Focus
North Lanarkshire has emphasised the importance of training during the roll out of the Safe & Together model, particularly the need for a multi-agency approach to this. More than 120 staff have undertaken the Core training course, including social work staff, police officers, health visitors, family nursing, and educational psychology. A further 500+ staff have undertaken the 1-day Overview Training from agencies such as police, health, housing, Women’s Aid, and adult health and social care. Domestic abuse informed briefings, using the Critical Components of Safe & Together, as well as Safe & Together briefings have also been delivered to groups, including Children’s Panel members.
Other sessions that are being offered across North Lanarkshire include Safe & Together Case Consultations and other coaching opportunities, which aim to assist social workers who are working with complex domestic abuse cases. Furthermore, a Safe & Together Leadership Event has been held to raise awareness of domestic abuse-informed practice. Safe & Together roadshows have been held across North Lanarkshire since Autumn 2023 with the aim to share information on the model.
In addition to training and awareness raising, a steering group has been established which includes a group of multi-agency professionals meeting every six weeks.
Outcomes
Supervisor/manager training was delivered to education and families managers, and senior social workers within children and families social work, which is promoting learning from the model into practice. A Safe & Together trained educational psychologist is part of the kinship panel, which is also promoting the model to be put into practice in this area. Inclusion of Safe & Together is also becoming evident within local child protection procedures as well as assessment and planning guidance. Discussions are currently ongoing to include domestic abuse-informed practice guidance within the social work information system.
Post-training evaluations have highlighted that practitioners are changing their practice to reflect the knowledge they have gained from the Safe & Together training. Areas that were highlighted as being strengthened include practitioners being more skilled in partnering with the adult survivor and identifying their strengths and protective efforts, and practitioners being more effective in assessing perpetrators patterns of coercive control. Similar comments have also been conveyed in Children’s Panel member feedback and feedback from champions meetings. The impact on practice has been clear:
“One thing I have taken away from this training is the need to confront and to hold to account the perpetrator for their controlling behaviour rather than focus on the survivor’s need to protect the child.” - Children’s Panel Member
“This Champions Meeting session has impacted my practice as it brought me back to really think about the language used in documentation and reframing things to hold the perpetrator accountable and not blame the victim.” - Social Worker, Safe & Together Champion
“I found this training really informative and enjoyed reflecting on my practice whilst learning new and informative skills. It will definitely be something I implement in my practice – hopefully adding confidence whilst working with perpetrators of domestic abuse.” - Social Worker on Core Training
“We can’t just focus on the victim. If we ignore the actions of the perpetrator and only focused on the victim by asking her to end the relationship, we are just moving the problem on to someone else. We’re not reducing risk, only increasing number of victims/survivors.” - Police Officer on Overview Training
Mentor Session
More recently, the first mentor session took place for those who had completed the 4-day Core training. This session involved the Safe & Together Co-ordinator, an NHS Lanarkshire Safe & Together Trainer and a Safe & Together Champion meeting with the staff who were trained on 4-day core training to facilitate discussion around their experience of implementing Safe & Together into practice. Staff that attended the session felt it was beneficial and requested that further sessions are scheduled. Staff made the following reflections in relation to implementing Safe & Together in their practice:
- Safe & Together does not have to be an additional task as staff felt that the approach could be integrated into already existing practice.
- Training has prompted staff to make additional efforts and take extra steps in practice to trace and engage with the perpetrators of domestic abuse who are reluctant to engage with social work, as they recognise that in order to reduce risk to children, perpetrators must be held accountable for their parenting choices.
- Staff reflected that using a strengths based approach with parents who are perpetrators of domestic abuse will look different than when using this approach with victims/survivors.
- Implementing Safe & Together into practice requires more than a 4-day training course. Staff identified areas of learning that require ongoing support to implement into practice when working with complex domestic abuse cases, such as intersectionalities. Attendees felt that opportunities for further learning, such as mentor sessions and practitioner forums, would be helpful to keep learning fresh and the reflect on practice.
- An area that was identified as being a key change in practice was the use of language. Attendees felt that it can be easy to revert to using language from prior to their training and therefore emphasised the usefulness of continuous learning and opportunity for peer discussion to reflect on the use of language.
Housing
In August 2022, the committee approved the Housing Domestic Abuse Policy, which was developed in partnership with the Violence Against Women Strategic Group. The principal aim of this policy is to ensure a proactive housing response to prevent and eradicate all forms of domestic abuse.
Over the past 18 months, Safe & Together training has been rolled out to housing staff. This includes staff across the various housing teams, including property, housing advisors, housing coordinators, managers and development/strategic officers. Most recently housing managers have participated in the Safe & Together supervisors training to help further embed the approach within the housing service, helping equip housing managers with the tools and skills to support staff working with families experiencing domestic abuse.
Additionally, a dedicated Housing Domestic Abuse Forum for Social Landlords in North Lanarkshire has been established. This forum brings all social landlords in North Lanarkshire together to share practice, knowledge and skills in supporting survivors of domestic abuse, with the aim of achieving a more consistent, effective response to domestic abuse from the housing sector in North Lanarkshire. To help achieve this, Safe & Together training has been rolled out to Registered Social Landlord officers who are working with landlords to help them develop their own housing domestic abuse policies as well as developing a digital domestic abuse guide which provides access to a suite of domestic abuse resources for staff to improve understanding and knowledge. The forum has been pivotal in helping develop relationships between the landlords and domestic abuse support organisations.
Next steps for housing include:
- Further roll out of Safe &Together to train all housing staff eventually (including RSLs)
- Further roll out of S&T supervisors training for managers
- Review of the NLC Housing Domestic Abuse Policy to further align with S&T principles – policy out for review currently
- Review of NLC housing domestic abuse procedures to align with S&T principles
- Various other domestic abuse housing domestic abuse actions (audit, trauma informed work, etc.)
Future plans for further general implementation include:
- Delivering Safe & Together Supervisor Manager Training across the local authority in autumn 2023.
- Delivering Safe & Together 4-day e-learning Core training to 20 police officers between September 2023 and July 2024.
- Undertaking a case file audit in September 2023 to measure learning in practice.
Enablers
The funding received from Delivering Equally Safe has allowed for North Lanarkshire to make progress in embedding the Safe & Together model. Additional resource made available to support coordination and implementation has further encouraged embedding the model into changes in practice. Joined up working across local partners has also had a positive impact, particularly collaboration between the Violence Against Women Partnership and the Child Protection Committee.
Barriers
The Safe & Together coordinator for North Lanarkshire has been a successful and positive role in supporting this work, however the volume of work to implement this model would require a team of staff dedicated to this work, including administration support and certified trainers. Long term sustainable funding would be required to continue progress and potentially build this team. Additionally, the Safe & Together copyright of supporting documentation and associated fees can be a barrier.