Pathfinder

‘‘Whilst Somerset had evidenced some positive outcomes prior to the arrival of Pathfinder, the knowledge and expertise of the consortium partners has served to not only validate their efforts but to significantly progress the domestic abuse agenda across health. The wide range of tools has served to inform best practice and shape our vision for the future.’’

- Domestic Abuse Project Lead at Somerset CCG Pathfinder Site

Pathfinder was a 3-year fixed-term pilot project that brought together expertise and funding for specialist domestic abuse interventions to embed a ‘Whole Health’ approach to domestic abuse in 8 sites across England.

The project ended in March 2020 and was led by Standing Together in partnership with four expert partners Against Violence and Abuse (AVA), Imkaan, IRISi and SafeLives.

Pathfinder built on existing good practice in our 8 sites by joining up the efforts of local health partners from acute health, mental health and primary care with local domestic abuse specialist services. We helped to embed governance and policies, coordination, data collection, specialist interventions and training to build the capacity of the local health systems to respond to survivors of domestic abuse.

By helping to lay the foundations of a system-wide, sustainable response to domestic abuse Pathfinder created a model which can be replicated by local health areas nationally. To learn more about the ‘Whole Health’ model and how to implement it in your area please see our Pathfinder Toolkit.

You can also learn more about what survivors want to see from health and the impact the Pathfinder project had on the survivors it reached in our Survivor Consultation and Key Findings Reports.