Roadmap Report and Executive Summary

Abstract

Women’s Aid Federation England (WAFE) and SafeLives (SL) collaborated over five years (2016-21) to develop and implement the Roadmap Programme which aimed to transform the lives of women and girls through systemic change to policy, practice and commissioning by promoting early intervention and reducing the prevalence, impact and tolerance of domestic violence and abuse (DVA). Funded by the Big Lottery’s Women and Girls Initiative, WAFE and SL collaborated with DVA survivors and expert partners in specialist frontline services to develop and implement two contrasting interventions in five different sites in England. Both organisations were committed to making DVA services more accessible and responsive to survivors’ needs and both aimed to achieve wider system change in the sites where the programmes were delivered.
However, the two organisations chose different but complementary routes by which to reach these broad goals:WAFE’s Change That Lasts (CtL) Programme1 aimed at developing a ‘whole community response’ that would increase responsiveness to DVA services at three levels: i) the community ii) frontline professionals in organisations that were not specialist DVA organisations and iii) services delivered by DVA specialist organisations. The programme comprised three interventions targeted on these three different audiences and delivered in three sites – Sunderland, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (Nottingham/shire) and Surrey. Ask Me aimed to address cultural and attitudinal barriers to change through training and supporting Community Ambassadors who volunteered toincrease awareness and responsiveness to DVA in their local communities. Trusted Professionalcombined training with organisational development to improve expertise and responsiveness among frontline professionals. The VOICES intervention was designed to re-connect specialist DVA services
to a strengths-based, needs-led, trauma-informed approach centred on the survivor for practitioners in specialist DVA organisations.
The SafeLives Programme, designed by SafeLives, alongside Pioneers (survivors and experts by experience) and specialist frontline DVA partners, comprised an integrated suite of multiple interventions that would allow survivors and their families to access five different interventions within the same organisation. Two independent services, in Norwich and West Sussex (Worthing, Adur, and Crawley), were commissioned to deliver the interventions, hereafter referred to as the SafeLives Co-Designed Pilots (SLCDPs). These interventions were tailored to the needs of different groups so that survivors and their families could move between and through them on their journey to recovery. The intervention aimed to break down silos between services and deliver a ‘whole family’ service informed by DVA survivors’ views. The SLCDPs were targeted at those assessed as at medium risk of harm; people who wanted to remain in their relationships; those with complex needs; survivors recovering from abuse and children and young people. A wide range of individual and group interventions was utilised and training and skills development were provided to partner agencies.