Standard 6: Interventions should be delivered by staff who are skilled and supported in responding to domestic abuse
Table 6. Standard 6
Interventions should be delivered by staff who are skilled and supported in responding to domestic abuse.
6.1 Staff should receive induction training to enhance their knowledge on domestic abuse, how protected characteristics can intersect, local safeguarding and multi-agency processes and the intervention they are working within. This also applies to integrated support workers. Continued professional development should update on new knowledge and practice, including the impact on victim-survivors, including children.
6.2 Interventions should be delivered and managed by a team which seeks to reflect the communities they serve.
6.3 Staff delivering interventions should have access to regular internal line management supervision and funded, high quality, external clinical supervision. Staff who are supporting but not delivering interventions could be offered the same support.
6.4 Workloads should not exceed the number that can be carried out safely, and delivered equitably, for specific interventions. This applies to both integrated victim support and perpetrator work.
6.5 People perpetrating domestic abuse should not be delivering perpetrator interventions. Any previous use of domestic abuse should be disclosed. An enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check should be completed (though with evidence of substantive personal change work previous offending is not necessarily a bar to delivering perpetrator interventions).
Research has highlighted the importance in having and a knowledgeable, confident, and supported team of staff (Stover and Lent, 2014; Morrison et al., 2019a). This also came across very strongly in the practitioner roundtables:
Standards do not make the work safe - it is those delivering them. (Roundtable 8)
Trained staff – and enough of them. (Roundtable 2)
The work needs strong and deep DA knowledge, safeguarding, foundational training, links to victim-survivor work. This influences what people do in the room and outside the room. It is not just the groupwork but all the follow up. (Roundtable 2).
Both the literature and many roundtables stressed the importance of training which addresses the up-to-date evidence base on domestic abuse in general, perpetration and victimisation. There also has to be a motivation to undertake this work in a way that offers respect to each person whilst holding perpetrators responsible for the harms they have caused (Morrison et al, 2019a).
Evaluations from the US suggested that DAPPs can be less effective with some minoritised men, pointing to a need for greater staff diversity and knowledge. Williams and Becker (1994) note that ‘little or no special effort is being made to understand or accommodate the needs of minority populations’ (pg. 287). Others have pointed to the different experiences of culture, community, and family that perpetrators may have (Pence and Paymar, 1993; Zellerer, 2003) and experiences of being harmed through racism, ablism, heterosexism. A number of commentators argue that the ability to be responsive is likely to increase effectiveness (Buttell & Pike, 2003; Cavanaugh & Gelles, 2005; Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994). The roundtables revealed that practice is developing in England and Wales, but language specific provision in group work, alongside LGB and/or T and neurodiverse groups remain the exception. Group work in some areas of England and Wales, particularly London, is increasingly diverse, and many practitioners pointed to the insight that such diversity can prompt. This is a “both/and” issue – some perpetrators are happy to attend a diverse group. For others, and the roundtables suggested this was particularly the case for black African/Caribbean/British men, community specific provision was considered vital.
For practice to be responsive training this must cover multiple disadvantages and how they affect access; and the ways domestic abuse is understood and experienced (Babcock, Green, & Robie, 2004; Stover, Meadows, & Kaufman, 2009, Stover & Lent, 2014). There are also specific competences required in relation to assessment, group and one to one work (Stover & Lent, 2014, Whitfield, Anda, Dube and Felitti, 2013) including being trauma informed (Kirby et al., 2012; Murphy & Ting, 2010; Taft, Watkins, Stafford, Street, & Monson, 2011) and understanding the overlaps with complex needs including mental health (Spencer et al. 2017; Trevillion et al. 2012; see Oram et al. 2014; Shorey et al. 2012; Stuart et al. 2006 for how this applies to women who use force) and substance misuse (Butters, 2021, Stover & Lent, 2014, Wilson et al. 2014). Humphreys et al. (2000) summarise this as it is training which embeds policy in practice.
