A review of UK based multi-agency approaches to early intervention in domestic abuse: Lessons to be learnt from existing evaluation studies

This paper presents a review of 22 published evaluations which examined domestic abuse interventions across the UK. A literature Search was conducted in November 2016. The main aim of the review was to identify emerging good practise in multi-agency early intervention; thus, to be eligible for inclusion in the review, projects were multi-agency in nature and aimed to intervene early. Findings from the review reveal that there are a range of strategies and interventions that have been piloted and tested which have had varying degrees of success. Overall, interventions that adopt an advocacy approach appear to have more impact and are more sustainable, and, that when co-located with statutory or voluntary services, multi-agency working is enhanced. However, further consideration is required in terms of what constitutes early intervention, as all interventions are dependent on victims and perpetrators accessing services early, thus, primary prevention strategies, currently entirely school based, are key to promoting and supporting secondary prevention