East Lothian & Midlothian have been focused on rolling out Safe & Together training to targeted groups and key workforces across their local workforce, with a commitment to train all frontline children’s services and Justice social workers practitioners and supervisors. Additionally, engagement with a wide range of stakeholders has taken place to raise awareness of the benefits of taking a domestic abuse-informed approach. This has encouraged buy-in and resulted in attendance at network and learning events which allows for connections to be made with other local area leads, groups and stakeholders.
Practitioners have been provided support to embed learning into practice, specifically through the provision of practitioner forums. Furthermore, implementation support has been developed to embed the model into systems and strategies. This has fostered the establishment of strategic implementation groups that support a whole system, joined-up approach.
The Safe & Together Champions Group has been established, and this group co-delivers domestic abuse briefing across Midlothian. Monthly domestic abuse consultations are also being held by a team leader in both Children’s Services and Justice Services.
There has been a focus on perpetrator behaviour change, which has resulted in the development of the ‘Chance to Change’ perpetrator programme. This is a non-court mandated programme that aims to support perpetrators to effect change and improve outcomes for the family. A ‘Developing Dads’ group work programme has also been launched, which supports fathers in being good role models for their children and ensures they take responsibility as a father.
Outcomes
Practitioners have displayed an increased understanding of the impact of domestic abuse on children and families in their practice. This includes an increased likelihood of recognising the intersections between domestic abuse and other support needs, such as substance use and mental health. This has been made evident in feedback from the practitioner forums, as well as through discussions in other environments such as internal panels and permanence consultation groups.
A single agency audit has highlighted a number of changes in practice that have become evident since beginning to embed Safe & Together in East Lothian and Midlothian. There has been a clear change in the language being used, and one strength of practitioners is that they are partnering with the non-offending parent. This is evident as practitioners are identifying the non-offending parent’s strengths, supporting them to recognise abusive behaviours and understanding the impact of this on themselves and their family. As a result, assessments and planning are being considered through a domestic abuse lens.
Multi-agency working is also well embedded in domestic abuse cases, and this is clearly benefitting children and their families by providing more holistic support. This can be seen through strong evidence of achieving positive outcomes for the child, non-offending parent and family functioning.
Enablers
The long-term funding that has been used to support this work has allowed for a more sustainable approach to embedding the Safe & Together model across East Lothian and Midlothian. Furthermore, joined-up working across local partners and local/national strategies and agendas has been beneficial in progressing this work.
Barriers
It was noted that not having a dedicated person to coordinate the training for the partnership has created issues, as it has resulted in becoming part of multiple people’s work and therefore not a joined-up approach. Additionally, East Lothian and Midlothian currently do not have a trainer that allows for face-to-face training, resulting in all training having to occur online. This is seen as a barrier as it is felt that in-person training would be more beneficial to social workers.
Consistent partnership buy-in has also posed challenges at times, which can stagnate progress in certain areas.