Violence against women and girls (VAWG)
Exploring the Intersections Between VAWG and Substance Use
We have published the learning from our research and engagement project exploring the prevalence of, and relationship between, Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and substance use. The learning from this project is intended to support national and local stakeholders in Scotland working to improve outcomes for women and girls experiencing VAWG and/or substance use.
- Read the Learning Report
- Read the Executive Summary
New Elected Member Briefings
We have recently published 2 new elected member briefings:
Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Through International Obligations: This briefing is intended to assist elected members with effectively leading strategic decision-making and shaping local policy while meeting international obligations and legislative accountabilities in tackling violence against women and girls.
Strengthening the Role of Elected Members in Preventing and Eradicating Violence Against Women and Girls in Rural Areas: In partnership with COSLA, we developed this briefing to help inform and equip elected members to tackle the unique challenges and obstacles that victims and survivors in rural and island communities face and ensure that local systems and services are robustly equipped to offer support. It also highlights a number of good practice examples from across Scotland.
VAWG Needs Assessment
Over the last year, we have been supporting work to develop and test a Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Needs Assessment Tool for Scotland. Following the development of the draft tool, 10 local Violence Against Women Partnerships across Scotland participated in a test phase between September 2025 and March 2026. The Protecting People team is developing learning from the test phase to refine the VAWG Needs Assessment Tool alongside a wider package of supporting resources, including practical templates, case studies and guidance to support future use.
16 Days Spotlight Webinars: All Together to Prevent and End Violence Against Women and Girls
We coordinated a series of spotlight webinars during 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence 2025, focusing on key topics identified by the National Violence Against Women Network as crucial to supporting the delivery of the Equally Safe Strategy. Each spotlight webinar provided a forum for participants to explore challenges and opportunities to improve outcomes for those affected by violence against women and girls (VAWG).
- A playlist of the presentations is available.
- A learning report is also available.
Embedding a Trauma-informed approach
Evaluation Toolkit
We have recently published a new appendix to the NTTP Roadmap for Creating Trauma-Informed and Responsive Change. The Evaluation toolkit has been developed in collaboration with NTTP partners to support organisations and services to develop their own evaluation framework and identifying progress and impact of work to embed a trauma-informed approach across organisations, services and workforces.
Evaluation supports organisations to understand their progress, identify areas for improvement, and demonstrate the impact of the work to embed trauma-informed and responsive change. Find out more about how this toolkit can support your organisation or service and access the toolkit directly.
National Trauma Implementation Guidance
We are working with local and national partners to develop a short guidance document that will function as a) an induction resource for Trauma Champions/ Lead Officers; and b) support them and key stakeholders to promote their work to embed a trauma-informed and responsive approach as a priority and integrate it into broader organisational and community planning priorities.
To support this work we recently hosted a series of engagement sessions for local and national stakeholders to feed in their views on what supports successful local implementation and the key components of the guidance. We anticipate there will be further engagement with stakeholders after the summer and opportunities for stakeholders to feedback on the draft guidance before publication.
National Trauma Survey and Learning Report
For the third year, we are coordinating a national survey capturing work happening across local areas, including local authorities and key community planning partners, to embed a trauma-informed and responsive approach. The findings will inform an annual National Learning Report, providing an overview of progress and impact of the work to embed a trauma-informed and responsive approach across Scotland’s organisations, systems and workforces. This years’ survey is now live and we encourage all local authorities and their partners to submit a response.
This years’ survey has been significantly shortened in response to feedback from partners, and the focus is more strongly on progress towards outcomes, rather than activity. It is hoped these changes will support local submissions and to identify overall progress nationally and identify areas where further support may be required.
We aim to publish this years’ learning report in September.