Working with Health and Local Government Partners to tackle VAWG
NHSE London, Integrated Care Boards and Directors of Public Health, together with local authority community safety and safeguarding leads have signed up to a number of pledges to tackle misogyny, sexual harassment and violence against women and girls through their services and in health environments to help prevent Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) across the capital.
The six core pledges are:
- Recognise all forms of violence against women and girls in everything we do - Develop strategies and policies to identify how each respective organisation tackles all VAWG in all areas of business.
- Embed action to end perpetration of VAWG - Address offender behaviour, supporting them to change, while ensuring the safety of the victim is at the heart of any action.
- Work together to actively tackle VAWG - Create a culture across all partners where all staff are confident to identify and respond to VAWG whether it’s dealing with a staff issue or supporting a patient.
- Strengthen workplace safety - Acknowledge and address the role of power dynamics within work environments and providing protection and support for staff who are experiencing or have experienced VAWG.
- Promote a collaborative learning environment - Understand the gaps in knowledge within our services and listening to experiences of colleagues to provide effective staff training focused on providing bespoke support to the needs of individual.
- Ensure an anti-misogynistic environment - Develop a shared understanding of what misogyny is, identifying structural barriers and working to address them, and through training with a focus on allyship to ensure there is no space for misogyny in the workplace.
The pledges are the first of their kind in England and Wales and part of the Mayor’s strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. The strategy recognises that more robust policing or the threat of the criminal justice system alone cannot prevent violence against women and girls. A more innovative approach is needed - one that seeks to understand the underlying drivers of harassment, abuse or violence against women and girls and brings public sector agencies together with communities to address them.
Partners have formally agreed to work towards a set of six overarching pledges with some stakeholders further submitting a set of bespoke pledges that can realise the overall ambition in their own respective organisations.
Find out more about these pledges below.
Pledge 1 - We will recognise all forms of VAWG in everything we do
To agree to this pledge, your organisation will…
- Recognise all behaviours that can be described as violence against women and girls as in scope and will not limit to domestic abuse and sexual violence alone
- Consider the spectrum of violence against women and girls in all practices and implement action through all areas of business, including organisational leadership.
- Maximise local and regional opportunities to tackle violence against women and girls by:
- drawing on best practice;
- engaging in established structures and partnerships.
- Learn about the local prevalence and impact of violence against women and girls.
Key underpinning principle(s):
The pledges are intended to create, maintain and support a consistent approach across London.
- Definitions and breadth of VAWG - Violence against women and girls (VAWG) covers a range of unacceptable and deeply distressing crimes, including rape and other sexual offences, stalking, domestic abuse, ‘honour’-based abuse (including female genital mutilation, forced marriage and ‘honour’ killings), ‘revenge porn’ and ‘upskirting’, child sex abuse and exploitation, as well as many others. These crimes disproportionately affect women and girls. However, men and boys can also be victims of violence and abuse.
- Sexual Health London, have anonymous data on disclosures made about VAWG incidents that they would be happy to share to help inform local decision making and understanding strategic prevalence.
- North West London have a Women’s Staff Network
- London Ambulance Service (LAS) has written a number of articles and provided education in relation to harmful cultural practices and the most recent annual report contains a patient story of Domestic Abuse and coercive control.
- Queen Mary University Facial Injury Research Group has undertaken research using the scientific literature to better understand the needs of women and girls experiencing violence in relation to healthcare services.
- MOPAC will continue to lobby the government to ensure that the forthcoming Victims’ Law provides victims and survivors with legally enforceable rights, introduce a ‘firewall’ between policing and immigration enforcement,
- MOPAC will advocate for multi-year settlements for provision across all forms of VAWG that is adequate in meeting all of London’s needs.