The literature on effective practice in perpetrator work, reflecting a wider move, increasingly focuses on reflective learning for staff (Davys & Beddoe, 2020). Here staff supervision “aims to get workers to think critically about their perceptions and actions” (Gibbs, 2001, p. 7) where “the supervisor’s role becomes one of ensuring the space and context for learning” (Davys and Beddoe, 2020, p. 101).
Time to prepare and debrief, supervision and training support, counselling and clinical supervision, open dialogue with managers. (Roundtable 2)
This supervision space should be one to explore complexities and challenges (Stover & Lent, 2014, Day, Chung, O’Leary & Carson, 2009) as well as preventing ‘drift’ away from the model of work (Hollin, 1995). This includes the ways gender norms may play out in staff teams and there is a suggestion that female co-facilitators should have a “women only space” to discuss and debrief with each other (Evans & Robertson, 2021, p. 5; Vlais et al., 2017, p. 102), alongside the availability of external clinical supervision for all team members (Evans & Robertson, 2021).
However, there was also a recognition that we are not where we need to be in terms of a well-trained, experienced workforce for England and Wales and a hope that these standards would take this into consideration.
We have an under-developed provider market and an under-developed workforce. We need to be mindful that providers might not be able to recruit people with all the training already in place and maybe some learning on the job might be necessary. (Roundtable 2)
Standards should not set services up to fail – give due regard to the limited existed workforce. (Roundtable 2)
Standard 7: Monitoring and evaluation of interventions should take place to improve practice and expand the knowledge base.
Table 7. Standard 7
Monitoring and evaluation of interventions should take place to improve practice and expand the knowledge base.
7.1 Clear and consistent records should be in place to enable safe and effective delivery of the intervention and identification and prompt responses to increases to risk/safeguarding concerns.
7.2 Data should be collected on interventions, in line with their model of work and aligned to their referral and funding requirements, including on outcomes relevant to their intervention and who is (and importantly who is not) currently accessing their intervention.
7.3 The experiences of a) victim-survivors (including children) associated with perpetrator service users and b) perpetrator service users should be gathered and used as a source of learning. There should be a transparent process and timeline for gathering and reflecting on this information within teams (proportionate to the size of the organisation).
7.4 Existing interventions could be externally evaluated. Interventions should always be independently evaluated when new approaches are being piloted.
Case management systems are required to monitor each case and measure overall effectiveness, including for minority groups (Gray et al., 2020, p. 22; Morrison et al., 2019a, p. 2684). Having a clear model of work, with intended outcomes should then be reflected in how change is evidenced from both perpetrators and victim-survivors. In a review of standards in Australia ‘victim/survivor freedom and safety was a key outcome addressed in all MBCP [Men’s Behaviour Change Programme] evaluations’ (Nicholas et al., 2020, p. 95) In the UK, this has been found to be important for victim-survivors, for practitioners delivering perpetrator interventions and for funders and commissioners (Westmarland et al. 2010). The importance of victim-survivor freedom also came through from multiple directions in this current project, hence its emphasis in the first of the standards. It therefore follows that there should be systems in place to explore the extent to which this change has taken place as a result of the intervention.
Consult with survivors in the design of services. (Roundtable 2)
We need more consensus on how we measure change. (Roundtable 5)
There is a strong thread in some of the literature about monitoring of practice as a route to ensuring minimum standards are met through attention to quality and accountability (Morrison et al., 2019a; Westmarland and Zilkova, 2022). Accreditation provides a route for ensuring that standards are being met, and that quality is maintained over time.
When standards are low and compliance is relatively easy, irresponsible programs may actually gain stature from the approval process. (Tolman, 2001, pg. 225).
At the same time, organisations should be using their own monitoring data as a source for reflection and learning: who is and is not taking up the intervention; engagement and completion rates; which topics are sources of insight and challenge; the interface between perpetrator work and victim-survivor support.
