APPENDIX 7
Memorandum submitted by CAADA
1. Executive Summary: We believe that we
are witnessing a major shift in the way that domestic violence
is being addressed in this country. The introduction of trained
Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) and Multi-Agency
Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs) is transforming safety outcomes,
saving lives and saving money.
1.1 The current programme has seen a major
addition to capacity in the sector and over 20,000 of the highest
risk victims are now receiving this support. This figure is set
to double in the next year as the number of trained IDVAs rises
from 275 currently to 500 and the number of MARACs from 70 to
over 100.
1.2 We recommend that a national network
of 1,200 IDVAs and 300 MARACs is established, supported by CAADA
to ensure a continued high quality of provision. This needs to
be embedded in mainstream funding and the role of the key stakeholders
in this multi-agency approach needs to be clear, whether by putting
MARACs on a statutory footing, or by other policy directives.
The cost of such a network of MARACs and IDVAs would be £50
million.
1.3 Such a network would put England and
Wales at the forefront of best practice in responding to domestic
violence, would support over 100,000 victims annually and save
the public purse in excess of £250 million in direct costs
alone. Based on the statistics gathered to date, 40,000 of these
victims would suffer no further abuse. The combination of IDVAs
and MARACs is offering a solution to what was historically seen
as an intractable problem.
2. Introduction to CAADA[18]:
CAADA is a registered charity set up just over two and a half
years ago with the aim to cut deaths and serious injury and improve
safety for victims of domestic violence. We are pioneering a new
approach to domestic violence by using a professional network
of Independent Domestic Violence Advisors, or IDVAs, to protect
and support the highest risk victims and their families. We to
re-engineer the response to domestic violence across the UK by
training IDVAs to a nationally recognised standard to work in
partnership with local services to try and keep the highest risk
victims of domestic abuse and their families safely in their homes.
Early evidence from the new areas where there are IDVAs and MARACs[19],
(Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences), shows more than a
halving in repeat victimisation for the highest risk families.
3. Progress to Date: The past two and a
half years have witnessed a noticeable and important shift in
the way that the highest risk victims of domestic abuse are supported
both by the voluntary sector and statutory agencies with the introduction
of IDVAs and the roll out of MARACs across the country. CAADA
has been closely involved with both of these developments and
has, in our opinion, developed a very effective relationship with
the Home Office and more recently the Ministry of Justice in implementing
this work. We feel it is important to stress that it has been
this combination of innovation from the voluntary sector which
has been picked up and acted on by central government that has
led to such successful results.
3.1 Some of the key milestones in the development
are listed below.
|
| Date | CAADA's Action
| Home Office Action |
|
| Feb 2005 | Defined the role of the independent domestic violence advisor
| Took the CAADA definition to all key stakeholders and got sector agreement to use this in future. Now has the status of the "nationally agreed definition" of the role of the IDVA
|
| Feb 2005 | CAADA writes the first nationally accredited training programme for IDVAs and launches it as a pilot programme with 20 practitioners
| Mid 2005- Home Office reviews the CAADA training and recommends it for all IDVA practitioners
|
| 2005-07 | CAADA delivers training for over 360 practitioners to date (100 in training currently) including both Home Office funded and other IDVAs
| 2005-07 Home Office agrees funding for over 200 new IDVA and ISVA posts.
|
| 2006-07 | CAADA develops Implementation Guidance for MARACs
| Home Office announces that MARACs will be introduced initially in all the SDVC areas and later more widely, making 75 MARACs by Q3 2007
|
| 2007 | Initial data indicates that over 70% of victims supported by an IDVA and MARAC suffer no repeat victimisation at the six month stage. Saving to the public purse from existing MARACs estimated at £60 million in the next year.
| |
|
4. Support for Victims:
4.1 The main shift in this area has been the development
of a trained professional to support high and very high risk victims
of domestic and sexual abuse in the form of IDVAs and ISVAs[20].