- Recognition that there is a wider context of VAWG in which domestic abuse and/or sexual violence can occur
- Recognising as an organisation that tackling VAWG is core business and not solely a bespoke area of work
- To systematically consider all the strands of VAWG when delivering against legislative duties, for example the serious violence Duty which focuses on domestic abuse and sexual violence
- Strategies, policies or operating models to identify how the organisation can, does or intends to tackle all VAWG in all areas of business and/or the explicit understanding that the form of VAWG they may be addressing sits in the context of a wider landscape of VAWG
- Systematic consideration of how the organisation can tackle all VAWG in all areas of business including at inception and review stages of new programmes, commissioning intentions, policies, practices etc.
- Empowering VAWG champions/advocates at every level of the organisation
- Being aware of what local structures and strategies already exist and ensuring that you harmonise with these effectively
- Service mapping and being aware of referral pathways locally
- Cross borough working both strategically and operationally which may/can include informal networks, formal networks, service level agreements or partnership agreements.
Pledge 2 - We will embed action to end perpetration of VAWG
To agree to this pledge, your organisation will…
- Ensure that there is equitable focus on
- the prevention of perpetration
- safely addressing perpetrator behaviour
- holding perpetrators accountable for their behaviour and support them to change
- Ensure that the safety of the victim-survivor is held at the centre of any action
- Consider how information pathways and action will identify and manage risk of harm
- Identify and address aspects of your organisational culture that may enable perpetration
Key underpinning principle(s):
At the centre of action is a person-centred approach which reflects the diversity of experience in London. This acknowledges the potential disadvantages that are experienced and any intersections between these. Action should be both trauma informed and trauma responsive.
- Evaluation of the DRIVE project - A Three-year Pilot to Address High-risk, High-harm Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse
- Respect website - Provide help for domestic violence perpetrators.
- DVIP (Domestic Violence Intervention Project)
- North East London Integrated Care Board have a number of staff policies that are support action against this pledge.
- North Central London ICB Persons in Positions of Trust (PiPoT) policy
- White Ribbon Accreditation
- South East London ICB have protected Learning Times for Primary Care and Safeguarding GP Forums and Safeguarding Health Forums to promote VAWG.
- The Violence Reduction Unit commission an Inclusive Nurturing Schools programme providing support around healthy relationships in education settings
- MOPAC continues to champion the Mayor’s calls for a national perpetrator Strategy across the breadth of VAWG.
- Consider survivor/victim safety before committing to action at all times
- Explicit awareness and communication about how perpetrators may present in your service(s), as a patient, service user, supporter, visitor, colleague, commissioner, carer, or position of authority
- Conversations with staff about how to respond when someone is suspected as a perpetrator
- Staff and operational policy on engagement with perpetrators
- Disciplinary and safe grievance procedures in place to be able to report abusers (perhaps amending existing policies such as bullying and harassment or the whistle-blowing policies to reflect this)
- Taking steps to understand what provisions are in place to address and support a positive change in perpetrator behaviour
- Consider whether your organisation is in a position to respond to the personal factors that can contribute to wider perpetrator behaviour
- Consider using the principles of existing programmes to tackle perpetrator behaviour (e.g. Drive programme) in inform future commissioning decisions and activity
- Understanding the overall health and welfare needs of an individual and how this may contribute to further perpetrator behaviour, coupled with an appropriate response that encompasses both the duty of care for that person and supports/challenges the unacceptable behaviour
- To commission, procuring and/or evaluate perpetrator programmes
- Consider adopting zero tolerance approach to perpetrator behaviour
- Consider adopting a zero tolerance approach to addressing perpetrator behaviour that recognises the wider societal factors and internal hierarchies that can create power imbalances leading to VAWG
- To be conscious of internal processes and record keeping for how a suspected perpetrator is identified as a ‘cautionary contact’ or ‘flag for concern’ and also consideration as to how these notes may present should they seek to access their records.
- Consider how ‘cautionary contact’ or ‘flag for concern’ may appear as patient record screens may be visible to patients and any other persons accompanying them.
