Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

Domestic Violence

Violence Against Women Initiative: Rural Projects

Project List:

More on the Violence Against Women Initiative

Hastings and Rother Rapid Response Crisis Intervention Team

SUMMARY

The Rapid Response Crisis Intervention Service will support victims at every stage following a report of DV and aim to:

  • reduce the number of withdrawn complaints;

  • increase the number of successful prosecutions;

  • reduce repeat incidents.

INTERVENTIONS

Rapid Response Crisis Intervention Team
(will be based in the Crime Reduction Initiative – previously Pilgrim House Trust):

  • 2 Crisis Intervention Workers   

  • 2 Non Crisis Out-Reach Workers

  • 1 Alcohol Worker   

  • Support Service for Children            

Crisis Intervention Workers roles:

  • Visit and support the victim of domestic violence/abuse at the time, or soon after (within 24 hours) of a victim reporting an incident and making a statement of complaint to the Police.

  • Work closely with the Police DVU with regard to referrals.

  • Help the victim to assess what their needs are and assist them in accessing all the necessary relevant support

  • Act as an advocate where appropriate.

  • Consider victim safety, particularly the installation of safelink 999 mobile phones, cyclops alarms, and refuge provision.

Non Crisis Outreach Support Workers roles

  • Work closely with Police DVU.

  • Seek to contact all victims of domestic violence incidents that have been reported to the Police, but are not being investigated as a crime.

  • Take referrals from various agencies or from CRI where the victim has attended the Drop In or requested the service. It is envisaged that this service will expand to incorporate referrals from AE Department at the Conquest Hospital.

  • Direct outreach work by establishing drop-in surgeries in rural locations for victims who may not wish to report to the Police, but want to access support or advocacy to help them in their situation. CRI will also establish a “Group Drop In” where former victims can use their personal experiences to the benefit of the community.

  • Awareness raising:

Specialist Substance or Alcohol Misuse Worker

  • This worker will join the existing ‘Get it While You Can’ project (an alcohol and drug misuse service) which visits offenders in Police cells to see if they wish to change their offending behaviour by addressing their substance misuse. They also follow up offenders who haven’t been arrested but where incidents have involved alcohol.

  • The specialist DV/alcohol/substance misuse worker will deal with cases involving DV and will also be available to victims where alcohol/drugs is an issue for them.

Support service for children in families experiencing domestic violence

  • Delivered by specialist workers at a local project – the Elphinstone Family Centre, run by NCH Action for Children. Support will include fast track access to individual and group work with children.

ACTIONS ALREADY TAKEN

  • Multi-agency training has already taken place with the Police and the Magistrates, Health Visitors, Social Services departments, various voluntary sector agencies, housing and education.

  • Senlac Police

    • Training on DV to all officers – 4 hours per session per officer;

    • New post of Victim Services Officer to co-ordinate support to victims, maintain the database and monitor response to, and recording of, domestic violence;

    • Designated Police Officer to investigate domestic violence;

    • Positive action policy

    • A database - unique to the area and currently updated to include children - has been created to manage the data that is submitted by Police Officers on the domestic violence form. This system can quickly identify both repeat offenders and victims, has led to the creation of a top ten register which enables officers to be aware of the ten most dangerous/prolific offenders in case any calls from the households concerned arise. It can also follow perpetrators between victims – using the perpetrator’s name or address.

The efforts directed towards repeat victims and perpetrators have led to a reduction of calls to those households. This work is continuing and will include follow-up to establish if the reduction in the calls is as a result of a reduction in the violence. Follow up procedures will be part of the CRI standard practice. Evaluation of those clients who refuse police referral to CRI will be conducted by the Police victim services officer who will make contact three months after the last reported incident. Three months after a referral is made to the CRI Team an evaluation form and a letter will be sent to the victim. This will be followed up with either a home visit or a further evaluation form after another 3 months until 3 months after all contact has ceased.

New Domestic Violence Unit (DVU) formed

  • Repairs service extension to domestic violence possible

  • Conquest Hospital: Advertising on the whirly board - free phone hot line to the Police, advertising/publicity - linking with the hospital regarding risk assessment. Future harm - referral to other agency. This is currently in the early stages of development, which is being undertaken by the local Hastings and Rother Domestic Abuse Forum.