While monitoring data should be collected for all interventions, some may also benefit from external, independent evaluation. Independent evaluation offers the possibility of taking a fresh view of interventions and models, having external perspectives on how far the model of work is being implemented, if it is being done equitably, and where there are gaps and areas for improvement. However, it is recognised that not all interventions will be ready for or have the capacity to engage in an external evaluation. Given the number of gaps and areas for improvements, there does need to be space for innovative approaches. Independent evaluation should always be in place for new innovative approaches, with a dual emphasis on whether this can be said not just to be effective but also safe practice. Having an evaluation plan and providing results of evaluation has been highlighted as important within the Principles for Effective Intervention (Bonta and Andrews, 2017). Key to this is developing a broad understanding of what counts as ‘success’, such as the six measures of success developed as part of Project Mirabal or the EU funded Project IMPACT which produced the Impact Outcome toolkit.
Summary
This has been a substantial project delivered in a very short timeframe. The seven standards and corresponding policy and practice guidelines have been developed in consultation with practitioners, policy makers, academics, victim-survivors and perpetrators. It is intended that they will underpin the development of safe and effective domestic abuse perpetrator interventions across England and Wales.
The work did reveal some serious gaps in the evidence base, especially in terms of how current responses can be extended to cover all forms of domestic abuse and to diversity within perpetrators. In addition, scaling up provision faces the challenge of recruitment, this is a specialist area that needs capacity building through both a workforce development plan and agreed training standards. Meeting this challenge would also offer an opportunity to expand the pool of staff who belong to currently underserved communities.
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Appendix 1 Technical Annex
Part A. Background and context
This annex details the approach taken for a short timescale project, commissioned by the Home Office, to develop a set of standards for domestic abuse perpetrator interventions in England and Wales. The requirements were that: the standards were evidence based; they cover a broad range of interventions (beyond behaviour change programmes); and that they include forms of family abuse as well as intimate partner violence and abuse as covered by the definition in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (legislation.gov.uk)). That said the focus has been primarily on intimate partner violence abuse and adult child to parent violence and abuse as these are the areas where there are few (if any) interventions currently. There is some early exploration through practice-based knowledge of forms of family abuse where there are multiple perpetrators, for example, ‘honour’ based violence and abuse.
The standards should be understood in the context of, or in conjunction with, other relevant government guidance including the Domestic Abuse Statutory Guidance, Controlling or Coercive Behaviour Statutory Guidance (when published), the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, the Supporting Male Victims Position Statement and the Violence Against Women and Girls National Statement of Expectations.
There are a number of dimensions to consider when developing standards which address what is currently considered as ‘best’, ‘safe’ and ‘effective’ practice. Internationally, the (English language) knowledge base is heavily skewed towards research and practice from the US (and to a much lesser extent Australia, Canada, the UK and New Zealand), and towards behaviour change groupwork interventions for intimate partner violence and abuse - with most study samples made up of white, heterosexual, male perpetrators.
On the one hand, the ‘what works’ field is full of contentions. In terms of behaviour change programmes, the most accurate statement one could make would probably be that they do create change, but that that change is limited for some and there is significant room for improvement. However, an increasing number of UK based studies have shown that perpetrator interventions can and do have positive impacts (Dobash et al., 1997; Kelly and Westmarland, 2015; Bloomfield and Dixon, 2015; Hester et al., 2019). We need to move away from the global ‘do they work’ question to a more sophisticated understanding of how and why different interventions work with which groups of perpetrators in order to move the field forward. Many of the ‘do they work’ style studies have significant limitations that are not easily overcome in working with these populations (for example high levels of research sample attrition and low rates of participation by victim-survivors)[footnote 3]. In the UK, the research evidence base has also been affected by the relatively small number of interventions and perpetrators accessing them which has limited sample sizes.
There is increasingly strong evidence in the field of offender behaviour change more broadly, through models and frameworks such as the Principles of Effective Intervention (Bonta and Andrews, 2016), the Good Life Model (Ward, 2002), and other strengths-based approaches (Lehmann and Simmons, 2009). How these are used in practice has tended to be guided by the needs and profiles of different groups of perpetrators (e.g., nature of criminal justice involvement, motivation to change).
