Positive news for the health response, but some short-term challenges for IRISi

With the current government focus on how health professionals can refer those experiencing domestic or sexual abuse to support, we have seen many references to IRISi and IRIS programmes on social media, and we wanted to take the opportunity to explain a bit more about the breadth of our work and our brilliant charity – that needs your support as much as ever, at a crucial time for us.

We work with women, men and children

At IRISi, we know that domestic abuse is most frequently perpetrated towards women by male perpetrators, but we have always had referral pathways for all patients where IRIS is delivered, based on our research and evidence, and we respond to all victims and survivors. A third of our sites directly support all survivors – women, men and children. We know that perpetrators are patients as well, and we have pathways here too, to specialist perpetrator services.

We work with sexual violence as well as domestic abuse

At IRISi, we developed IRIS programmes to respond to sexual violence as well as domestic abuse in response to requests, and many of our sites around the country run both domestic and sexual abuse programmes. We started this work in Devon and now many sites respond to both.

We have a big community of healthcare professionals who are engaged with this work

We are actively working with a high number of people within healthcare – last year 814 training sessions took place and 3,695 healthcare professionals undertook initial training with us. National delivery and development of IRIS programmes continued in 33 areas. 2,122 healthcare professionals completed refresher training and engaged with IRISi programmes, either through referrals, connections or training. We have established an accreditation process to demonstrate where best quality exists, and we are so proud of the sites we work with on this. There is some truly incredible work already happening all around the country in healthcare to support survivors.

Now is a positive time – but it also comes with some short-term challenges for IRISi

There has been as assumption by some of our supporters that the prioritisation of domestic abuse as a public health emergency means that IRISi is better resourced. However, a number of programmes in the past year were decommissioned due to a lack of sustainable funding. At the moment, we are waiting – alongside other organisations – to see if we will have a role in the national oversight of the government’s Steps to Safety programme. We really hope that we will, and we are really pleased that the health response to domestic abuse is being prioritised, to help end the postcode lottery of responses. However, it is important for us to share that while we are waiting for the procurement process to open, we have had no commissions secured for new IRIS programmes in the reporting year due to the financial precarity of most integrated care boards and practically everyone is waiting ahead of national funding for the general practice response to domestic abuse. Overall, this is a really positive time for the area we have specialised in over the past two decades, but in the short-term, we are practically waiting on decisions and need your support as much as ever as a charity.

We know what works, we are ready and happy to work collaboratively. We would like to thank everyone in our healthcare community for your support and commitment to supporting survivors, and we will keep you up-to-date as we receive news.

Domestic Abuse IRIS stepstosafety VAWG

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.