APPENDIX 9
Memorandum submitted by Janet Bowstead
1. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
1.1 Formal multi-agency approaches to domestic
violence developed largely out of frontline services' and survivors'
needs and experiences.
1.2 Multi-agency domestic violence forums
have often achieved impressive work programmes on very limited
resources, and have developed a range of measures of effectiveness
based on the specifics of the work.
1.3 Multi-agency domestic violence forums'
effectiveness has often been limited by the lack of higher-level
commitment to tackling strategic barriers, the lack of support
for the coordination function and staffing, and the lack of consistent
basic resources.
1.4 More recent developments of higher-level
and statutory partnerships provide an opportunity for more effective
domestic violence approaches, particularly via CDRPs and Safeguarding
Children Boards.
1.5 However, there are important current
difficulties in many multi-agency approaches:
— A skewed multi-agency agenda.
— Losing contact with survivors' lives.
— Lack of clarity and openness.
— Disrespect and inconsistency in the
treatment of the voluntary and community sector.
— Ignoring local knowledge and commitment.
— Excessive focus on crime and disorder.
1.6 Recommendations are made to increase
effectiveness in all these areas.
2. INTRODUCTION
I have over 20 years' experience in policy,
training and information, partnership working and service delivery
on domestic violence; working in the statutory and voluntary sectors.
From October 1994, until recently, I was the Domestic Violence
Coordinator at Greenwich Council in London, with strategic, service
development, training and multi-agency responsibilities. I also
advised and participated in regional and national networks such
as the London Domestic Violence Coordinators' Network and the
Local Government Association Domestic Violence Advisors network.
I supported and facilitated the Greenwich Multi Agency Domestic
Violence Forum to improve coordination, communication and effectiveness
in work between agencies; and my submission particularly addresses
multi-agency approaches to tackling and preventing domestic violence.
3. BACKGROUND
TO MULTI-AGENCY
APPROACHES
3.1 Multi-agency approaches to domestic
violence developed out of frontline, especially voluntary sector,
service providers' awareness that the survivors they worked with
needed to contact a range of agencies when they had experienced
domestic violence, and were not well served when such agencies
did not communicate or work well together.
3.2 Multi-agency approaches therefore started
from survivors' voices and survivors' needs, and it is essential
to meaningful effectiveness that this focus is never lost. Many
agencies have remained focused on the fundamental purpose of multi-agency
working as increasing survivors' safety and preventing domestic
violence, but some of the recent developments in multi-agency
working have made this more difficult to achieve.
3.3 Greenwich's Multi Agency Domestic Violence
Forum (GMADVF), which was formed in 1991, widened and strengthened
its membership, and developed Terms of Reference and annual work
programmes, which were cited as good practice examples during
the 1990s and since. The early establishment of a Domestic Violence
Coordinator post in 1994 was an example of the commitment to investing
resources in multi-agency working and coordination because of
the recognised outcomes in terms of service delivery and safety.
4. EFFECTIVENESS
OF THE
MULTI AGENCY
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
FORUM
The effectiveness of the Multi Agency Domestic
Violence Forum was considered at two levels:
4.1 The effectiveness of agencies' commitment
to working together when there was no statutory requirement to
do so. This was measured through the increased and wider membership
of GMADVF, the fact that agencies formally signed up to the Terms
of Reference and shared definitions, aims and objectives, and
the development of joint working towards initiatives such as multi-agency
training, mental health work, work in schools, and producing a
reference pack.
4.2 The effectiveness of specific initiatives
in increasing the safety of survivors, holding perpetrators accountable,
raising public awareness or preventing domestic violence. For
example;
— there was an extensive consultation
and development process through GMADVF towards a voluntary sector
project for domestic violence perpetrators to ensure that safety
was paramount;
— public information leaflets in a
range of languages were developed with women in the local community
to ensure that the language was accessible and appropriate and
services in each language were identified; and
— a safe access campaign providing
information on bus and car park tickets and in women's toilets
was developed with a group of women in the local refuge who chose
the final design.
5. BARRIERS TO
EFFECTIVENESS
Two key barriers to effectiveness have been
significant:
5.1 Lack of real management commitment to
multi-agency working.
Effectiveness has often been frustratingly limited
by the difficulties of coordinating an unfunded Domestic Violence
Forum, made up of officers whose first priority is their frontline
service, and who are often unsupported by their managers in taking
on any multi-agency work. The councils which have been most effective
in their multi-agency approaches and outcomes dedicate core funding
to domestic violence coordination and multi-agency administration
and functioning. In contrast, from 1996 Greenwich Council only
funded a part-time Domestic Violence Coordinator post and no dedicated
administration.