An additional limitation for the evidence base in which the standards are based is that the international literature tends to be limited to intimate partner violence and abuse and there is widespread recognition of limitation even within this, for example in relation to same sex relationships, female perpetrators, people with disabilities, and minority groups. The wider reach into forms of family abuse that the standards required has not yet been addressed in any depth in academic research. It is for this reason that a key part of the approach was to organise a series of roundtables to draw on practice-based knowledge to start to address some of the gaps.
It is because of this limited evidence base, which is even more sparse when we consider England and Wales, that it is argued it would be premature to place too stringent a set of standards upon perpetrator interventions. There must be room for innovation and development, so these are seen as a starting point to be built on and adapted as the evidence and practice bases expand.
There are some key elements that have framed the thinking in developing these standards, from both practice and academic evidence. Firstly, these standards should not conflict or be in tension with those already being widely used in England and Wales (see Box 2 below). Secondly, that they should take lessons from the academic research on standards from other jurisdictions. Thirdly that they should move beyond intimate partner violence and abuse and include interventions other than behaviour change group work. Lastly, that it should be considered what might enable the wider reach into groups that are currently not well served by current provision.
The standards do not cover management of the organisations. That said, it is not always straightforward to separate these, the quality of interventions and their sustainability depend on the organisations that deliver them ensuring that practitioners have the skills and knowledge required and that they are supported to the work to the standards. There was widespread consensus across statutory and non-statutory sectors that interventions could not be separated from the organisations and the infrastructure that underpins them.
A review of existing research on standards for domestic abuse perpetrator interventions
In this section summaries of the standards are presented alongside the evidence base on them that the literature review revealed. Box 2 summarises the three sets of standards currently in use in England and Wales:
Correctional Services Advice and Accreditation Panel (CSAAP) comprising of academics and expert practitioners who provide independent advice on accreditation to Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) across a range of offender types;
Respect Principles and Standards which are specific to domestic abuse;
Welsh Government Perpetrator Service Standards which are intended to apply to a range of forms of Violence against women and Girls (VAWG) including sexual violence.
It is not surprising, therefore, that it not straightforward to easily map across the three.
Box 2. Three standards of most relevance to this project
CSAAP (Correctional services Advice and Accreditation Panel) (UK)
1.Evidence-based and/or have a credible rationale
2.Address factors relevant to reoffending and desistance
3. Targeted at appropriate participants
4. Develop new skills (as opposed to only raising awareness)
5. Motivate, engage, and retain participants
6.Delivered as intended by staff with appropriate skills and quality assured, via:
(6a) a quality assurance plan, and
(6b) by providing quality assurance findings
7.Evaluated, via:
(7a) an evaluation plan, and
(7b) by providing results of evaluation every 5 years
Respect Principles and Standards (4th ed) (UK)
Principles
1. Safety first: Do no harm
2. Sex and gender informed approaches
3. Sustainable change
4. Inclusive services, responsive to diverse needs
5. Highly skilled and supported workforce
6. Ongoing monitoring and evaluation
7. Commitment to coordinated multi-agency working
Sections
A. Management of the organisation
B. Structured intervention programme delivery
C. Intensive case management intervention delivery
D. Integrated support service
E. Equality, diversity and inlcusion
Welsh Gov Perpetrator Service Standards (VAWDASV)
1. Referrals
2. Eligibility criteria
3. Consent
4. Assessment
5. Links to partner work
6. Intervention
7. Re-Assessment
8. De-selection
9. Drop out
10. Progress assessment
11. Service evaluation
12. Staff selection
13. Staff training and continuous professional development (CPD)
14. Clinical supervision
15. Professional support
16. Health and Safety
17. Equality and diversity
18. Complaints
19. Environment and Culture
20. Record keeping
21. Information sharing
22. Links to children’s services
23. New services and innovation
Two further approaches to standards that have attempted to do something different within the field were identified. The first approach comes from the Centre for Innovative Justice in Australia who have developed ‘12 foundations’ - core principles rather than prescriptive standards (Vlais, Campbell and Green, 2019). Box 3 shows two of these foundations to give a flavour of this approach.
