West Cumbria review

Safer Cumbria Domestic Abuse Partnership Board to promote gender and trauma-informed practice in response to victims of domestic abuse experiencing multiple needs including adverse childhood experiences and mental health, alcohol and substance misuse. Safer Cumbria Domestic Abuse Partnership Board to seek assurance from all affiliated agencies that gender and trauma-informed practice is embedded in their practice response to domestic abuse.

West Cumbria Community Safety Partnership should seek assurance and evidence that primary care, Emergency Department, mental health and substance misuse services in their area have implemented policies, pathways and staff training that have resulted in effective, selective, routine enquiry in domestic abuse, particularly where mental health and substance misuse are also involved.

Cumbria Community Safety Partnership should seek evidence and assurance that agencies are consistently enabling high risk victim engagement with the Independent Domestic Violence Advisors in addition to their own services.

In MARAC cases where the offender is held on remand, the police should alert the prison service to prevent, or if not possible, to proactively monitor telephone contact between the perpetrator and the victim.

West Cumbria Community Safety Partnership should seek assurance from criminal justice agencies that they are able to accurately record and access records on an abuser’s previous violent history and apply this to current risk assessments and responses

In the development of the national domestic perpetrator strategy, the Home Office considers commissioning research into whether a high-risk domestic abuser will be a high-threat domestic abuser to future partners and by virtue of their serial offending, are worthy of enhanced intervention, management and opportunities for change.

The Ministry of Justice to consider how those offenders who are subject to immediate release after serving a period on remand, are flagged for risk management, considered and their management resourced.

West Cumbria Community Safety Partnership to ensure that the evidence provided by criminal justice agencies in response to this review collectively demonstrates a robust multi-agency response to domestic abuse perpetrators and demonstrates effective harm reduction outcomes, particularly in regard: • compliance with DASH • positive action • risk assessment • supervision • bail and responding to intelligence reports • responding to victim minimisation and engagement • ‘Out of area’ incidents • Prison release

North Cumbria Integrated Care Board and Recovery Steps Cumbria to develop and embed pathways and relationships between primary care and alcohol treatment services in the area. Pathways to ensure that clinicians in primary care have access to clear and concise guidance for assessing and managing patients with alcohol concerns and have access to locally agreed information to enable them to make effective decisions, together with patients, at the point of care, particularly for those with whom practitioners would otherwise struggle to engage.

Probation Service and Recovery Steps Cumbria to provide assurance to the Community Safety Partnership on the effectiveness of the criminal justice pathway between alcohol treatment and probation services and is able to address the issues over self-referral and information sharing

West Cumbria Community Safety Partnership to secure the consistent participation of social housing providers in their area through multi-agency pathways in domestic abuse across areas of high risk and earlier intervention.

Mothers experiencing domestic abuse are enabled to access specialist domestic abuse support

To ensure professionals routinely enquire about domestic abuse when there are indicators of concern and staff need to understand their role when receiving disclosures of domestic abuse from perpetrators.

To ensure staff consider history of domestic abuse and how this impacts on presenting risks at the time of initial assessments and future appointments.

To promote the need to enable engagement with domestic abuse services, even when the police may be involved.

To review Home Group’s internal procedure and ensure that the best practice highlighted above is captured and implemented. Mainly, that when DV and DA instances are reported or there are suspicions of DV/DA these incidents are reviewed by a Senior Manager (Operations Manager level).

For Home Group to review their local procedures around outcomes and discussions at MARAC. Specifically focusing on; what visibility to Senior Managers have; What visibility do local Housing Managers have; How does the feedback process occur; What oversight and input do Senior Managers have.

Liaison with other agencies, especially those that may be specifically addressing offending behaviours (such as the courts, probation services) assists in the wider understanding of the perpetrators’ risks and actions that other services have implemented to address these. The requirement to notify partner agencies when an individual is discharged from the Liaison and Diversion service will be incorporated into the service wide Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and introduced as standard practice.

Communication with partner agencies including GPs should be strengthened by providing awareness about the Liaison and Diversion service to ensure an understanding of the service scope of practice. This will be achieved by sending a letter to GP’s and partner agencies describing the Liaison and Diversion service.

Information sharing and recording processes for MARAC for all LSCFT services to be consistent across all LSCFT localities.

Current LSCFT processes regarding domestic abuse are correctly victim focussed, however, it is not clear regarding the expectations of staff when working with suspected perpetrators of domestic violence. This would be especially useful for Liaison and Diversion who are an offender focussed service.

To further promote with GPs the need for targeted routine enquiry about domestic abuse when indicators are present and to strengthen the disclosure pathway

to continue to improve awareness and responses to domestic abuse through the A&E and Domestic Abuse Improvement Plan, to include increased use of DASH and MARAC referrals and the ‘think family’ Screening tool

Domestic abuse and substance misuse to continue to be included in mandatory training updates for all staff, with particular focus on routine enquiry and referral to support services.

To complete a review to be completed of current pathway and follow up for patients who leave A&E prior to completing treatment.

Under the parallel Serious Further Incident review, the CRC were required to provide assurance to Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) that they were managing domestic abuse alleged perpetrators to a sufficient standard. The Probation Service to provide this evidence to the Community Safety Partnership

To develop a criminal justice pathway within substance misuse services through which to address the issues over self-referral and information sharing between probation and substance misuse services.

To strengthen management oversight of staff in order to ensure adherence to policy and practice standards in assessments, planning, implementation and review of interventions in the future.