5.2 Lack of basic funding.
It is often only possible to secure funding for
short-term initiatives, without the security of a basic, funded
multi-agency infrastructure to complete and evaluate such initiatives.
Domestic violence by its nature is a long term and complex issue
requiring some continuity of multi-agency approach onto which
short-term work can build. For example, in Greenwich, each year
the case had to be re-made and administration re-established to
run the well-received multi-agency training courses. This is a
highly wasteful and ineffectual way to run what should be accepted
as a routine training provision.
6. RELATIONSHIP
TO HIGHER-LEVEL
AND STATUTORY
PARTNERSHIPS
6.1 Whilst the Domestic Violence Forum was
often a pioneer of partnership working, other higher-level and
statutory partnerships have increasingly become concerned with
tackling domestic violence. The two key such partnerships with
which the Domestic Violence Forum sought effective working relationships
were around the issues of Child Protection (the ACPC and now the
Greenwich Safeguarding Children Board) and Crime and Disorder
(the CDRP and now the Safer Greenwich Partnership).
6.2 In theory, multi-agency approaches could
have emerged which harnessed both the strengths of the Domestic
Violence Forum, in terms of the extensive knowledge, skills and
expertise of frontline and voluntary sector workers, and the strengths
of the ACPC/GSCB and CDRP/SGP, in terms of greater strategic commitment
and access to resources. Unfortunately this has not worked out
effectively in practice.
6.3 Recent years have seen far more rhetorical
commitment to tackling and preventing domestic violence via a
multi-agency approach, at the same time as the reality for many
local multi-agency domestic violence forums has been one of undermining
and exclusion from the new strategic agendas.
7. CURRENT DIFFICULTIES
IN MULTI-AGENCY
APPROACHES
7.1 A skewed multi-agency agenda
The purpose of developing a multi-agency approach
to domestic violence is to recognise and value the diverse range
of agencies which have a role in responding to domestic violence,
and provide an open and transparent mechanism by which shared
agendas can be progressed and different agendas be understood.
If only some of the relevant agencies are invited to participate
in the multi-agency approach, it will be skewed towards the concerns
and priorities of those present, and limited in its knowledge.
Even if all key voluntary and statutory agencies are invited,
there are significant power differentials between them which need
to be acknowledged and addressed. A Domestic Violence Coordinator
can be vital in acting as an honest broker, building effective
working relationships. However, if multi-agency approaches merely
reflect or exacerbate the power differentials then they do not
facilitate meaningful or effective joint working.
7.2 Losing contact with survivors' lives
Strategic and statutory lead officers often
do not connect with domestic violence survivors. As a Domestic
Violence Coordinator I believed it was essential to the development
of a multi-agency domestic violence strategy to build in effective
consultation with domestic violence survivors and feed back to
them whether their priorities and concerns would be heard and
addressed. However, this was clearly not a priority of the higher-level
strategic leads on the domestic violence strategy in Greenwich,
who did not value or communicate with the group of survivors on
how their generosity in sharing their life experiences had influenced
the strategy development process.
7.3 Lack of clarity and openness
The recent greater focus on the need to tackle
domestic violence has often been led by agencies whose previous
commitment was small, and who now tend to behave as if no-one
was doing anything before. Rather than building on past knowledge
and strengths, there has been a pattern of setting up new strategic
structures as if no previous structures existed, which is extremely
frustrating and counterproductive. In Greenwich, a proposal for
greater strategic commitment from higher level officers in statutory
agencies was initially welcomed by the Domestic Violence Forum
(GMADVF). However, the development process of this Domestic Violence
Project Management Board included abolishing the Forum's Steering
Group before a new group had been established, not sharing any
draft scoping papers or Terms of Reference with Forum members,
and a total lack of openness as to proposed membership. The majority
of GMADVF members were from the voluntary and community sector,
however only one voluntary sector agency was invited onto the
Project Management Board, and there was a lack of rationale as
to why that agency had been chosen or how it should attempt to
represent anyone else. Such secrecy and lack of accountability
has been destructive of past multi-agency trust and confidence,
and detrimental to the work. For the first time in over a decade,
GMADVF had no annual work programme in 06-07, and neither did
the newly-formed DVPMB.
7.4 Disrespect and inconsistency in the
treatment of the voluntary and community sector
Rather than an open dialogue on how best the
skills and knowledge of the voluntary and community sector can
contribute to steering and delivering the multi-agency agenda,
new arrangements have often struggled to engage such agencies,
yet failed to understand why. Voluntary sector agencies were generally
active and committed to the Domestic Violence Forum, which was
a vote of confidence that they felt it was worth their while.
