Domestic abuse services: an experience-based co-design study

Abstract

Background: The Home Office recently conducted a survey in which they explored whether domestic abuse (DA) victims were satisfied with the services they received. The survey demonstrated that DA victims are dissatisfied. A consortium of the Police and their domestic violence support organisations decided to conduct this study to explore satisfaction with their services in greater detail and to use these findings to improve services.
Objective: To investigate how services can be improved for people who experienced DA.
Method: The study will be conducted in three phases: (1) the study will evaluate experiences of current services. We will include participants from three stakeholder groups: DA survivors, DA support staff, and criminal justice staff. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with representatives from each group. (2) The co-design process involves firstly discussing the Phase 1 findings with each of the three stakeholder groups, in order to identify priorities for change. The group representatives then come together for a collaborative co-design event, in order to plan improvements. (3) We will study the process and outcome of the Experience-Based Co-Design (EBCD) intervention. Implications: The study will increase our understanding of the psychosocial needs of DA survivors in the UK through using the EBCD process. This is important because the design of services is primarily based on expert views; service-users are rarely involved. Furthermore, EBCD has not been used in policing before and therefore this study will comprise internationally ground-breaking work.