- Implement lessons learned from Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs), serious case reviews (SCRs) and missed opportunities
- Consider how staff will need to be supported if a trusted member of the team/organisation is charged as a perpetrator
- Understanding the cycle of victim-offender/perpetrator and seeking to break this cycle
Pledge 3 - We agree to work together as London to tackle VAWG
To agree to this pledge, your organisation will…
- Facilitate and encourage partnership working, which can include an effective information flow between services and organisations
- Engage with existing and established local, sub-regional and regional partnership structures.
- Understand and respect the different perspectives, roles and responsibilities within the partnership approach
- Focus on building on the strengths of each organisation, specifically not expecting all staff to become VAWG specialists, but to be confident to identify and respond safely.
- Facilitate a culture shift of professional curiosity to support partnership working and seek to establish clear, agreed referral pathways.
- Seek to provide a consistent and effective London-wide offer of intervention and/or support for victim-survivors, perpetrators, and children affected by VAWG
Key underpinning principle(s):
- The pledges create, maintain and support a consistent approach across London.
- The pledges recognise and value the different roles each organisation contributes to collectively tackle VAWG
-The pledges facilitate a network that continually shares best practice, learns from each other and maximises collective assets to tackle VAWG
- The Voluntary, Community Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector is an equal partner with statutory services
- Standing together - Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse is a national charity bringing communities together to end domestic abuse.
- Sexual Health London, have anonymous data on disclosures made about VAWG incidents that they would be happy to share to help inform local decision making and understanding strategic prevalence.
- Local Multi-agency panels such as Regional Multiagency Sexual Exploitation (MASE) Strategic Group and Community Safety Partnerships.
- North West London ICB’s borough’s Primary Care Clinical Lead has developed, in collaboration with the Designated Team, an enhanced Primary Care Standard for Domestic Abuse
- South West London ICB have a process in place to submit a safeguarding commissioning assurance toolkit to NHSE on a quarterly basis.
- MOPAC have published the London Datastore which is available for partners to use to inform their activity and includes:
- MPS Monthly Crime Dashboard Data - London Datastore Crime data updated monthly by borough and ward.
- TNO Total Notifiable Offence (TNO) data follows the Home Office counting rules for recorded crime and includes reported sexual offences (total, rape and other sexual) by borough and ward. Measures include Offences, Sanction Detections, and the Sanction Detection Rate (total number of sanction detections divided by the total number of offences in a given period).
- Other Crime Data set - follows the Home Office counting rules but have been grouped by specific features (Domestic Abuse Total, Domestic Abuse Incidents, Domestic Abuse Violence with Injury). Measures include Offences, Sanction Detections, and the Sanction Detection Rate (total number of sanction detections divided by the total number of offences in a given period).
- Recorded Crime: Geographic Breakdown - London Datastore crimes at three different geographic levels of London (borough, ward, LSOA) per month.
-
SafeStats - The MPS have also moved to sharing a wider range of data on SafeStats for which access is provided to personnel from public safety authorities, agencies and services across London. There are 6 new MPS datasets that are being added to SafeStats (which includes victim and offender data). The purpose of this is to provide data for local authorities and partnership agencies and services to conduct strategic assessments (for example, to inform the Serious Violence Duty).
- Sharing of best practice at every opportunity
- Inviting guest speakers to staff meetings/away days to encourage, establish and/or strengthen greater collaboration
- Tackling VAWG as standard agenda considerations at multi-agency forums across areas of business as embedded practice. This may be a specific agenda item or a standard question – does this workstream/topic/policy affect women differently?
