Our history
AVA was set up as an independent,
national charity in order to take forward the work of the Greater
London Domestic Violence Project, previously hosted by a parent
charity; London Action Trust.
The GLDVP was established in 1997 to
address the need for a pan-London organisation able to work across
boundaries, develop London-wide policies and increase the
effectiveness of inter-agency work. GLDVP worked intensively across
Greater London although the work had national recognition and many
of their resources were utilised by practitioners across the UK and
further afield.
Staff and supporters at GLDVP were
keen to widen the scope of their work both geographically and
thematically, and to access new sources of funding. This was not
possible while the project existed within LAT and so, with the
support of LAT a decision was taken to move to independence.
After many months of planning and preparation by the prospective
trustees and staff from both LAT and GLDVP, AVA took over the
assets and work of GLDVP at the beginning of 2010.
AVA's foundations are the solid
achievements and reputation of GLDVP whose work within Greater
London over the past twelve years led to their recognition as
leaders in the field of domestic violence work. GLDVP has worked
across borough boundaries and integrated a strategic, regional
approach to facilitate developments across the region. GLDVP
have directed resources at London priorities and have provided
intensive support and advice, thus increasing the impact of their
work.
GLDVP have pioneered and led positive
work in new sectors including drugs and alcohol, children and young
people, women offenders and working with faith communities. Their
expert advice, support and consultancy has been called on daily to
support other organisations, and their influence resulted in
improvements to the policy and practice of local, regional and
national organisations in both the statutory and voluntary
sectors.
GLDVP key achievements:
- Developing and implementing the first ever London Domestic
Violence Strategies (2001-04 and 2005-08), during which time there
was a 57% drop in domestic homicide rates.
- Establishing and delivering innovative projects that cross into
new sectors, including the Stella Project working specifically to
address the need for integrated services for victims, their
children and perpetrators experiencing problematic substance use.
Recognised nationally and at a European level as the leading
project on this topic GLDVP produced a variety of trainings, good
practice guidelines and support events for practitioners. In 10
months, pages or documents from the Stella Project website were
downloaded 7060 times.
- Developing a Children and Young People's Project addressing the
issues of teenage domestic violence and children exposed to
domestic violence, including training and a 'help your mates'
leaflet aimed at young people who may know someone experiencing
domestic violence from a boyfriend or girlfriend. In one year, 277
people attended training by the Project and 86% stated that the
information and skills learnt will be useful for their work. The
Project's E-Forum has 154 members.
- Researched and wrote the toolkit 'Improving safety; Reducing
harm. Children, young people and domestic violence: a guide for
front line practitioners' published by the Department of Health in
October 2009. This document endorsed the GLDVP guidelines for
safeguarding children affected by domestic violence.
- A project addressing the strong link between women's
experiences of domestic violence and mental distress and huge gaps
in services for these women. GLDVP delivered training on these
issues and developed a toolkit to support service providers in both
sectors. All 800 hard copies were sold.The Praying for Peace
Project involved a roundtable event comprising faith leaders who
were invited to discuss their role on reducing and preventing
domestic violence, culminating in a report and subsequent
development of training, a toolkit and a range of awareness raising
activities.
- Working with charitable trusts and government to secure funding
for Independent Domestic Violence Advocates and participating in an
intensive evaluation of four different models.
- Authoring separate booklets for supporting lesbians, bisexuals,
gay men, and trans people experiencing domestic violence and the
UK's first booklet for women with learning difficulties
experiencing domestic violence.
- Working with London Boroughs and other partners to develop
Specialist Domestic Violence Courts and Multi Agency Risk
Assessment Conferences across the capital.
- The GLDVP Director was seconded to the Home Office for 12
months in 2009 to develop the national violence against women and
girls strategy. She took part in 26 focus groups with women to
document their experiences of violence against women, service
provision and make recommendations for improvements to policy and
practice.
- Developed an online resource, on behalf of the Home Office, to
support the implementation of the Coordinated Community Response
Model to Domestic Violence[1]
- Commissioned by the MPS to review its
work to address violence against women and develop foundations for
a potential MPS strategy.
You can download GLDVP's 10th
Birthday report here (PDF, 364kb)
[1] www.ccrm.org.uk