CAADA has developed a certified, professional, training course
for IDVAs and ISVAs, the first in the field, which has become
the recognised national standard. So far about 275 people have
completed the training and we will train a further 250 in the
coming 12 months. We also offer a continuing professional development
programme for graduates of the course that includes face to face
training and specialist conference calls on topics of professional
interest.
4.2 When CAADA ran its first training course in 2005 we
estimate that there were about 20 practitioners nationwide who
were following the specific model of the IDVA in terms of supporting
high and very high risk victims of domestic abuse and working
in partnership with other agencies. To-day that figure is over
275 and will rise to over 500 within the next 12 months. Each
IDVA can support around 75 high risk victims a year. This means
that over 20,000 people are currently being supported by an IDVA
and that this will almost double in 12 months time.
4.3 The IDVAs play a crucial role in addressing safety
for high risk victims of domestic violence. They have been shown
to be effective in a wide cross section of communities including
those traditionally regarded as "hard to reach" including
black and minority ethnic, LGBT and rural areas. They are responsible
for carrying out approximately 80% of the work from MARAC and
in underpinning its effectiveness.
5. Multi-agency Responses:
5.1 The first domestic violence MARACs were held in Cardiff
in 2003. The outcome from these has been that over 40% of victims
have suffered no repeat violence 12 months after their case has
been reviewed at the MARAC and a unique safety plan put together.
CAADA has worked closely with the Women's Safety Unit in Cardiff
and created an implementation package including written materials,
training support and continued face-to-face telephone and email
contact. As noted above, we presented this to the Home Office
who in turn have funded us to implement this, initially in 25
areas in the first year, and now in over 70 areas with the plan
being that this should be running in over 100 areas within the
next 12 months. The recent decision by the Home Office to give
some funding towards the appointment of dedicated MARAC co-ordinators
has been an important help to the running of MARAC as this represents
a genuine marginal cost.
5.2 We estimate that over 15,000 cases will be reviewed
at these MARACs in 2008. If 40% of these cases suffer no repeat
violence as in Cardiff at the one year follow up stage, then the
saving to the public purse in direct costs alone would be £60
million. The human impact of achieving safety is obviously many
times as great. These have been traditionally seen as the most
intractable cases but with the arrival of MARACs, solutions are
being found that address safety for victims and their children.
It should be noted that the early data is actually showing a lower
repeat victimization level which is most encouraging.
6. Support for the Sector:
6.1 CAADA works directly with IDVA projects to help them
develop a uniformly high quality service for women and their families
through the establishment of minimum standards for service provision.
We feel that this is vital not only in terms of every survivor
receiving the same high quality of service, but also for practitioners
and management to get the support they need to carry out their
work effectively addressing the safety of their clients in every
case. We hope that this will form a framework that will give increased
confidence to funders to support this work in future.
6.2 CAADA has recently begun to pilot these accredited
service standards. Clearly we very much hope that the Home Office
will also see this as an important way of improving the response
to victims of domestic abuse and will support our work with the
kind of direction in terms of policy and funding that we have
seen in the other two areas. We really believe that with these
three elements in place, namely accredited practitioners, accredited
services and an effective multi agency response, that England
and Wales would have one of the finest responses to domestic abuse
of any country in the world.
7. Barriers to Multi-agency work:
7.1 One of the questions in the outline of the work of
the Committee was to identify barriers to multi-agency work. We
in no way wish to appear naïve or over optimistic, but we
feel it is important to stress that when agencies are presented
with an effective and simple model to address some of the difficult
challenges presented by complex cases in domestic violence they
appear to be able to overcome those barriers in most places. The
barriers themselves will come as no surprise to the Committee:
they relate to a lack of confidence in terms of information sharing
without the consent of the victim and the lack of trust between
partner agencies, both within the statutory sector and between
the statutory and voluntary sectors.