- Joint reflective and playback sessions with staff across different teams (informal peer network)
- Sharing of ad-hoc anonymised data to facilitate snap-shot analysis of prevalence and support
- Regular sharing of anonymised data to support strategic analysis
- Sharing of commissioning intentions and approach so that services and funders can align resources to address service gaps
- Adopting a partnership approach to commissioning arrangements at all levels, including alignment between funders and across-commissioners, and considering alliance commissioning approaches
- Being aware of and engaging with existing local structures for partnership work
- Implement lessons learned from Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs), serious case reviews (SCRs) and missed opportunities
- Building strong enough partnerships to be able to safely challenge partners should practice fall short of collective expectations
- Committing to being active members of risk management panels such as MARACs, MASEs, MAPPA, JIGSAW etc
Pledge 4 - We agree to strengthen workplace safety to end all forms of VAWG
To agree to this pledge, your organisation will…
- Protect and support staff who are experiencing or have experienced VAWG through organisational policies
- Have a clear approach to respond through organisational policies when staff are identified as perpetrators
- Encourage a culture of allyship in the workplace
- Seek to minimise the impact of, and respond to, vicarious trauma
- Acknowledge and address the role of power dynamics and hierarchy in perpetration and victimisation
Key underpinning principle(s):
At the centre of action is a person-centred approach which reflects the diversity of experience in London. This acknowledges the potential disadvantages that are experienced and any intersections between these. Action should be both trauma informed and trauma responsive .
- The Mayor’s Good Work Standard - The Good Work Standard is a free accreditation programme that provides employers with a set of best employment practices alongside information and resources to help achieve them.
- The Mayor’s Good Work Standard Employer Guidance
- The Women’s Night Safety Charter
- The Employers' Initiative on Domestic Abuse (EIDA)
- North East London ICB have a number of policies to support staff
- NHS Long Term Workforce Plan and Women’s Network
- North West London ICB Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, with an emphasis on equality of opportunity and security in the workplace
- South East London ICB has the Women, Parents and Carers staff network which focuses on equality, diversity, and inclusion
- MOPAC are a key partner of the newly created, dedicated team in the MPS focused on the investigation of allegations of sexual misconduct and domestic abuse by police officers or police staff. MOPAC will provide oversight of this work to ensure officers and staff are dealt with appropriately and as necessary, dismissed from the service. We will not lose focus that and ensure that the victims have the support they need alongside this action.
- Creating a workplace environment where the conversation about VAWG is welcome
- Commit to encouraging conversations in one-to-ones and team meetings, raising awareness about tackling VAWG
- Committing to discussions and consultation with staff across all levels about how a policy could be developed
- Committing to developing workplace policy (can use existing resources)
- Implement a staff policy addressing VAWG
- Committing to survivor focused safety measures to be implemented if an employee discloses VAWG, including consideration of how to facilitate the employee to access routes to support and/or justice
- Supporting management and the wider organisation with trauma-informed training in how to implement these policies and have the sensitive and potentially difficult conversations with staff
- Having a support structure in place within Employee Assistance offers for persons experiencing, witnessing, perpetrating or affected by VAWG
- Safely and appropriately work with staff members who are identified as perpetrators (prioritising the safety of the victim)
Pledge 5 - We agree to promote a collaborative learning environment to address all forms of VAWG
To agree to this pledge, your organisation will…
- Proactively enable staff to feel equipped and confident to identify and respond to VAWG in their respective roles
- Take responsibility for identifying organisational and individual training needs in relation to tackling VAWG
- Ensure that training is trauma-informed, delivered by specialists with a full understanding of intersectionality.
- Work with partners to provide effective training and consider bespoke options based on identified needs and ensuring that adequate time is allocated
- Enable staff time to be prioritised to attend and engage with training.
Key underpinning principle(s):
The pledges facilitate a network that continually shares best practice, learns from each other and maximises collective assets to tackle VAWG
The Voluntary, Community Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector is an equal partner with statutory services
- Standing together - Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse is a national charity bringing communities together to end domestic abuse.
- London Community Foundation – “Communities identify their own responses to the challenges they face. Our task is to support them in doing that. We channel funds to local community organisations making a real difference in their community. We are there to offer support and help them get stronger, to be more resilient and more secure, so people can depend on them, feel connected and feel hope. We connect funding partners to vital work in communities they could not otherwise reach, helping them meet their own community commitments to London. We champion local community organisations, advocate for their vital role in bringing London together, and promote the power of local philanthropy to build connections between communities, and businesses and funders.”