Such agencies have become sceptical about why some and not other
agencies have been invited to attend new meetings, and have expressed
frustration that they appear to be being used to add respectability
to meetings, yet offered no meaningful input. In the difficult
funding world of agencies competing for service commissioning
this has added to tension between agencies and reduced their trust
in multi-agency working. This has been a very disappointing and
destructive consequence of statutory agencies playing voluntary
sector agencies off against each other, and displaying a lack
of trust in community-based organisations. Multi-agency approaches
need to be built on, and continue to build, trust and confidence
between agencies, not least for the sake of the individuals who
need to access a range of services.
7.5 Ignoring local knowledge and commitment
Multi-agency approaches in the past were often
grounded in the local knowledge of frontline statutory and voluntary
sector workers, not least because no-one higher up in politics
or statutory agencies was interested. Multi-agency work and initiatives
grounded in such local knowledge tend to be more effective, because
they are meeting real needs and understand the real barriers.
The more recent higher-level leadership of multi-agency approaches,
powerful professionals often new to the issue, do not always value
or understand such local knowledge, and are likely to bring in
ideas or initiatives quickly from elsewhere rather than take the
time to engage locally. In Greenwich a programme of multi-agency
training had been run for over 10 years, delivered under quality
standards by trainers who were also local workers, so that they
could cover the detail of local procedures, agencies and referral
routes. In contrast, in 06/07 no funding was provided to run such
training, and the only courses run were delivered by an external
trainer with no local agency knowledge.
7.6 Excessive focus on crime and disorder
The pattern of control, threats and violence
within a relationship—"domestic violence"—does
not equate comfortably with an incident-based definition of a
crime triggering a criminal justice response. Agencies which are
primarily responsive, such as the Police, deal with incidents,
but effective multi-agency approaches need to be based on a much
wider understanding of prevalence, of criminal and non-criminal
incidents, and the context of gender inequality as a cause and
consequence of violence against women. There has been a recent
disturbing tendency to adopt the core definition of incidence
as if it is appropriate to the total multi-agency approach. The
easily-available crime figures of reports to the Police have also
been adopted as if they encompass domestic violence; leading to
a trend of only considering funding services if they can show
that they will affect crime figures. This shows a fundamentally
mistaken conflation of the criminal justice system's core business
of responding to incidents, and the core business of a multi-agency
approach which is to prevent, protect, educate, hold perpetrators
accountable and support victims. The fact that basic service monitoring
on domestic violence is still so poor in most agencies, apart
from the Police, perpetuates these difficulties in measuring effectiveness;
but this is still no justification for using crime figures as
if they were a proxy for other agencies' or multi-agency effectiveness.
8. RECOMMENDATIONS
TO INCREASE
EFFECTIVENESS
8.1 Multi-agency coordination is a key function
which has to be resourced and respected as providing support,
accountability and consistency to any policy or service initiatives.
It is not enough simply to have a Domestic Violence Coordinator
post if it is not appropriately located, supported and graded
in terms of hierarchical authority and strategic input to planning
and commissioning. The Domestic Violence Coordinator must have
a specialist background in domestic violence issues and be committed
to working effectively with all relevant agencies; able to carry
out a vital broker role between agencies of different power and
access to resources.
8.2 Effective and respectful consultation
with domestic violence survivors must be incorporated in all multi-agency
approaches to keep them grounded in the reality of services and
needs.
8.3 There needs to be greater openness in
multi-agency approaches, since they necessarily cut across traditional
professional boundaries and methods. There needs to be recognition
of all the positives of past approaches so as to build on the
real successes, as well as acknowledging the problems and mistakes.
8.4 There needs to be increased capacity
within the frontline and voluntary sector agencies to enable workers
to participate effectively in multi-agency working. Too often
knowledgeable workers are effectively excluded from strategic
and multi-agency domestic violence work because they are presented
with too-tight deadlines, overwhelming documentation or have to
give higher priority to short-term and urgent frontline work.
If the strategic and multi-agency work then progresses regardless
of their involvement, it risks being mistaken and ineffective
in its priorities because it has effectively processed out crucial
perspectives and knowledge.
8.5 To be effective and sustainable, multi-agency
approaches need to be grounded in local knowledge. Effectiveness
of outcome needs to be tailored to the specifics of the local
starting point and purpose of an initiative or service, not imagining
that it can achieve unrealistic or unconnected outcomes.
8.6 Multi-agency approaches need to work
to shared aims and definitions which go much wider and deeper
than incidence/reported incidence of crime. Not everything worth
doing can be measured in the crime figures; in fact the majority
of domestic violence does not get reported to the criminal justice
system, and an effective response to much that does cannot be
provided by criminal justice solutions.
1 October 2007
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