It blocks out the problem and becomes the addiction: the intersections between problem substance use and domestic and sexual violence experienced by young women in two London Boroughs

AVA’s Stella Project has been improving services for adult women affected by overlapping domestic violence and problematic substance use for several years. Through the organisations’ training and development work with practitioners, they were increasingly being asked to advise agencies about how these issues affected younger women. Whilst this was an issue which was increasingly being identified by practitioners, the UK evidence base regarding how to effectively support these young women was weak. In 2010, AVA successfully sought funding from the John Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust for a research and development project to address this gap in the evidence base. Following an open invitation to tender, AVA commissioned Middlesex University to conduct the research phase of the project and to evaluate the Stella Project’s intervention with agencies working with young women affected by domestic and sexual violence and problematic substance use. The project’s scope allowed for the Stella Project to support two London boroughs to develop their response to these young women, and AVA invited all London boroughs to submit an Expression of Interest to be involved. From 14 interested boroughs, AVA selected the London Borough of Enfield (LBE) and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC), based on strategic commitment to the project, the existence of relevant agencies to participate in the project, and differences between the boroughs from which to make an interesting comparison. In both boroughs, the Domestic Violence Co-ordinator and the Drug and Alcohol Action Team Manager nominated four relevant agencies to participate in the project. Within each borough, agencies were selected to represent both the violence against women and girls (VAWG) and substance misuse sectors, and to cover the full age range of young women whose needs the project would address (14 to 24 years). In both boroughs, this resulted in representation from the Independent Domestic Violence Advocacy services, the young people’s substance misuse services and the Drug Intervention Programmes (DIPs), and in Enfield, the Youth Offending Service