IRISi wins PraxisAuril Knowledge Exchange ‘Deal of the Year’ award

IRISi, a Bristol-based social enterprise co-founded by the University of Bristol’s Professor Gene Feder and IRISi CEO, Medina Johnson, has won the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)-sponsored PraxisAuril Knowledge Exchange (KE) ‘Deal of the Year’ award. IRISi was established to promote and improve the healthcare response to gender-based violence through sustainable evidence-based interventions. The award was announced at a digital ceremony today/yesterday [24 June].

IRISi’s flagship intervention, IRIS (Identification & Referral to Improve Safety), is a specialist domestic violence and abuse training, support and referral programme for general practice teams that has been positively evaluated in a randomised controlled trial. The programme recently received a £1M grant from London’s Violence Reduction Unit. This funding is enabling local implementation of IRIS programmes across seven new boroughs, with the potential to support more than two million Londoners.

IRISi is beginning to influence local and national policy and form strong cross-sector collaborations to improve outcomes for domestic violence and abuse survivors. It now employs 12 staff, has accelerated the reach of IRIS programmes, and is exploring new evidence-based interventions. In a further collaboration with the University of Bristol, it is working to adapt IRIS for other healthcare providers, including pharmacists, dentists and sexual health clinics.

The COVID-19 lockdown has led to an increase in domestic violence and abuse. IRISi is directly involved in the sector-wide response and has produced webinars and guidance to allow continued service provision and expansion during the crisis.

The award organisers said: “The University of Bristol excelled in the specific criteria needed for this award and was chosen as the clear winner from the judging panel.”

Professor Feder, a GP and the domestic violence and health research lead at the University of Bristol’s Centre for Academic Primary Care, said: “This award highlights the power of collaboration between researchers and the domestic violence sector. We have successfully burst out of the academic ivory tower with the establishment of IRISi, translating research evidence into policy and practice nationally and internationally. Partnership between researchers, service providers and survivors of domestic violence is at the heart of our research programme. IRISi is an outstanding outcome of that partnership.”

Medina Johnson, CEO of IRISi, said: ”We are delighted that IRISi has been acknowledged in this way. So many people share this award and have been part of supporting us to get this far, especially our board, wonderful staff team, partner domestic abuse agencies and clinical partners. We are enthused to improve and innovate further to ensure we develop best practice health care responses that reflect the voices and needs of all those affected by gender based violence.”

Andrew Wilson, Senior Research Commercialisation Manager at the University of Bristol, was instrumental in the creation of the company, helping colleagues access internal and external funding, and guiding them through the initially unfamiliar world of business and financial planning, IP and legal agreements. He said: “The impact of the company has been transformational for the delivery of the IRIS intervention, the staff involved, the clinical practice of general practice teams and for the thousands of survivors of domestic violence and abuse survivors who have been referred to specialist support services as a result. The establishment of IRISi has saved and improved many lives.”

The KE Awards recognise and celebrate the best Knowledge Exchange achievements across the PraxisAuril community, both nationally and internationally. 2020 award entries were welcomed from both members and non-members across six categories: KE Volunteer, KE Partnerships, Internal KE Initiative, External KE Initiative, KE Deal and KE Team.

For more information about IRISi, see 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.