Youth Independent Domestic Violence Advocates

The Mayor’s Police and Crime Plan and London Knife Crime Strategy commits to ‘continue to support youth workers and Independent Domestic Violence Advocates (IDVAs) in Major Trauma Centres (MTCs)….’.

Solace Women’s Aid are the current providers of the youth IDVA service and have a grant agreement that expires in September 2020. Due to the impact of COVID 19 and the service operating within a complex hospital environment it is recommended that the current service is extended until March 2022. This will also support alignment to the wider hospital-based youth work commissioning strategy timeline and will pave the way to deliver a joint commissioning and sustainable funding arrangement with health partners post 2021.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Approve the extension of a grant to Solace Women’s Aid for a period of 18 months, up to the value of £216,456. This is to continue the delivery of specialist support for young victims in London’s four Major Trauma Centres through the provision of youth IDVAs.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. The Mayor’s Police and Crime Plan 2017-2021 (PCP) puts victims at the heart of everything MOPAC does, making significant commitments regarding the provision of better services and improving the experience for victims of crime.

1.2. MOPAC has been contributing funding towards, and commissioning hospital-based support for young victims of violence since 2014/5. Youth Independent Domestic Violence Advocates (IDVAs) engage with victims who present with a risk of child sexual exploitation and domestic abuse/violence in a service that is integrated with clinically embedded youth workers that engage with victims of serious youth violence who present at the A&E with assault-related injuries, gunshot wounds and stabbings. The work is done in the hospital immediately after the incident, which research has shown to be a unique ‘teachable moment’. It is at this critical juncture that young people are often willing to look at making significant changes to their lives.

1.3. Commitments were made in the PCP and London Knife Crime Strategy to ‘continue to support youth workers and IDVAs in Major Trauma Centres (MTCs), extending the programme to key A&E departments in Boroughs that have high levels of knife crime’.

1.4. The current grant agreement with Solace Women’s Aid – to deliver the services to young victims of domestic abuse/violence in MTCs – ends in September 2020.

1.5. DMPC Decision 569 approves to commit up to a maximum of £290,000 funding to deliver specialist support to young victims of domestic abuse and violence in London’s four MTCs from April 2020 through to 2021/22 financial year, through an open and competitive commissioning process. DMPC Decision 685 approves the award of a grant to Solace Women’s Aid for the delivery of this service through to September 2020, creating a reasonable timeframe to implement an open and competitive commissioning process. Owing to the pandemic and the knock on effects it is now impossible to commission this service competitively within that timeframe.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. MOPAC has funded a youth IDVA service to support young victims of domestic abuse and domestic violence since November 2015. This service is currently being delivered by Solace Women’s Aid.

2.2. In 2019/20 the MTC young victims of domestic abuse/violence service supported 164 young people predominantly for domestic abuse (42%) or as the victim of harassment (15%) resulting in 83 referrals into MARAC and 21 Children’s safeguarding referrals.

2.3. Continuing to fund Solace Women’s Aid to deliver these services until March 2022 avoids a gap in service provision. The service operates in a complex, hospital-based environment across four hospital sites which will require time for a new service to both embed itself and develop resilience. The impact of COVID-19 and government social distancing guidelines have been felt acutely by hospital based services given that these projects rely heavily on NHS capacity and interdependency with the Redthread MTC services to support delivery and the providers ability to operate within the clinical setting. Awarding a grant to the current provider will provide consistency of service for vulnerable young victims through to March 2022 and important alignment with the hospital-based youth work services (which are currently funded to that timeframe).

3. Financial Comments

3.1. This decision requests approval to award a grant funding of £216,456 over 18 months, from October 2020 to March 2022 towards the delivery of the youth Independent Domestic Violence Advocates (IDVAs) service in Major Trauma Centre’s (MTC).

3.2. The IDVA service will be fully funded from core MOPAC funds of £800,721 budgeted for 2020/21 which contributes to the Youth Work in MTCs and A&Es within the Keeping Children & Young People safe programme as committed in DMPC Decision 569.

3.3. A grant payment of £70,000 for the period April to September 2020 has already been committed in DMPC Decision 685 from these funds and approved under a separate grant agreement.

3.4. The grant award of £216,456 to Solace Women’s Aid over the next 18 months is set out as:

2020/21

(6 months from October 2020) 2021/22 Total





MTC service for young victims of domestic abuse/violence £72,800 £145,656 £216,456

Table 1: Funding breakdown for continuation of funding to MTC service for young victims of DA/DV

3.5 Grant award of £145,656 due in 2021/22 will be funded from a carry forward from the 2020/21 core MOPAC fund of £800,721.

4. Legal Comments

4.1 MOPAC’s general powers are set out in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 (the 2011 Act). Under Schedule 3, paragraph 7 MOPAC has wide incidental powers to “do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the exercise of the functions of the Office.” Paragraph 7(2) (a) provides that this includes entering into contracts and other agreements.

