action Centre
The proposal is for a proactive, fully integrated approach to domestic violence through a Domestic Violence Action Centre which will provide provisions of a dedicated Intervention Team complimented by a Signposting Centre with a number of different facilities available including Multi-Agency Victim Support Team, a Virtual Access Centre, a Survivors Forum and facilities for self empowerment.
Camden Safety Net
A self contained team of specialists working from an independent centre will work with women, children and the perpetrators to address domestic violence in all its forms. Domestic violence incident workers will work with women and a specialist worker will be appointed to focus of the needs of minority ethnic women. A primary care groups liaison worker will work with GPs, receptionists, practice nurses and other staff to raise awareness, and a reducing violence worker will work with perpetrators and access counsellors and group work.
Bradford Staying Put
“Staying Put” is about supporting and enabling women and children who have experienced domestic violence to remain safely in their family home. It will provide a district wide telephone help line for women/children who have experienced Domestic Violence who make contact with either the Police or directly or indirectly through the help line itself. It will also provide additional direct support to women and children who want to stay in their homes. Two Police Divisions in Bradford will be the target area; these are Odsal (GC) and Central (GA), which have multi ethnic communities including East European, South East Asian, African and Caribbean people.
Safety Planning with Survivors and Risk Assessment of Perpetrators
The time before and around separation from a violent partner is known to be a time of high risk and increased danger for survivors. Interventions by a range of key agencies, such as police, solicitors, health, etc at this time need to be highly focused on working with each survivor to reduce the specific dangers she is experiencing, and for all criminal justice agencies to accurately assess the specific risks posed by each perpetrator/ offender at that particular time. This project will develop a range of tools to enable practitioners to respond to survivors of domestic violence in a manner which keeps safety at the centre. The tools will include screening tools, crisis and safety planning tools, an agency safety checklist, risk assessment tools and recommendation matrices.
Rural
Hastings and Rother Rapid Response Crisis Intervention Team
A rapid response crisis intervention team will support victims at every stage. Crisis intervention workers will work with victims who have reported to the police, help them access phones, alarms and refuges, act as an advocate where necessary and help them access support. Outreach workers will take referrals from other agencies and set up direct outreach work. A specialist substance/alcohol misuse workers and children’s service will be provided for specialist needs.
Buxton Women’s Aid
This project will act on referrals to support women in the South and Central areas of High Peack, act as an advocate to ensure women and children access all appropriate services, liaise with other agencies to develop strategies to protect women and their children, and establish a volunteer emergency transport scheme.
St Austell Support Workers
Both Restormel and North Cornwall are rural areas and are within the most peripheral location in the United Kingdom. This project will provide support workers to give victims immediate and continued support and advice. It will also develop outreach work and set up self-support groups for victims across the districts.
Warwickshire Domestic Violence Support Service
A dedicated domestic violence support service working within a defined multi-agency structure will provide training to staff in all partner agencies, carry out a co-ordinated awareness raising programme to highlight the issues and the full range of services available, provide an office base for women to access Support, employ outreach workers to identify and contact women, offer support, engage in safety planning and advocacy with relevant agencies and accompany women to court; and employ a resettlement worker to work with women to enable resettlement and help them with issues of personal safety, practical safety, contact orders, securing tenancy, houses moves as well as emotional recovery from the process of abuse.
Civil and Criminal Law
Standing Together Civil
Standing Together has run a successful co-ordinated multi-agency response to victims calling Fulham Police to domestic violence incidents since November 1998. ST has concentrated on improving and monitoring the use of the criminal justice system. This project is to ‘join up’ the woman’s experience of criminal & civil proceedings by adding the civil work to the co-ordinated response of ‘Standing Together Against Domestic Violence’.
West Somerset Polaroid Cameras
This will use Polaroid cameras for enhanced evidence gathering in every response care in West Somerset to enable a formal evaluation of the impact of photographic evidence.
Brighton and Hove Intimidated Witness Support Service
An Intimidated Witness Support Service will work alongside the existing Women’s Refuge Project Outreach and Advice Service and in liaison with specialist police officers in the Anti Victimisation Unit. The team will consist of Witness advocates (each with special responsibility for minority ethnic women, those who are disabled, pregnant or have particular health needs, young people and lesbian women), a social worker, a childcare worker and an administrator. The team will give offer assistance and support to women reporting to the police, will encourage prosecution, and will share information in line with agreed protocols and work with women and children, to advise police as to lines of inquiry and possible sources of evidence and intelligence.
Gloucester Co-ordinated Community Response
Develop and enhance the work of the Gloucestershire Co-ordinated Community Response to domestic violence by building the capacity of the advocacy project, using cameras for enhanced evidence gathering, increasing the numbers of mobile phones and link line units, providing training across the county, studying the current use and effectiveness of civil law and increasing the availability of specific support services to children.
