How can accommodation providers strengthen their response to domestic abuse? How can we support organisations to engage with the intersectional needs of women at risk of, or experiencing, domestic abuse and multiple disadvantage? What can an effective organisation-wide response to domestic abuse look like?

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Introducing DAHA

The Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) is a national partnership between housing associations Peabody and Gentoo and London-based charity Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse. The founding partners’ mission is to improve the housing sector’s response to domestic abuse through a domestic abuse accreditation process. The DAHA accreditation scheme is designed to help housing providers and local authority housing teams detect and respond to domestic abuse more effectively, identifying signs earlier and taking actions that improve safety and housing outcomes for survivors, including their children. DAHA accreditation acts as the UK benchmark for how housing providers should respond to domestic abuse.

Why is this work important?

We know from Fulfilling Lives South East’s (FLSE) project work that refuges are usually not equipped to accommodate women with multiple and complex needs (MCN); referrals are frequently rejected on the grounds of clients’ mental health and substance use needs being too high. As such, women experiencing domestic abuse and multiple complex needs are often housed in non-specialist settings. Their wishes are not always considered when provided with housing offers, and women can experience this as a punitive and re-victimising approach, where their autonomy, choice and opinion are overridden.

‘’Since 2019, 0 FLSE clients were recorded as having stayed in a refuge despite over 90% of female clients disclosing experiences of domestic abuse’’

FLSE data set

A shared vision

In February 2022, Fulfilling Lives South East and Standing Together will co-host a Learning Event to showcase the DAHA accreditation scheme. The event will discuss the current accreditation scheme for housing associations and local authorities as well as broader developments the Standing Together team have been working on for other areas of the housing sector. We will evidence how working towards achieving accreditation can better meet the needs of those with multiple and complex needs who experience domestic abuse. We will consider how accommodation providers can strengthen their response to domestic abuse and explore what an effective organisation-wide response to domestic abuse might look like. Sign up to the event here.

Developments in the DAHA Accreditation standards

Throughout 2020, Standing Together identified the need to develop a framework of accreditation standards specifically for homelessness and supported accommodation services to support these organisations to better identify, respond to, and support survivors who are experiencing domestic abuse as one of several complex and intersecting needs. In January 2021, FLSE members met with the team at Standing Together to discuss how developments in their accreditation scheme could better meet the needs of women with MCN using homelessness services. . Members of our project group also shared the challenges and intersectional barriers faced by these women at roundtable discussions, working together to conceptualize what appropriate accommodation and support may look like. Once the revised accreditation standards had been drafted, Fulfilling Lives reviewed the framework ahead of its pilot run, considering the potential of the standards in meeting the needs of women who experience MCN and domestic abuse if adopted by organisations.

Throughout this consultation period, FLSE continued to advocate for the reduction of stigma experienced by our client group by making multiple and complex needs visible to homelessness and supported accommodation services. As such, we welcome the standard dedicated to Multiple Disadvantage within the new draft framework, which requires staff of accredited organisations to demonstrate an understanding of how these experiences may increase the barriers and risks that survivors face, and the ability to offer additional or alternative support that is suited to their needs. The draft standards have the potential to better meet overlapping and complex needs and reflect FLSE’s two key mechanisms for achieving positive change: Service user involvement in the design, delivery and commissioning of services and the development of trauma-informed workforces. The new accreditation will require accredited supported accommodation providers to value their residents, service users and staff with lived experience of abuse as experts by experience by creating formal structures to ensure service design and delivery are co-produced. This should include at least one staff member whose role it is to organise and increase service user involvement. Organisations will also need to offer survivors choice and control over the sharing of their story, including the minimisation of survivors who experience complex needs having to repeat their experiences to multiple case workers. FLSE believes this will support organisations to develop trauma-informed and survivor-led workforces and procedures.

Make sure to join us at our Learning Event to hear more about future developments in the DAHA Accreditation standards and Fulfilling Lives’ involvement in this work.    

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Authors: Emily Page

For further information about Fulfilling Lives work in this area, please contact:

Emily Page, Systems Change Project Assistant:

emily.page@sefulfillinglives.org.uk

Rebecca Rieley, Systems Change Lead:

rebecca.rieley@sefulfillinglives.org.uk  

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