Safer housing options for women experiencing domestic abuse

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The context

Scottish Women’s Aid’s 2015 Change, Justice, Fairness reportl (based on research in Fife) found women experiencing domestic abuse often felt they had no choice but to apply as homeless in order to escape a partner. Whilst for some, leaving home aligned with their own safety assessment, others found options to remain were neither explored nor explained by homelessness staff, with the Council’s response repeating and re-inscribing the perpetrator’s sense of entitlement and control.

Four years later, Women’s Aid’s 2019 guidance for social landlordsl reported the majority of housing policy and practice responses in Scotland continued to be based on the assumption that women (and children) experiencing domestic abuse - rather than those who perpetrate it – should leave the family home. In Scottish Borders, a multi-agency, safer housing options approach had been aiming to challenge that assumption for some years.

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The intervention

For almost a decade, a range of agencies in Scottish Borders have worked together to improve access to, and provision of, advocacy, advice and support services for women, children (and men) experiencing domestic abuse. The 2012 ‘Pathway’ project piloted an Independent Domestic Abuse Advocacy (IDAA) service for high risk victims; a longer-term community support service for victims to promote recovery; and a 12-week recovery group work programme for children and mothers.

Despite its positive impact, in 2015 agencies acknowledged some gaps in the Pathway approach. Though women received quality support, there was an over-reliance on the ‘homelessness route’ and refuges as standard options. And Pathway services weren’t always reaching women from more marginalised groups. The five-year STEPS project (2015-20) aimed to fill these gaps, recruiting an outreach worker and a safe housing options worker to develop a pan-Borders ‘safer housing options service’.

STEPS worked with households cross-tenure, offering advice and practical support; home assessments; safety planning; a (funded) range of safety/ security measures; managed transfers (for very high risk cases); coordination of emergency pet placements; and training for all partners on domestic abuse, including in the four main RSLs (as Scottish Borders is a stock transfer authority). The outreach worker targeted, and identified barriers for, women in remote/rural areas; older people; black and minority ethnic women, including the travelling community; and women with ‘multiple complex needs’.

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The outcome

In five years, a wide range of partners made just under 200 referrals for outreach support, and nearly 700 to the safer housing options service. Of those, 80% of households had safety measures fitted (CCTV, fire retardant letterboxes, enhanced locks). 75% remained at home. None of those interviewed in exit surveys felt a refuge would have been a viable option for them.

Following the end of the funded period, the four RSLs ratified a local unified domestic abuse housing policy and procedure, enabling a consistent approach across the whole authority, with RSLs taking on responsibilities of home assessments and safety enhancements. Scottish Borders Council, in turn, mainstreamed the advocacy support service.

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Key insights

• housing is a critical partner in the response to domestic abuse; responding effectively is fundamental to tenancy sustainability
• with quality training and support, frontline housing staff can become confident and skilled in identifying and sensitively responding to domestic abuse, as they do with antisocial behaviour
• a multi-pronged approach - high-level leadership, shared vision, proactive RSLs, workforce planning and interim services which ‘join the dots’ - helped shift the view homelessness/refuges are the only solutions to domestic abuse. Developing a systemic legacy to sustain good practice is also vital

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Find out more…

Andrea Beavon, Violence Against Women Coordinator, Scottish Borders Council
andrea.beavon@scotborders.gov.uk