- The Mayor’s Teachers Toolkit – “Tender has worked in partnership with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), teachers, youth workers and partner organisations, to develop the activities and resources within this toolkit to effectively engage young people on the issues of gender-based abuse, including relationship abuse and sexual violence.”
- Asian Women’s Resource Centre deliver training on forced marriage
- North West London ICB have bespoke Domestic Abuse Training has been commissioned for Designated Professionals and Named GPs to facilitate training for Primary Care in those boroughs without IRIS or similar training offer
- South East London ICB are collaborating with organisations and experts to enhance their understanding and have created a ‘Let it Out’ and ‘Big Conversation’ initiatives.
- In the absence of a mandatory DA training module, South West London ICB have IDVAs forming part of the safeguarding teams and provide DA training.
- MOPAC are considering the learning from existing reviews such as Operation Soteria Bluestone and recommendations from the thematic VAWG HMICFRS Inspections to identify training needs and organisational change required to improve the response in tackling violence against women and girls.
- Creating a workplace environment where the conversation about VAWG is welcome
- Commit to encouraging conversations in one-to-ones and team meetings, raising awareness about tackling VAWG
- Committing to discussions and consultation with staff across all levels about how a policy could be developed
- Committing to developing workplace policy (can use existing resources)
- Implement a staff policy addressing VAWG
- Committing to survivor focused safety measures to be implemented if an employee discloses VAWG, including consideration of how to facilitate the employee to access routes to support and/or justice
- Supporting management and the wider organisation with trauma-informed training in how to implement these policies and have the sensitive and potentially difficult conversations with staff
- Having a support structure in place within Employee Assistance offers for persons experiencing, witnessing, perpetrating or affected by VAWG
- Safely and appropriately work with staff members who are identified as perpetrators (prioritising the safety of the victim)
Pledge 6 - We agree to ensure an anti-misogynistic environment
To agree to this pledge, your organisation will…
- Promote the role of men in the solution and as allies
- Develop a shared understanding of what constitutes misogyny and seek to understand how misogyny may be hidden or normalised within our organisations
- Acknowledge that women are disproportionately impacted by negative attitudes about their bodies, appearances, roles and intrinsic worth in society, and understand that these attitudes can culminate in VAWG behaviours
- Ensure staff feel empowered to challenge misogyny including beliefs around women’s roles, and objectification.
- To identify structural barriers and associated behaviours that underpin institutional misogyny and actively address these within our organisations.
Key underpinning principle(s):
The pledges are to be treated as a whole approach together, not standalone. The areas will cross over with each other.
The pledges create, maintain and support a consistent approach across London.
- The Mayor’s Teachers Toolkit – “Tender has worked in partnership with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), teachers, youth workers and partner organisations, to develop the activities and resources within this toolkit to effectively engage young people on the issues of gender-based abuse, including relationship abuse and sexual violence.”
- North West London ICB Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and ICB Women’s Group have requested to add a definition of misogyny as well as requested assurance related to senior leadership understanding of impact within the workplace.
- South West London ICB health inequalities lead has a Women’s Health Strategy
- Say Maaate to a Mate | London City Hall
- New campaign launches to stamp out sexual harassment on public transport - Transport for London (tfl.gov.uk)
- Creating a workplace environment where the conversation about VAWG is welcome
- Commit to encouraging conversations in one-to-ones and team meetings, raising awareness about tackling VAWG
- Committing to discussions and consultation with staff across all levels about how a policy could be developed
- Committing to developing workplace policy (can use existing resources)
- Implement a staff policy addressing VAWG
- Committing to survivor focused safety measures to be implemented if an employee discloses VAWG, including consideration of how to facilitate the employee to access routes to support and/or justice
- Supporting management and the wider organisation with trauma-informed training in how to implement these policies and have the sensitive and potentially difficult conversations with staff
- Having a support structure in place within Employee Assistance offers for persons experiencing, witnessing, perpetrating or affected by VAWG
- Safely and appropriately work with staff members who are identified as perpetrators (prioritising the safety of the victim)
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