Pioneering a healthcare response to domestic abuse and sexual violence: IRISi and VRU’s transformative partnership in London

On 20th November, Homerton Hospital in Hackney hosted a significant event highlighting the transformative impact of embedding support for domestic abuse and sexual violence survivors within healthcare settings. Key figures, including Lib Peck, Director of London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), joined representatives from IRISi, nia, and Advance Charity to showcase the life-changing results of the ADViSE programme.

“Domestic abuse isn’t inevitable, it’s preventable,” said Lib Peck. “By embedding support within healthcare settings like Homerton, we’re helping survivors find safety and support before abuse escalates.”

Expanding a proven model of care

Since 2010, IRISi has led a transformative movement to address domestic abuse and sexual violence through healthcare. With support from the VRU, the IRIS programme now operates in 21 of London’s boroughs, while ADViSE has expanded to major sexual health clinics such as Homerton Hospital and St. Mary’s in Westminster. These interventions, developed in partnership with local specialist services, have created vital pathways for survivors to access support early.

This commitment has delivered remarkable results:

Across England and Wales, IRIS-trained practitioners now support an estimated 1.5 million women who have experienced domestic abuse.
From April 2023 to March 2024, 7,234 referrals were made through IRIS and ADViSE programmes nationally, ensuring survivors received tailored, life-changing support (find out more on our Impact Report).
In London alone, since IRIS launched in 2010, over 24,500 women have been identified as potential survivors, with at least 744 referred to specialist services in the past year.

Medina Johnson, CEO of IRISi, reflected on the programme’s success: “ADViSE and IRIS are a safety net for patients, offered in a patient-centred way.”

Transforming healthcare into a space for prevention

The partnership between IRISi and the VRU exemplifies a public health approach to violence prevention. General practices and sexual health clinics have become safe spaces where clinicians, equipped with specialist training, identify abuse and connect survivors with the support they need.

The VRU’s phased commissioning has played a pivotal role in this progress:

The 7B Programme launched IRIS in boroughs such as Tower Hamlets, Croydon, Barking and Dagenham, Brent, Ealing, Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham.
The 4B Programme extended coverage to Newham, Redbridge, Richmond and Kingston, and introduced ADViSE in Hackney and Westminster.
Most recently, the 6B Programme expanded IRIS to six additional boroughs – Havering, Harrow, Sutton, Wandsworth, Merton and Hillingdon – ensuring more survivors can access timely, specialist support.

A shared commitment to prevention

This collaboration between IRISi and the VRU is underpinned by a shared belief that violence can be prevented through early intervention and coordinated care. As Lib Peck noted, “By working together, we can prevent violence against women and girls.”

IRISi’s work continues to set a standard for systemic change, demonstrating that healthcare can be a powerful ally in preventing domestic abuse and sexual violence.

With the steadfast support of clinicians, advocates, and partners, IRISi remains committed to making healthcare a place of safety, advocacy, and hope. Together, we can break the cycle of violence and ensure survivors receive the care they deserve.

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.