My colleague Lucy Smith and I recently wrapped up work on the Domestic Abuse Needs Assessment. This project spanned the better part of a year and was a significant milestone in my career.
The insights from our assessment inform the crucial work carried out across Essex public services to support victims of domestic abuse. Currently, Essex County Council (ECC) is formulating its Domestic Abuse Strategy, working with its partners and making use of the findings within the Needs Assessment to steer the council’s plans for the future. As such, I was very aware of the trust that was being placed in me, and of the importance of our work in protecting the most vulnerable and preventing people from harm.
Leading a project of this scale was a first for me (which made it quite scary!). From scoping the research questions to co-ordinating data procurement from 24 partner organisations and internal services, analysing it, and compiling everything in over 130 slides – it was a huge challenge!
I had been an analyst for over two years when this work kicked off, and still I started with more questions than I knew how to answer. ‘Who do we contact for all the data we need? How does the information governance process differ for the partner organisations? How do we combine and analyse this data?’… etcetera. But of course, I had the support of Lucy, colleagues from the Data and Analytics team, and our Domestic Abuse Commissioning colleagues, and together we took each new challenge as it came and learned along the way.
Throughout this process, I found out new things about myself, like how much I enjoy engaging with partners (and how, when dealing with so many partners, stakeholder mapping and appointing relationship managers are lifesavers!). I also discovered areas where I could improve my delivery pace and project timeline planning. Thanks to the lessons from the Needs Assessment, I’ve been working on incorporating extra time in my projects for potential delays, how to better estimate the duration of the final product write-up, and on timely scheduling of quality assurance check-ins with colleagues to accommodate final changes.
This work also allowed me to dive deeply into the subject area more so than many other projects, thanks to the time spent with Domestic Abuse experts. It was a truly valuable opportunity hearing from commissioners, housing advisors, service managers, analysts and other professionals about the needs of Domestic Abuse victims and about how the services in Essex work, individually and together, to meet those needs. From supporting victims with their housing situation, to their mental health, the services are constantly looking for ways to develop their provision, and this Needs Assessment aims to help with that, in particular when it comes to the ways in which intersectionality may impact the type of support victims need.
One of our key findings for instance identified that, of the global majority victims we support, almost a third do not have English as a first language, and over a tenth are living in the UK on a visa. This points to two additional barriers victims from a global majority ethnic background can be faced with when trying to access domestic abuse support. The data also suggests that male, elderly and LGBTQ+ victims are likely under-represented in support services, meaning that the additional barriers they are facing may be discouraging or preventing them from seeking support. With these insights, the council is committed to further explore these barriers and potential solutions to them, as well as raise more awareness of existing support within these groups.
I’ve always been passionate about all the work ECC does to support vulnerable members in our community, and working on this Needs Assessment has strengthened that feeling further. I look forward to seeing how our Domestic Abuse colleagues and partner organisations will continue to encourage more victims to approach support services, and how they will further develop the way they address their needs and the barriers they face.
If this piqued your interest in our findings and what ECC does to address domestic abuse, you can now access the full Needs Assessment on the Open Data platform here:
https://data.essex.gov.uk/dataset/e6pqw/domestic-abuse-needs-assessment-2024
1 comment
Comment by Clare posted on
Well done Ana, great reflections and we are pleased to have had you on the team to support this important work.