4.2 Section 143 (1) (b) of the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 provides an express power for MOPAC, as a local policing body, to provide or commission services “intended by the local policing body to help victims or witnesses of, or other persons affected by, offences and anti-social behaviour.” Section 143(3) specifically allows MOPAC to make grants in connection with such arrangements and any grant may be made subject to any conditions that MOPAC thinks appropriate.

4.3 The recommendations in this decision are in line with the legislation and in line with MOPAC’s Scheme of Delegation as set out below.

4.4 In line with section 4 of MOPAC’s Scheme of Consent and Delegation, the DMPC has authority for the:

• approval of business cases for revenue expenditure above £500,000 and for the strategy for the award of grants (section 4.8);

• approval of the strategy for the award of individual grants and the award of all individual grants (section 4.8); and

• approval of the procurement strategy and requests to go out for tender for contracts of £500,000 or above, and the award of contracts with a value of £500,000 and above (section 4.13).

4.5 In line with section 5.22 of MOPAC’s Scheme of Delegation, the Chief Executive Officer has authority for the finalisation of planning and contractual/grant arrangements, including relevant terms and the signing of contracts and grant agreements.

4.6 Officers sought legal advice in relation to DMPC Decision 569 which committed funding the MTC and A&E services to ensure that the arrangement of a direct grant to an existing hospital-based youth services comply with legal requirements.

5. Commercial Issues

5.1. The exceptional support given to victims of domestic abuse in this period of COVID- 19 is continued through the IDVAs to young victims of domestic violence/abuse in MTCs. This variation to the existing grant provison to extend for 18 months will support the longer term plans to work in partnership and ensure sustainable funding arrangement with health partners are in place for the longer term commissioning plans.

5.2. The Authority are behaving responsibily in this period of pandemic and will ensure the delivery of the service specification continue by the supplier as all parties navigate through this period and towards a working as usual model of operation where a revised programme of procurement will be planned to take effect. Delivery outcomes will continue to be bound by the terms of the grant agreement negotiated with Solace Women’s Aid before any commitment to fund is made.

6. Public Health Approach

6.1. The principle of youth workers embedded in hospital Major Trauma wards and A&Es aligns well with the public health approach that is at the heart of the VRU. These services identify and deliver interventions to young people at point of crisis – a significant number who are under 18 and not previously known to services. They provide trauma-informed and child-centered support with the aim of disrupting the cycle of violence, in particular tit-for-tat retaliation. They also support the victim to cope and recover more effectively, accessing wider health services, with the aim of supporting that young person to be able to access services necessary (e.g. training, education, mental health support) for them to be able to make more positive life choices.

6.2. The VRU is also informed by data and evidence to understand and tackle the causes of violence. The data received quarterly from the MTC and A&E services allows us to see a picture of victimisation that police and even ambulance data does not show us. Hospitals receive substantial proportions of ‘walk ins’ so the data collected helps us to better understand the locations, age, ethnicities and genders overrepresented in the violence data.

7. GDPR and Data Privacy

7.1. Solace Women’s Aid provision of youth IDVA’s is an existing service and a Data Protection Impact Assessment is already in place.

7.2. All grant agreements include clear provisions relating to compliance in this area, and in relation to the processing of personal data, therefore the grant agreement covering the continuation of delivery will specify MOPAC’s requirement in this area. These terms were drafted following consultation with MOPAC’s GDPR lead.

8. Equality Comments

8.1. MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

8.2. All providers and services commissioned by MOPAC must be compliant with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010 and demonstrate a commitment to equal opportunities and understanding of equality issues.

8.3. The Police and Crime Plan 2017-21 Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA) takes into account feedback from the public and stakeholders and makes an assessment of its impact on a number of objectives including Crime, Safety and Security, Equality and Inclusion and Social Integration.

8.4. The Impact Assessment shows that young people are disproportionately impacted by crime as both victims and offender and that serious youth violence has increased steadily for the past three years, with 6,600 young victims in the 12 months to September 2016. The number of knife crimes with injury committed against Londoners under the age of 25 is, at 1,782 offences in the year to September 2017, the highest level since 2012. The evidence is clear that when young people are victimised, they are subsequently at much higher risk of both offending themselves and re-victimisation.

8.5. This decision supports an initiative and interventions for young victims, but particularly those victims of more serious crimes, vulnerable and repeat victims, and particular sections of the community who are over-represented amongst victims of crime.

8.6. Diversity monitoring is an integral part of quarterly performance management processes for current Youth IDVA in MTCs provision. This monitoring helps us to understand the needs of those accessing services and enable us to evolve our services to ensure they fit the needs of those using it. We know from performance reports that in 2019/20 a total of 164 young Londoners received support from Solace’s Youth IDVAs. The most prominent age bracket for young people support was 18-24 (68%), followed by 13-17 (21%) with those aged 25 accounting for the remaining cohort. 37% of young people engaged were white, 32% were black/black British, 11% were mixed/multiple ethnic groups, and 6% were Asian/Asian British. Clients were predominantly female (90%). Youth workers delivering these services are trained and experienced at providing trauma informed support to young people with complex needs.

9. Background/supporting papers

None.