Seeking to Work Together to Drive Change: A Collaborative Approach to Co-Creating Domestic Abuse Policy and Practice Recommendations

This paper summarizes outcomes from a collaborative project involving victim-survivors of domestic abuse (DA) and DA support services, practitioners and policy makers—including police and criminal justice professionals, and academic researchers. Through discussion-based activities undertaken both at a conference of 96 stakeholder representatives and in a series of follow-up workshops, we sought to identify barriers that may prevent DA victim-survivors from accessing services and support. A number of general barriers were identified, as well as specific barriers experienced by those from certain communities or victim groups, such as those from minoritized racial groups and those from socially or economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Areas of good practice were also noted, such as the use of person-centered approaches to improve service quality and user experience. A series of co-created recommendations is presented, and the paper concludes by discussing how findings from these activities might be used to inform policy and practice developments, awareness-raising campaigns and developmental opportunities, including CPD and training for professionals and practitioners.