Community based services

Providing support in safe accommodation for victim-survivors (children and adults) of domestic abuse is a key priority for us.

During 2022-2023, £1,312,445 was spent on support provided in safe accommodation, which includes seven refuges and dispersed accommodation across Norfolk.

Key achievements in 2022-2023 that met some of the challenges outlined in the previous market position statement include:

• Increasing the number of units of safe accommodation and ensuring this could be used by any person
• Increased the commissioning of support for children so that every refuge could meet the needs of children as victim-survivors of domestic abuse
• Developed a quality assessment framework to help improve the quality of support and safe accommodation across Norfolk
• Opened a domestic abuse framework and increased the number of accredited providers by 50%
• Developed an engagement framework with Nesta that is in the process of being piloted
• Provided a district-wide sanctuary scheme to ensure those who wish to remain in their own homes, can do so safely. There's support and sanctuary schemes available in Norwich, the Broadland and South Norfolk districts, North Norfolk district, Great Yarmouth district, Breckland district, and King's Lynn and West Norfolk district.
• Implemented a new accommodation protocol that has been endorsed across Norfolk. The protocol ensures those who require accommodation and may be moving out of safe accommodation are considered a high priority for affordable housing.
• To improve the whole housing approach to domestic abuse through New Burdens Funding, we have funded key stakeholders to acquire domestic abuse housing alliance accreditation
• To improve data intelligence, improvements have been made in our data monitoring of commissioned services, and we have worked with key partners to improve our understanding of the needs of male victim-survivors and/or those who have protected characteristics

A refreshed accommodation needs assessment based on 2022-2023 data is currently taking place, and will inform the support in safe accommodation strategy (PDF) [457KB] refresh. This will help us to understand how well we are meeting our domestic abuse act (2021) part 4 duties. To learn more about our duties, you can download the 'Domestic Abuse: statutory guidance' (PDF) from the GOV.UK website.

Our progress

Our ambitions for 2023-2024 include:

Ability to meet support in safe accommodation

We are looking to provide a further 10 units of dispersed accommodation, as this better meets the needs of all victim-survivors of domestic abuse.

We have a vision to provide six units of safe accommodation for those facing multiple disadvantages. This is being planned and, if successful, will be developed in 2024-2025.

Quality of support in safe accommodation

The new quality assessment framework has been piloted and will be formally rolled out over the year.

The audits will give us the opportunity to see what the status is of the quality of support and safe accommodation and will provide us with the opportunity to show areas of improvement.

Ability to meet support needs by all demographics

Our vision to increase the amount of safe accommodation that is dispersed and also enables those that wish to remain safely in their own homes has increased our ability to meet the needs of a wider demographic, and this will strengthen as we go forward.

Data intelligence

The lack of data being provided by the districts continues to be an area we wish to improve. Our understanding is that more needs to be done in relation to their systems so that data can be extrapolated and there is a reduced risk of duplication.

However, our ability to monitor commissioned services has improved, and it is hoped this will help our needs assessment refresh and be used to update the support in safe accommodation strategy.

Victim-survivor engagement

Having designed the engagement framework, we are now drawing together an engagement toolkit.

We aim to be better able to understand the best ways of engaging with different demographics and be able to further develop this as a pilot with victim-survivors of domestic abuse.

Challenges

Our challenges for working towards better support for domestic abuse victim-survivors include:

• Demand for support in safe accommodation outstrips supply and competition for accommodation for affordable housing for victims-survivors of domestic abuse, along with other key groups such as people who are homeless, is high
• Some of the refuges are not self-contained, and some require updating
• Historically support providers have supported women, but increasingly, they will need to ensure their websites clearly identify that they can support male victim-survivors and LGBTQ+ communities, for example
• The new contract specifications for the delivery of four of the recent refuges are higher, and will also apply to the other three refuges due to be tendered. We will need to consider what happens post March 2025, as New Burdens Funding is not guaranteed post March 2025.
• Robust data is not available on the needs of male victim-survivors and/or those who have protected characteristics

Messages to the market

What we said we would do and what we achieved in 2021-2022:

• Improve our response to domestic abuse by funding stakeholders to achieve domestic abuse housing alliance accreditation. This was achieved.
• The district councils have been funded to provide a sanctuary scheme that will enable people throughout Norfolk, who want to stay in their own homes to do so safely. This was achieved.
• A quality monitoring officer has been funded to help design and develop a new quality assurance framework (pilot starting December 2023). This was achieved.
• Funded Nesta to design an engagement framework. We will be including engagement and, where possible, co-production in the future development of services. The development of the engagement framework was achieved. This year, we will be progressing to an engagement toolkit assisted by victim-survivors of domestic abuse.
• We will work with partners to increase the amount and flexibility of safe accommodation, and by doing so, we aim to support all those who need it. This was achieved. A further 10 units (30 bed spaces) of dispersed accommodation have been brought forward over the past year. We are currently working with Homes England, South Norfolk Council, and a registered provider to purchase an additional 4 units (2023-2024). We are also working with Norwich City Council to scope opportunities for six units of safe accommodation for those facing multiple disadvantages.
• We will commission additional support for children in all refuges and in satellite accommodation. This has been achieved, and this element is now included in our much-improved specification.
• We will improve data intelligence in partnership with the Norfolk office of data and analytics. This has been partly achieved. We have worked hard to understand why tier 2 authorities are unable to provide the data we need.

Feedback

We want people to tell us:

• "I feel safe and know that I am safe"

What people have told us about the support they have received:

• One victim-survivor said, "The activities and support they are providing have helped to increase my children's confidence, and they are now able to talk about their feelings to me"