Identifying Domestic Abuse with Health Visitors (iDAHV): IRISi launches a pilot programme with health visitors in Sutton to identify and respond to domestic abuse

New initiative adapts the IRIS model to health visiting in partnership with Sutton Women’s Centre

IRISi, in partnership with Sutton Women’s Centre, has launched a new pilot programme designed to strengthen the response to domestic abuse through health visiting teams. The Identifying Domestic Abuse with Health Visitors (iDAHV) pilot builds on the success of the IRIS model in general practice and adapts it to the specific realities of health visitors’ work.

The programme is being rolled out across Sutton, with training already underway for health visitors who will be supported by an IRISi Advocate Educator based at Sutton Women’s Centre.

For Kathy Pelc, Health Visitor Team Leader and Specialist Practice Teacher at Sutton Health and Care, the pilot is an important opportunity to harness the unique role of health visitors in families’ lives. She described her excitement at leading the clinical side of the project, noting that the training so far has been “excellent” and that she is “looking forward to equipping our staff with this valuable knowledge and raising awareness around domestic abuse.”

Kathy Pelc believes the ‘recognise, ask and risk check, respond, refer and record’ framework will prove vital in supporting staff decisions and “lead to increased disclosures and referrals.” She added: “Health visitors are uniquely positioned to undertake this important work, given their routine home visits, holistic family assessments, ability to build relationships, and role in destigmatising domestic abuse. The collaboration with trained GPs will undoubtedly strengthen the service further.”

On the delivery side, Sutton Women’s Centre is seeing strong engagement from health visitors. Bev Daines, IRISi Health Visitor Advocate Educator, has been encouraged by the uptake so far. She described the training as “really good, full of content and so helpful”, and highlighted the positive response from participants: “We have not faced any challenges currently; the health visitors are looking forward to receiving the training and we are hearing positive comments about this which is great.”

For IRISi, the launch of iDAHV represents a significant new chapter in expanding healthcare’s role in responding to domestic abuse. Medina Johnson, CEO at IRISi, highlighted the importance of the pilot:

“This programme is a vital step forward. Health visitors have unique access to families at home and can play a pivotal role in creating safe opportunities for disclosure. By adapting our evidence-based model to this new area of healthcare, we are once again leading the way in strengthening the response to domestic abuse. We are proud to be working with Sutton Women’s Centre and the health visiting teams to pioneer this approach.”

The timing of this pilot comes as the sector awaits the government’s long-promised violence against women and girls strategy. While hopes remain high that such frontline, evidence-based interventions will be recognised and supported, the uncertainty of political commitments continues to cast a shadow.

For now, Sutton’s iDAHV pilot offers a powerful example of how healthcare and specialist domestic abuse services can come together to create meaningful change.

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.

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.