Box 3. Centre for Innovative Justice - Foundations of practice
1. The needs and experiences of family members affected by a perpetrator’s use of violence need to be central to all the ways that a perpetrator intervention system responds to that violence. A system’s responses need to be undertaken on behalf of and in solidarity with family members, guided by their goals and struggles both to resist the violence and to express their dignity.
2. Government and non-government agencies have a collective responsibility to bring perpetrators into view in a way that acknowledges adult and child victim-survivors’ dignity and contributes to their safety and wellbeing. Each agency can map its roles and responsibilities for doing so as part of an ongoing, collaborative mapping exercise, so that these are transparent and serve to synergize positive outcomes across agencies.
A second approach that has emerged outside of the general ‘standards’ approach is Vermont, in New England, US. The Vermont Council on Domestic Violence recently moved from a very long (over 100) list of standards to condense their approach to a values-based system, Box 4 lists the six values.
Box 4. Vermont’s Values for Community and System Accountability
1. Survivor voices and experiences
2. Personal, community, and system accountability and support
3. Equity
4. Flexibility
5. Dignity and respect
6. Transformation and hope
It is worth noting that extensive research has been done on the development of standards in the US, including tracking the development of them over time. The Standards have benefited from conversations with some of those researchers in the US and Australia during this project.
Many of the early papers on perpetrator intervention standards focused on ‘making the case’ for why they were needed, best practice suggestions for developing them (involving both community workers and academics) and outlining current debates. All were based on groupwork perpetrator ‘programmes’ based in US and most sought to make the case that whilst there were benefits to having state standards, care should be taken not to make these too rigid because the knowledge base on what works to reduce perpetrator’s use of abuse was still in its infancy. There was concern that the introduction of standards might limit innovation and development. Simultaneously there was a call for standards to be evidenced rather than only having a philosophical base, whilst recognising that much of the evidence remained to be built.
Two early content analyses of US Standards were conducted by Austin and Dankwort (1999) and Bennett and Vincent (2001). Both studies found that regardless of the particular set of standards, there were some elements that were common across the US. They also found some disagreements, for example Bennett and Vincent (2001) point to states barring
the use of particular interventions such as ‘conjoint therapy’ (what is sometimes known as ‘couple’s counselling’ in the UK) as more varied (and arguably more controversial) than some of the other elements.
In 2008 Maiuro and Eberle provided an updated content analysis of US standards, which is summarised in Box 5.
Box 5. Maiuro and Eberle (2008) content analysis of US standards
1. The minimum length of treatment specified
2. Specification of treatment orientation, methods, and content
3. Preferred or allowable modalities of treatment
4. Whether research findings were mentioned or endorsed as a basis for development of treatment standards
5. Methods for developing and revising standards
6. Minimum education required for providers
More recently, Richards et al. (2021) sought to update the Mauiro et al. (2008) analysis, finding that many (72% of the standards in their sample) had included the requirement to use risk assessments at intake. They also investigated to what extent US standards had integrated the PEIs – specifically risk, need, responsivity, treatment and validity. They found that while standards had continued to evolved, that PEIs had not been fully integrated into US state standards.
Finally, Flasch et al. (2021) also ran an updated content analysis on US standards. They found that minimum length of ‘treatment’ (here meaning ‘batterer intervention programme’) varied substantially, with an average number of required weeks being 27.6 and the corresponding average number of hours of ‘treatment’ being 44.2. There remained a high preference for group treatment, required by 95.5% of standards, although supplementary individual work was allowed. A broad range of prohibited primary theoretical approaches was found, with ‘victim coercion, blame, victim responsibility, or victim participation’, ‘circular causality or family systems approaches to violence’ and ‘focus on anger management’ all being prohibited in at least 50% of US state standards. A wide range of training requirements were found. Flasch et al. suggest that further research could look at the impact that state standards have on outcomes.
Overall, the literature shows a consensus that research on the effectiveness of perpetrator interventions remains vastly underdeveloped globally in terms of what is most useful and for whom.
Part B. Research methods
Alongside the academic evidence assessment, it was important practice-based knowledge informed the development of the standards. Ethical approval was granted by Durham University Department of Sociology Research Ethics Committee covering all strands of the study. The methods are described below.