The Drive Partnership’s Post

We're proud to support Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA)'s important new report, #LockedIn, which exposes how perpetrators are using joint mortgages to devastate the lives of 750,000 UK women; making it harder for survivors to flee and plunging them into homelessness and debt. Read more below. 👇

On #WorldSuicidePreventionDay 2024, we're highlighting our research paper on suicide rates in high-risk, high-harm perpetrators of domestic abuse in England and Wales. This research, undertaken in collaboration with Dr Duleeka Knipe and her team from the University of Bristol, found that the suicide rate in this high-risk, high-harm domestic abuse perpetrator group is significantly higher than in many other high-risk groups. Improving mental health and outcomes is imperative to reduce the suicide deaths in this group and, therefore, also reduce the impact such deaths would have on victim-survivors of abuse. You can read more here: https://lnkd.in/eugWyHj5

We’d like to extend a big thank you to Jess Asato for chairing the inaugural meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse on Wednesday, as well as thanks to all those who attended, including Minister for Safeguarding Jess Phillips. Strengthening responses to perpetrators is essential towards tackling the root cause of domestic abuse and achieving the Government aim of halving violence against women and girls within a decade. We look forward to mobilising further on this issue in future meetings. In the meantime, more about our key recommendations and asks regarding perpetrator responses can be found in our #CallforFurtherAction here: https://lnkd.in/eWuY2aNz.

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has called for mandatory levels of coercive-control training for all social workers, following a BBC News report that more than a third of accredited university social work courses in England are not teaching specific training on coercive control: https://lnkd.in/e8qw8T9n.   It is essential that professionals across a range of systems, including social care workers, are equipped with the knowledge, skills and confidence to respond to domestic abuse, including identifying and engaging those who cause harm in effective perpetrator responses. This is why we are calling for a cross-government, whole-system response to perpetrators that centres adult and child victim-survivors, including a specific recommendation for the Department for Education to produce a strategy setting out its plans to improve the children’s social care response to perpetrators, alongside a workforce development plan to equip children’s social care professionals with the skills, knowledge and confidence to do so.    Read more about our Call for Further Action to Strengthen the Response to Perpetrators here: https://lnkd.in/eWuY2aNz.

Great to see Make a Change's recently published impact report for 2023/24, which shows the project's positive impact and growth. Read the impact report here: https://lnkd.in/e8bVEj7i

The Drive Partnership and Respect UK have launched a new training course, Culturally Competent Work with Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse. This training was created through working with professionals with lived experiences across the sector. The first sessions will take place from 24 to 25 September 2024. This course will encourage participants to actively reflect on culture and cultural competency and will increase understanding on how to engage with perpetrators from any background or culture. Learners will interrogate cultural biases and barriers that feed into practice, and they will learn and practice how to navigate and respond to cultural and religious justifications for abuse. Participants will learn how to understand, work with and across different cultures. They will also consider the diverse ways in which culture influences practice. EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) is a key part of the Respect Standard, and this training covers how to meet this standard. Sign up now at https://lnkd.in/eJQwMPBf