Bristol & South Gloucestershire IRIS Partnership win the VOSCUR Partnership Award at the 2020 Voscurs

We are thrilled to announce that last night (Thursday 30^th January) IRISi had the honour of attending the VOSCUR’s and accepting the Partnership Award for the Bristol & South Gloucestershire IRIS Partnership.

The partnership is made up of a consortium of three organisations, those being IRISi, Next Link, (a regional provider of DVA support and host of IRIS services in Bristol and South Gloucestershire and the the Centre for Academic Primary Care at the University of Bristol (CAPC). Each partner works and continues to work, both individually and together, to develop and enhance health-based responses to domestic violence and abuse.

“We are delighted to be awarded the VOSCUR partnership award” said Lucy Downes, project lead on Social Franchising for IRISi, who accepted the award on behalf of the partnership. “By working together, Bristol CAPC, Next Link Domestic Abuse Services and IRISi have ensured that the IRIS Programme has developed from promising research into a real life intervention that improves clinical practice and changes the lives of thousands of victims and survivors of domestic abuse. We are now preparing to scale up the spread of the IRIS programme so that more clinicians and patients can benefit from this innovative and effective intervention.”

The IRIS programme began as a two-site research trial in 2007. It aimed to determine whether a training programme in general practice coupled with a simple referral route to a specialist in a DVA organisation improved clinical practice and identification of patients affected by DVA and so improved support for patients. Bristol was one of the research sites which is how the University of Bristol and Next Link came to be involved.

The research and IRIS programme were focused on partnership work from the outset. Staff in both organisations co-created and developed the IRIS programme, working together on the research for three years including at a strategic and programme planning, operational and delivery level. Bristol was the first area to commission the IRIS programme at the end of 2010. The national IRIS project developed from this work and was based at Next Link until 2017 when IRISi was established as a standalone organisation.

To date, general practice teams in 49 surgeries in Bristol have been trained and are now IRIS DVA Aware Practices. The programme began in South Gloucestershire in 2013 and general practice teams in 28 surgeries have been trained. All patients in these practices have access to the IRIS service and support. In Bristol, 1,124 women have been directly supported through the local IRIS programme and in South Gloucestershire, 562 women have been directly supported.

“There has been a historical gap between health and the specialist third sector working together in the field of DVA, and a lack of joined up work between academia and frontline services meaning that research hasn’t been put into practice or made a difference in “the real world” said Medina Johnson, CEO of IRISi. “Our partnership work has bridged the gap and joined the dots. We have sometimes struggled and felt like we were speaking different languages, but knew that our end goals were the same and so found a common language. This learning informs the national work of IRISi.”

“The co-creation model of IRIS in general practice is being replicated in ongoing partnership work as we know that there are benefits to specialists in different fields coming together to work on a shared goal” Medina continued. “Dissemination of our work has been possible through many and varied channels given that each partner has distinct and complimentary networks.”

For more information on the IRIS programme visit our website www.irisi.org

Partners

AVA

AVA is an expert, groundbreaking and independent charity working across the UK.

Their vision is a world without gender based violence and abuse. They aim to inspire innovation and collaboration and encourage and enable direct service providers to help end gender based violence and abuse particularly against women and girls.AVA’s work is focused around those areas where they can make the best contribution to ending violence and abuse. They do this by making sure that survivors get the help and support they need in the here and now, through providing innovative training that has a proven direct impact on the professional practice of people supporting survivors of violence and abuse

developing a range of toolkits, e-learning and other material that supports professionals to provide effective and appropriate support to survivors of violence and abuse

using our influence and networks to ensure survivors voices are heard. We work closely with AVA in many areas including the Pathfinder project

https://avaproject.org.uk

SafeLives

SafeLives are a national charity dedicated to ending domestic abuse, for good. We combine insight from services, survivors and statistics to support people to become safe, well and rebuild their lives. Since 2005, SafeLives has worked with organisations across the country to transform the response to domestic abuse, with over 60,000 victims at highest risk of murder or serious harm now receiving co-ordinated support annually. SafeLives are members of the Pathfinder consortium.

http://www.safelives.org.uk/about-us

IMKAAN

Imkaan is a UK-based, Black feminist organisation. We are the only national second-tier women’s organisation dedicated to addressing violence against Black and minoritised women and girls i.e. women and girls which are defined in policy terms as Black and ‘Minority Ethnic’ (BME). The organisation holds nearly two decades of experience of working around issues such as domestic violence, forced marriage and ‘honour-based’ violence.

They work at local, national and international level, and in partnership with a range of organisations, to improve policy and practice responses to Black and minoritised women and girls. Imkaan works with it’s members to represent the expertise and perspectives of frontline, specialist and dedicated Black and minoritised women’s organisations that work to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls. Imkaan delivers a unique package of support which includes: quality assurance; accredited training and peer education; sustainability support to frontline Black and minoritised organisations; and facilitation of space for community engagement and development. They are a part of the Pathfinder Consortium.

https://www.imkaan.org.uk

The University of Bristol CAPC

The Centre for Academic Primary Care (CAPC) is a leading centre for primary care research in the UK, one of nine forming the NIHR School for Primary Care Research. It is part of Bristol Medical School, an internationally recognised centre of excellence for population health research and teaching.

A dedicated team of researchers at the Centre work on domestic abuse projects and IRISi is a co-collaborator and partner on some of these projects including ReProvide, HERA and DRiDVA.

The Health Foundation

The Health Foundation is an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK. The Health Foundation’s Exploring Social Franchising programme aims to generate a deeper understanding of the potential of social franchising models for scaling effective health and social care interventions within the NHS.

We are one of four project teams participating in the programme to develop a social franchise to enable the sustainable spread of our intervention, the IRIS Programme. We receive funding and support from the Health Foundation, including technical expertise on social franchising, and attend programme learning events. The Health Foundation has also commissioned a programme-wide evaluation to support understanding of the use of social franchising in the UK health and care system. We and our franchisees will support the evaluation through co-designing data collection requirements, providing access to data as requested, hosting site visits and attending learning events.

https://www.health.org.uk

STADV

Standing Together Against Domestic Violence is a UK charity bringing communities together to end domestic abuse. They bring local services together to keep people safe

Most public services weren’t designed with domestic abuse in mind, and they often struggle to keep people safe. Poor communication and gaps between services put survivors at risk.

STADV aim to end domestic abuse by changing the way that local services respond to it. They do this through an approach that they pioneered, called the Coordinated Community Response. The Coordinated Community Response brings services together to ensure local systems truly keep survivors safe, hold abusers to account, and prevent domestic abuse.

Their model of a coordinated local partnership to tackle and ultimately prevent domestic violence is now widely accepted as best practice. They are also a part of the Pathfinder consortium.

http://www.standingtogether.org.uk

Spring Impact

Spring Impact is a not-for-profit social enterprise born out of the frustration of seeing social organisations constantly reinventing the wheel and wasting scarce resources. Spring Impact uses a combination of tested commercial and social principles and extensive practical expertise to support organisations to identify, design and implement the right social replication model to scale their social impact.