National Report: up to March 2022, IRIS received more than 30,000 referrals!

IRISi is happy to share its latest National Report, presenting all the data and info collected from sites running the IRIS Programme in England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Northern Ireland up to March 2022. We would like to highlight that, as a result of our collaborative work, we reached the 30,000 referrals milestone – which means that more than 30,000 service users were identified during consultations with IRIS trained GPs and then directly referred to an Advocate Educator, who is a Domestic Abuse specialist embedded in the clinical setting to offer support.

Operating since 2017, IRISi works to develop and deliver evidence-based and ground-breaking interventions, aiming to ensure holistic support to victims and survivors of Domestic Abuse (DA) and Domestic & Sexual Violence and Abuse (D&SVA), issues that disproportionately affect women and girls. We want to embed awareness within healthcare settings, offering a clear pathway to healthcare professionals so they can better identify and refer their patients to specialist services.

Our flagship intervention, IRIS (Identification and Referral to Improve Safety) is a programme of training and support to improve the response to DA in general practice, which has been proven cost-effective and sustainable over time. In 2021, IRISi launched its second intervention, ADViSE, to support sexual health clinicians identify and respond to patients affected by D&SVA. Therefore, from 2023, the IRISi National Report will include data analyses for both IRIS and ADViSE programmes.

This latest National Report also celebrates a coming of age for IRISi, and brings 10 topics about our past, our present and our future, as summarised by Annie Howell, Development Director & Deputy CEO, “IRISi is planning to expand its scope and increase our partnership working in the healthcare and Gender-Based Violence sectors. We want to implement and develop models adapted for each healthcare setting so we can support all healthcare professionals to feel able to identify and respond to D&SVA”.

IRISi was a collaborator on the DRiDVA programme (Dentistry Responding in Domestic Violence and Abuse), using an adapted version of IRIS within dental surgeries. We are also exploring other areas of health including health visiting, lectures for medical students, reproductive health, fracture clinics, pharmacists, and paramedic services. If you would like to discuss any of these areas or have ideas for more, please contact us at info@irisi.org.

Here are some of the main findings presented in our latest National Report.

In total, 57 sites have commissioned IRIS since November 2010.
Between April 2021 and March 2022, the IRIS Programme was running in 39 areas across the UK and received 5,813 referrals.
During the same period, all but one area of Wales had commissioned the IRIS Programme and 4 new sites came on board.
There were 770 training sessions in the year 2021-22 and a total of 1,031 contacts between AEs and general practices (including attending safeguarding meetings or providing advice on individual patients).
Demographics of IRIS Service Users: the average age of service users referred to IRIS was 40.6 years old. 97.0% of those referred were heterosexual. 63.2% classified themselves as White/White British, 20% Asian/Asian British, 8.1% Black/Black British, 3.4% Mixed and 5% other. 40.5% of service users referred had children and 2.5% were pregnant. 13.9% were disabled, 6.9 % reported alcohol use and 3.8% drug use.
The most frequent type of abuse affecting service users was emotional abuse (87.6%), followed by psychological abuse (71.3%) and physical abuse (52.9%). Almost 90% of IRIS service users reported being affected by multiple forms of abuse.
Service users share information about the perpetrator(s) with their Advocate Educator. In line with previous years, most perpetrators were current or former partners/spouses (88.6%).
77.9% of service users were supported remotely, 13.3% face to face and 305 (7.8%) received both in-person and virtual support.
93% of those supported through IRIS report visiting their GP/PN less.

To read the National Report in full, please click here!

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.