Minority Ethnic Focus
Birmingham Ashram Group
This will appoint a coordinator and outreach workers to work with asian communities, conduct a publicity and awareness raising campaign, carry out a needs analysis to identify gaps in current service provision, increase personal safety by the use of alarms, phones, and personal safety programmes, and enhance the prosecution process by the use of interpreters and photographic evidence.
Croydon Advocacy Project
This advocacy project based in the Ambassador One-Stop Drop-In will empower women to use civil and/or criminal remedies and to prioritise the safety their safety, and that of their children, through the process. This will include safety planning, accompanying women to court, solicitors and medical appointments, helping victims access other services, and providing support throughout legal proceedings.
Tower Hamlets Victim Advocacy and Safety Counselling Service
Range of measures to improve support for victims, enabling them to make better use of legal protection and other sanctions and services available to increase their safety, and enhance evidence gathering and improve inter-agency co-ordination to increase the use of all available legal sanctions for domestic and sexual violence offences. This will include a Victim Advocacy and Safety Counselling Service based In Victim Support, a Multi-agency Safety Planning Panel and a Repeat Victimisation Police Policy.
Health
Standing Together Health
This project will incorporate health related issues into ST’s co-ordinated community approach by offering immediate referrals to the Advocacy Project and by offering our expertise to aid participating Heath facilities in developing their own practice with regard to domestic violence.
North Devon and Torridge Early Intervention
This project will enable victims of domestic violence to know about, and feel confident to utilise, the support services available when they are being treated medically by the health services. The project will initially be run in the AE department at the district hospital, screening for domestic violence, and offering support from Victim Support. The project will then be expanded to cover GP surgeries and smaller hospitals.
Birmingham Health
Aims to raise the awareness of domestic violence in health and social care professionals, encourage safe disclosure in health settings, ensure integrated and consistent responses to disclosure in the health services, improve access to appropriate support services from health services, strengthen the links between AE and Maternity services and the police, social services and the voluntary sector, monitor and evaluate responses to disclosure, and develop a model for wider application in Birmingham’s health services.
Wakefield Primary Health Care
This project aims to work with primary care to reduce repeat victimisation in women who are experiencing domestic violence, but who are not reporting assaults to the police. It also aims to improve the quality of evidence collected from primary care sources and the voluntary sector with a view to encouraging criminal or civil action. This will be done by running a pilot in 12 GP practices identifying domestic violence and offering support. The results of this pilot will be used to develop a primary care strategy to identify victims of domestic violence, develop training for primary care and other health staff, establish an effective referral route to Support and Survival, develop evidence gathering protocols for all involved in the process and establish effective data collection systems to monitor referral, uptake and repeat victimisation.
Salford GP Evidence Gathering
Introduce an enhanced evidence gathering scheme into four GP surgeries so that photographic evidence of domestic violence can be collected by general practitioners and health visitors to enhance criminal and civil law.
Prevention and Protection
Thurrock Police Co-ordinator
Employ a police domestic violence co-ordinator to develop a multi-agency shared database, co-ordinate responses to victims, and guide, direct and support victims. Additionally use Polaroid and digital cameras to enhance evidence gathering and 999 mobile phones for victims.
South Wales Alarms
Provide alarms for victims of domestic violence in Rhondda Cynon Taff County Borough, South Wales to enable them to have security within their own homes.
Rape Services
St Mary’s Crime Analysis, Crisis Workers and Follow-Up
This involves crime analysis of the existing database on recent rapes in the UK, research into why victims withdraw complaints, and evaluation of crisis workers and follow-up contact interventions designed to decrease withdrawals and enhance evidence gathering.
St Mary’s Forensic Nurse
This project seeks to pilot a forensic nurse examiner service for adult female victims of rape and sexual assault.
Star Youth Service Intervention
Develop the existing STAR service to provide a specialist counselling and support service for young people between the ages of 13 and 16 who have been raped or sexually assaulted.
Reach Video and Website Interventions
Develop purpose built video recording facilities to provide better evidence gathering and a familiar environment for women to give their evidence via video links in the courts. Additionally develop a website to publicise services and reach wider audiences.
Perpetrator Programme
Sexual Assault Perpetrator Programme and Witness Support
Development and implementation of a treatment programme to reduce re-offending among young male offenders 17-24 years old who are perpetrators of serious sexual assault and rape. Development and implementation of a witness services programme for women victims of sexual assault to reduce attrition.
Data Systems
Rape Crisis Data Systems
Set up appropriate data collection and monitoring processes for the whole Rape Crisis movement in England and Wales.
An Invitation to Tender for individuals/consortiums/organisations interested in tendering for the roles of developers and/or evaluators for the violence against women projects has been released. Anyone interested in the development and/or evaluation should contact Alana Diamond at alana.diamond@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Last update: Thursday, August 28, 2008