  • Proposed Women’s Centre (Centre 2000) Hastings:

  • Training

Police - updated pro-active training currently being actioned.

Health/Hospitals – training provided to enable health professionals to identify those victims likely to suffer psychological trauma.

Training provided to enable health professionals to refer on and be familiar with new ways of recording data.

Social Services – training to enable a) the establishment of clear lines of referral within adult services, b) access to support mechanisms for children in need, c) familiarity with new ways of recording data.

Multi-agency – training to enable professionals to work in partnership, makes effective referrals, and understands the importance of the computer database.

  • Publicity campaign

  • Education Programme

AGENCIES INVOLVED

Social Services Department, Sussex Police, Pilgrim House Trust, Get it While You Can, Community Safety Officers, Sussex Association for the Rehabilitation of Offenders, NCH Action for Children, Victim Support, Health Promotion, Conquest Hospital, St Judes Womens Refuge, Education Welfare Officer, East Sussex Probation Service, Crown Prosecution Service, Rother Homes, Hastings and Rother Homestart, Xtraxx Young Peoples Centre and Bexhill and Rother Citizens advice Bureau.

Back to top

Buxton Women’s Aid

SUMMARY

The project aims to target women and children suffering or exposed to domestic violence in the High Peak area. This will include woman who are still living with or seeing their partners, women at the point of separation, and those women seeking to determine their own future. The High Peak area covers an area of 200 sq. miles, most of which lie within the Peak National Park. High Peak is a very rural area with many small communities.

INTERVENTIONS

Development Stage

  • Purchase hardware and software necessary to set up a PC based system for data collection and analysis.

  • Develop and expand membership of the existing inter-agency links in AGDA, Peaks and Dales, to create a multi-agency partnership; building a good practice framework, with protocols on confidentiality and information sharing, and a common format for recording information relating to domestic abuse.

  • Record, collate and analyse data from all agencies, to produce information that will help identify risk, need, early intervention points, repeat victimisation, and effective intervention strategies.

  • Develop affordable training programmes using the skills and knowledge available in the partner agencies.

  • Offer programmes of training and information about the issues surrounding domestic violence to informal and voluntary groups in rural communities (e.g. parents and toddler groups, playgroups, youth groups, women’s institute), to raise awareness about how to access support and help and foster a culture of zero tolerance.

  • Develop a volunteer emergency transport scheme, to enable agencies or individuals to access emergency transport for women and children in times of crisis.

Implementation stage

  • Act on referrals to support women suffering domestic abuse in the South and Central areas of High Peak.

  • Offer continued support to women in determining their own future, whether it involves returning home or starting a new life elsewhere.

  • Act as an advocate with statutory agencies to ensure women and children access all appropriate services.

  • Liaise with other agencies in the partnership, to work together to develop strategies to protect women and their children against harassment, using the Criminal Justice system.

  • Manage the volunteer emergency transport scheme.

  • Continue to collect information and data for the central database.

AGENCIES INVOLVED

Buxton & District Women’s Aid, Women’s Aid (Glossop), High Peak Borough Council, Derbyshire Constabulary, Derbyshire Social Services and West Pennine Health Authority.

Back to top

St Austell Support Workers

SUMMARY

Both Restormel and North Cornwall are rural areas and are within the most peripheral location in the United Kingdom. There is a total lack of resources and support groups in this area. 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.

INTERVENTIONS

The Domestic Violence Officers are currently the only points of contact for women experiencing Domestic Violence and offer only a minimum level of support. Cornwall is a an area of social and economic deprivation and many women suffer rural isolation, unemployment, poverty and the effects of the persistence of traditional roles and values in families and communities. The proposed interventions will concentrate on lowering levels of repeat victimisation and increasing criminal prosecutions of perpetrators. By offering women support from an independent agency (worker) they will be empowered and enabled to make the necessary changes in their lives that will reduce incidents of violence. With the necessary support women will also be encouraged to proceed with criminal charges against perpetrators

2 Women’s Support Workers will be employed to work alongside the 2 Police Domestic Violence Officers (DVO) within the Cornwall Districts of Restormel and North Cornwall. They will:

  • Be sited in the Police Station and proactively follow up all domestic violence incidents reported to the police

  • Provide telephone help and advice

  • Provide face to face support

  • Provide legal/housing/benefits information, advice and advocacy

  • Extend safety measures to victims to enable them to stay at home.

