Domestic Abuse is a key priority with many strategic partners across Cleveland.
This includes the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC), Cleveland Police and the four local authorities.
Each Local Authority currently has a plan in place relating to Domestic Abuse and responds in a unique way.
It is recognised that responses to domestic abuse should be grounded in evidence. They should also be in line with the needs of the local population.
As such, SafeLives would facilitate the development of key themes. They could create a standardised level of quality across the area, whilst maintaining flexibility for strategic decision making at a local level.
Their approach would be to work within existing local arrangements, highlighting and bringing together promising practice to enable greater regional learning, and thus impact.
The aim is to support a coordinated and joined-up approach across Cleveland. However, there will be a continued focus on the need for a local response to domestic abuse with individual delivery and responses at Local Authority level.
This project will support those individual responses to work toward a consistency of response, intervention and action. We will not create additional structures and layers of governance, but rather work to join up existing ones.
SafeLives will offer the options below in assessing the current local landscape, consulting with survivors, assisting in the improved assessment of outcomes and delivering workshops based on the findings from our work, the current UK landscape and the upcoming Domestic Abuse Bill.
Outcomes
The outputs of our proposed methodology would include the following as a minimum;
- A report that outlines victim and family experiences across Cleveland, including clear journey maps and genograms where available. This report would conclude with a recommended action plan for practice and pathway improvements.
- A quality standard tool to be used by commissioners across Cleveland to measure efficacy of strategy and provision. This would enable local commissioners the opportunity to create a ‘Cleveland standard’ whilst continuing to commission based on local need and resource, whilst enabling regional commissioners improved opportunities to work strategically with each Local Authority area
- A review report outlining current whole family, domestic abuse governance arrangements across Cleveland, and recommendations on improved data, information sharing and learning opportunities
- A financial analysis and capacity report, outlining the current spend regionally on domestic abuse provision and recommendations on capacity needs for future commissioning
This project has been supported by various Strategic Forums, highlighting the joined-up partnership commitment towards this key area of work. Contributions from the partnerships have also been provided to support this work and are outlined below.
South Tees Safeguarding Board – £8,000
Stockton and Hartlepool Safeguarding Board – £8,000
Tees Safeguarding Adults Board – £8,000
Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner – £10,500
Total – £34,500
Decision 2021-00270503 – SafeLives Domestic Abuse Support (application, 201kB)