by Karen Schucan Bird
Domestic abuse is a major health and social problem, with high levels of global prevalence and serious, widespread consequences. Perpetrated by a current or former intimate partner, domestic abuse refers to a wide range of abusive, controlling or threatening behaviours. As a complex, difficult and seemingly intractable problem, domestic abuse warrants a robust, multi-sector response.
As part of a societal-wide response, informal and social networks of victim-survivors and perpetrators of domestic violence play an important role. Friends, family, neighbours or colleagues are often the first to know about domestic abuse, rather than police or social services, and are uniquely placed to recognise and respond to abuse. Yet, informal networks often feel helpless, ill-equipped to help or simply don’t know how to respond. Tailoring interventions towards friends, family, neighbours and colleagues therefore provides opportunities to improve responses and the early identification of abuse.
We conducted a Campbell Evidence and Gap Map (EGM), funded by the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), as part of UK Research & Innovation’s rapid response to Covid-19. It includes 47 studies that focus on interventions explicitly aiming to create or enhance informal support for victim-survivors of domestic abuse. The EGM creates a picture of the global evidence base, drawn from academic and grey literature sources (such as the websites of domestic abuse organisations), and reporting empirical qualitative or quantitative data.
Five key takeaways:
- There are innovative and diverse interventions, implemented around the world, that aim to create or enhance informal support for victim-survivors. The EGM identified a wide range of interventions, tailored towards different groups and delivered in various settings (e.g., education and training for Faith leaders or workplace supervisors), the victim-survivor (e.g., peer support groups or mentoring), the relationship between them (e.g., ‘healing circles’ or smartphone apps to guide interactions) and/or the wider community (e.g., community ambassadors/ activist networks). The EGM can provide a source of inspiration for policymakers or practitioners seeking to explore possibilities for intervening in informal networks as part of their wider response to domestic abuse. Interventions were implemented globally, across a wide range of geographical areas including the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Canada, Australia, China, India, Nepal, Uganda, Ghana and Vietnam.
- There are clusters of evidence, relevant to policymakers or practitioners interested in commissioning services and/ or interventions in informal support. The EGM identifies specific interventions with concentrations of studies that may be amenable to evidence synthesis, such as support groups for victim-survivors (19 studies) or community interventions (8 studies). This could complement existing syntheses that examine the effectiveness and experiences of training tailored towards informal networks. Further, there are a group of studies that focus on interventions delivered in specific contexts (e.g., five studies on interventions in the workplace) or specific population groups (e.g., six studies with women from ethnic minorities). Such bodies of evidence can provide a useful source of information for decisions about informal support interventions in a range of settings.
- Complementary parts of the evidence base contribute to a holistic understanding of informal support interventions. The EGM includes diverse types of research which, together, provide a broad understanding of interventions. The qualitative data provide insights into experiences of the interventions from the point of view of the victim-survivors and/or informal supporters. Quantitative assessments of the interventions identify impacts and outcomes associated with informal support interventions.
- The evidence base highlights the intersections of informal support interventions with specialist domestic abuse services and formal responses. A group of the interventions identified in the EGM were led or shaped by domestic abuse organisations, demonstrating a key role played by such agencies in designing and delivering informal support interventions. A set of studies also included data from practitioner populations and foregrounds the intersections of informal and formal service provision, illustrating the potential roles that frontline practitioners can play in facilitating informal support.
- The evidence base is relatively small and concentrated in the Global North. The 47 studies identified by the EGM represents a small body of research, relative to the larger number of known interventions. This may be explained by several factors including lack of policy interest in informal support, which may hinder the driver/ need for research, or insufficient resources to undertake rigorous evaluation by those organisations delivering the intervention (e.g., charities or NGOs). Most evidence, and interventions, included in the EGM originated from the Global North and so may reflect the social, economic and cultural context of these geographical domains.