7.2 There are additional complexities in some of the major
Metropolitan areas relating to the mobility of staff involved
in multi-agency work and the consistency of attendance from key
agencies at these meetings. Clearly successful multi-agency work
is built on trust and in areas of high staff turnover this is
more of a challenge to establish.
7.3 We have tried to address the issue of information
sharing by providing simple and straightforward guidance for newly
established MARACs and have been fortunate to get support from
the Office of the Information Commissioner, from a major international
law firm and from other specialist practitioners in creating this.
We have also created the tools required by agencies to define
what information to share and how it should be recorded and a
mechanism within the MARAC that allows them to do this in a safe
and controlled way. These are available on our website. As a result
we have met remarkably little resistance with the implementation
of this process. Rather, there are many areas that have chosen
voluntarily to implement MARACs despite not being part of the
Home Office supported programme. Indeed, the process remains voluntary
for all concerned.
8. Recommendations:
8.1 Looking forward, the challenges for all of us involved
in this work are significant. In the simplest terms we need to
see the roll out of a national network of Independent Domestic
Violence Advisors and MARACs. CAADA has estimated that we would
need 1,200 IDVAs to cover the country adequately and 300 MARACs.
The cost of funding this in salary terms alone would be in the
region of £36 million for the IDVAs and £9 million for
the MARAC co-ordinators annually. Again this is based on direct
costs only. In addition CAADA would need to grow considerably
to support the network of IDVAs and MARACs around the country
and to ensure that they work as effectively and cost effectively
as possible. We estimate that our running costs for this would
be £5 million per annum.
8.2 Currently, the funding for this work is typically
short term and unstable. We need to see both adequate capacity
in the sector and main stream funding to create a robust system
for supporting the most vulnerable victims in our society. With
such a structure we believe that England and Wales would have
a world class system for dealing with the highest risk victims
of domestic abuse. We believe that over 100,000 victims would
be supported through an IDVA and a MARAC and 40,000 victims a
year would be kept safe as a result. We believe, however, that
with such a network and based on the evidence gathered to date,
the saving to the public purse would be in the order of £250
million.
8.3 In order to achieve a service of such a scale, it
will be necessary to have clear targets included in the Local
Area Agreements to ensure that the role of the IDVA is properly
funded and maintained. We would recommend that these are linked
to the development of IDVA services and the establishment of MARACs.
Stretch targets could focus on the reduction in repeat victimisation
achieved at MARAC.
8.4 We would also recommend that there is greater clarity
on the commitment required from statutory agencies at MARAC. This
could obviously be achieved by putting MARACs on a statutory footing.
The key is that all agencies should understand that this is a
priority which addresses the safety of victims, of their agency
staff and will cut costs for all concerned. In particular, the
key stakeholders from the health service are crucial in the information
sharing and safety planning process and should be required to
attend.
8.5 Work remains to be done in integrating the multi agency
response and the MARAC into the wider issues of family based and
so-called "honour" based violence and CAADA is working
hard here with experts in the field to ensure that we meet this
challenge as quickly as possible. It is clearly an absolutely
critical area to address effectively. This has implications for
our training of IDVAs and MARACs.
8.6 Finally, we would suggest that the model of support
that CAADA has created for IDVAs and MARACs is one for government
to consider more widely. We do believe that the existence of CAADA
has facilitated more effective service delivery on the part of
IDVAs around the country and served to leverage the capacity of
both the voluntary and statutory agencies alike. With the move
to outsourcing of many services that were previously run by statutory
agencies to the voluntary sector in future, it will be crucial
to ensure that the voluntary sector has a structure which allows
this to be a successful move. We would suggest that the model
pursued in the domestic violence sector is one that should be
considered more widely with this in mind.
1 October 2007
18
Co-ordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse. Back
19
Multi-agency risk assessment conferences in which several agencies
meet to share information and create a safety plan for the highest
risk victims in an area Back
20
Independent sexual violence advisors Back
|
