Privacy Policy
Standing Together’s policy work aims to shape national and local policies to improve responses to domestic abuse by advocating for the Coordinated Community Response (CCR) model and promoting its benefits to policymakers, statutory agencies, and voluntary sector organisations. We achieve this through consultation responses, research, briefing MPs, press engagement, and driving policy change across all areas of our work.
We drive policy across many sectors, including housing, health, criminal justice.
In the health sector, our Crossing Pathways Project has led to the formation of the Health and Domestic Abuse Leadership Group (HDALG), which brings together leading Health and VAWG agencies to coordinate an improved response to domestic abuse and VAWG in health settings. Additionally, Standing Together coordinates the Inter-collegiate and Agency Domestic Violence and Abuse Forum (INCADVA). The work of both INCADVA and HDALG has shaped national policy, including contributions to the Domestic Abuse Bill, advocating for early intervention in healthcare and the recent commitment from NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) to update their domestic abuse guidance. Additionally, the evidence and expertise of these forums and spaces have played and continue to play a key role in the development and implementation of the UK Government’s VAWG Strategy.
For Black and minoritised/global majority survivors, our Co-action Hub project, has established the pan-London Harmful Practices Strategic Partnership (HPSP) which has been driving policy reforms to improve support for global majority survivors of VAWG and Harmful Practices. Through equitable partnership with Asian Women’s Resource Centre (AWRC), we continue to coordinate this group as a collaborative and safe space that brings together specialist ‘by and for’ VAWG leads and multi-agency stakeholders to reduce siloed working and hold strategic discussions on the institutional barriers faced by Black and minoritised women and ‘by and for’ organisations. HPSP’s collective response to the Women and Equality Committee’s call for evidence on honour-based abuse has been published and very well received. Last year, the Coaction Hub published “Rethinking Risk Beyond the Checklist: The Need for a Holistic and Inclusive Framework” . The report examines whether current risk assessment frameworks, such as DASH RIC is effective for Black and minoritised victim-survivors of domestic abuse and harmful practices.
In the housing sector, Standing Together has co-founded the Domestic Abuse and Housing Alliance (DAHA) to improve the housing sector’s response to domestic abuse. At the heart of DAHA is our National Housing and Domestic Abuse Policy and Practice Group which shares best practice and influences policy and practice on domestic abuse and housing in England. With representatives from around 30 organisations in domestic abuse, LGBTQ+, housing, and homelessness sectors, the group works nationally to ensure DA survivors are heard, can access safe housing and quality services, and that housing and VAWG sectors coordinate effectively. We also have the Perpetrators and Housing Working Group that influences policy and practice that addresses perpetrator housing.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (formerly Department for Levelling up Housing & Communities) endorses DAHA’s Whole Housing Approach as national best practice in the national Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy and Standing Together works consistently with the Ministry to advise on the best-practice response to victim-survivors.
“Domestic abuse has a devastating effect on lives and communities and this Government has put forward proposals for new laws which will transform our approach to this terrible crime…
…I welcome this initiative led by the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance and encourage housing organisations to take a proactive approach to supporting survivors of domestic abuse.”
It is also endorsed by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England & Wales, Nicole Jacobs:
“Since its launch in 2014, the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) has driven forward significant positive change in the housing sector’s response to domestic abuse. I am proud to have been one of the founding members of DAHA in my previous role as Chief Executive of Standing Together Against Domestic Violence, and I am pleased to endorse these new accreditation standards which I would encourage all local authorities and housing providers to adopt.”
– (Nicole Jacobs, DA Commissioner England & Wales)
Policy influencing is central to our mission to drive tangible systems change. We believe that when systems change, survivor safety is ensured, and perpetrators are held accountable.
As part of our work to ensure that statutory systems, particularly criminal justice, best respond to the needs of victim-survivors, we have a key legislative focus in our policywork. We have influenced and worked to secure amendments to key legislation, including the Sentencing Bill, Victims and Courts Bill, Crime and Policing Bill, the VAWG Strategy, the Assisted Dying Bill, Raneem’s Law, Clare’s Law and the Government’s recent decision to allow media access to family courts. Most recently, we worked as part of Women in Prison’s campaign to ensure that women prisoners did not have their photographs circulated following release. Additionally, we support work on statutory defences’ for victim-survivors who are criminalised and an improved response to criminalised women in the criminal justice system and beyond.
Our submissions to the Sentencing Review, led to an official recommendation from the first report that Specialist Domestic Abuse Courts, a key tenet of Standing Together’s response to victim-survivors, be expanded and rolled out nationally. The Government has accepted the Review’s recommendation as official policy and Standing Together continues to work on ensuring the delivery of this commitment.
In recent months, our work has received growing recognition at policy and media levels
BBC
Highlighting the critical role housing plays in keeping survivors safe.
The Guardian
Domestic violence victims must be included in the assisted dying debate
The Telegraph
Elderly and disabled groups blocked from giving assisted dying evidence
Big Issue
Tory renting reforms could be ‘catastrophic’ for victims of domestic abuse
Parliamentary Evidence
Published Evidence to the Committee on the Assisted Dying Bill
Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s Report
Shifting the Scales: Transforming the Criminal Justice Response to Domestic Abuse
Government Report:
Standing Together’s Statement on Raneem’s Law cited in “Domestic abuse: Supporting victims and survivors”
These milestones are a testament to the impact we are making, but we know there is still so much more to do to strengthen civil society as whole and play a part in shaping a more equitable future, particularly for Black and minoritised survivors, LGBTQ+ and faith communities, women facing multiple oppressions, criminalised women, and disabled individuals experiencing intersecting disadvantages.