  • Accompany women to court, doctors etc. when required.

  • Develop self-support groups for victims in the districts of Restormel and North Cornwall.

  • Develop training for volunteer support workers to offer long-term ongoing support.

AGENCIES INVOLVED

Restormel Borough Council, North Cornwall District Council, Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, The Probation Service, Restormel Housing Trust, Women’s Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre, Health Promotion, Restormel Primary Care Group.

Back to top

Warwickshire Domestic Violence Support Services

SUMMARY

Support women victims of domestic violence as they make positive changes I their lives by the intervention of a dedicated domestic violence support services working within a defined multi-agency structure. The project will engage with women at any stage within the relationship and continue to offer support for as long as they desire it throughout the process of change.

INTERVENTIONS

The project is based on the model developed by WDVSS following their 10-year experience of working around the issues of domestic violence. This model is based on the recognition of a process of abuse that is domestic violence and the naming of 5 stages within that process, enabling the provision of appropriate services to match the need at each stage.

  • Analysis of the 5 stages based on the experience of working with women victims what the women are saying, how and where they are presenting themselves and what they are identifying as their needs, has enabled us to link these stages to the agencies with whom the women have contact.

  • Training based on their process has been developed and is presented on a multi-agency basis, enabling each agency to identify their role within the provision of appropriate services.

  • Awareness raising packages including leaflets and posters have been designed that match the stages, the agencies and the needs expressed by the women.

  • Support is tailored to meet the needs of the women and includes 24 hour helpline, local open offices, safety planning, advocacy, safe accommodation, resettlement and counselling.

This intervention will enable:

  • Work to be delivered within a co-ordinated multi-agency approach with defined protocols within and between agencies

  • The issues identified within the area to be addressed, monitored and evaluated efficiently and effectively with the aim of reducing repeat victimisation.

The method of support devised to counter the process of abuse is one of empowerment, countering:

  • Degradation with Affirmation – provision of safe environments, helpline/office/refuge

  • Power with Communication – exploration of options and safety planning

  • Control with Co-operation – informed decision making and continuous support/advocacy.

It takes into account the nature of the problem and offers solution based on the reversal of the whole process. The method of support also allows for continuation through the time of separation, whether via criminal or civil proceedings or other options such as resettlement and into the very necessary period of recovery.

The elements of the project are:

  • Training sessions based around the identified process and the 5 named stages with in. This will be complimented with briefing sessions on the intervention work being undertaken and the requirement of the programme, thus giving ownership and inclusion to front-line workers/potential referrers.

  • A co-ordinated awareness raising programme in Stratford District which highlights the issues and the full range of services available, especially publicising the helpline as a first point of contact for those in rural areas. The aim is to encourage early disclosure.

  • An office base for the support service in Stratford-on-Avon as a local base for women to access support, highlight the issue and put it on the local agenda.

  • Outreach workers to make contact with statutory and voluntary partners across the region, picking up on protocols and procedures develop din the first stage of this project. Their role will be in identify referrals make contact with the women, offer appropriate support, enable them to access full range of service, engage in safety planning and advocacy with other relevant agencies, accompany to court.

  • Resettlement worker to link in with women who are separated but still receiving abuse to enable resettlement and encourage the take up of options around recovery from the process. They will also take over from the outreach worker once women have ended relationship.

  • Co-ordination of the project and management of the staff will be undertaken by WDVSS who have direct experience in this work.

  • A Data collection system to be managed in a central location.

AGENCIES INVOLVED

Warwickshire Domestic Violence Support Services, Warwickshire Constabulary, Stratford-on-Avon District Council, Warwickshire County Council, Social services, Local DV Forum, South Warwickshire Combined Care NHS Trust.

Back to top

Last update: June 2003

Related Links

 

We are not responsible for the content of external websites.