Danielle Sharp is the founder and Chief Executive of the Centre for Safer Society, an organisation dedicated to supporting services in designing evidence-based responses to reduce violence, abuse, and harm. Through the Centre, Danielle conducts service evaluations, develops impact-driven strategies for organisations working to end violence and abuse, and serves as an Independent Chair for statutory Domestic Abuse-Related Death reviews – work that brings her face-to-face with the families of those who have been killed or died by suicide.
For most of her career, Danielle has worked in the domestic abuse and violence against women and girls (VAWG) sector. She began in frontline roles supporting young people and families before moving into strategic positions developing and commissioning evidence-based local responses to domestic abuse. Her work then expanded to national level at SafeLives, where as Head of the Knowledge Hub she led projects such as the Home Office One Front Door pilot, and Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) national oversight.
It is through her work as an Independent Chair for Domestic Abuse-Related Death reviews that Danielle identified the practice challenge that will form the focus of her Practitioner in Residence (PiR) research at the Violence and Society Centre (VASC). In several reviews, a recurring issue has emerged: cases where practitioners identify ‘bi-directional violence’ or ‘dual-allegations’ between individuals. This creates significant difficulties in accurately assessing risk, determining whether there is a primary victim and primary perpetrator, and making informed safeguarding decisions.
With the support of VISION Co-Investigator and Senior Lecturer Dr Elizabeth (Lizzie) Cook, Danielle’s focus in the PiR programme will be to bridge the gap between research and practice by developing practical resources for professionals. These tools will equip practitioners with greater clarity and confidence when navigating cases involving dual-reports, ultimately improving risk assessment and decision-making.
Aisling Barker, Violence Against Women and Girls Workforce Development manager at Islington Council, and qualified social worker, is the latest practitioner to join the City St George’s University of London (CSGUL) Practitioner in Residence programme. She became aware of the programme through her work on teenage relationship abuse with co-Deputy Director of the Violence and Society Centre (VASC) at CSGUL and VISION consortium Senior Research Fellow Dr Ruth Weir.
Aisling and her team in Islington have been supporting professionals in their practice with adolescents for five years. They identified concerning trends in violence and abuse in relationships where the victim was as young as 13 years of age but the person causing harm was also as young as 14 or 15 years old. An alarming lack of support available for these young people was apparent – particularly those who were causing harm to their partners at that young age.
Aisling presented the work of her team at the first conference on Adolescent Domestic Abuse hosted by VISION in April 2024. Driven by curiosity the team began to analyse cases to understand where there were system strengths and gaps. They found knowledge and practice gaps in services responding to young people where there was harm in their relationships. They also found that young people often had good relationships with practitioners such as youth workers, gang workers and youth justice case workers. Identifying an opportunity for practice improvement, Aisling and her team developed a training and support package for services working with young people affected by criminality and offending behaviour. Aisling also presented the findings from their case analysis and a case study at the second National Working Group on Teenage Relationship Abuse roundtable in November 2024 also hosted by VISION.
With the support of Ruth and the VASC and VISION teams, Aisling’s focus as a Practitioner in Residence will be documenting and examining the impact of this training and support package as an innovative approach to the prevention and early intervention on violence against women and girls.
Blog by Dr Polina Obolenskaya, Merili Pullerits and Dr Niels Blom
The UK government is expected to publish its new Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy later this year. The strategy is part of a broader ambitious commitment to halve VAWG within a decade. A new combined measure of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and stalking, developed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), has been proposed to serve as the main benchmark for evaluating progress toward this commitment.
Here we outline three main concerns the VISION consortium has with the proposed approach.
Lack of historical continuity
To assess the effectiveness of the VAWG strategy, historical continuity is crucial. Rates of domestic abuse in England and Wales have declined in recent years (Figure 1). Therefore, any assessment of a decline or rise in VAWG needs to be placed in the context of broader declining violence rates. Without this historical continuity, the government cannot distinguish between improvements driven by their strategy and those resulting from long-term social changes that were already underway.
Figure 1 Prevalence of domestic abuse in the last year among people aged 16 to 59 in England and Wales, 2004/05 to 2023/24
However, the new combined measure disrupts this continuity. This is due to changes to the question wording and structure of its composite measures. The new combined measure of VAWG consists of self-completion data from a newly developed Domestic Abuse module (piloted in 2022/23 and 2024/25, and fully implemented from 2025/26), as well as a combination of the old and new Sexual Victimisation module (piloted in 2025/26 and planned for full implementation from 2026/27).
The new Domestic Abuse module had undergone a complete redevelopment, with extensive negative repercussions for historical continuity, which we have outlined previously. While the sexual victimisation module is not being re-developed as considerably, the comparability of the new data to the previously collected data can only be assessed once the first round of results is available. This means a new stable and comparable measure will not be available in its final form until the 2026/27 data collection, despite the government’s strategy period beginning in 2025/26.
Without historical continuity, it will not be possible to produce long-term trends over time in the composite measure of VAWG for England and Wales for some years to come. Given the decline of some forms of violence in recent decades, it is important to examine whether any decline in VAWG is due to genuine policy success, or due to a continuation of pre-existing trends.
Incomplete scope of violence
While the government has indicated that it intends to supplement the new combined measure of domestic abuse, sexual victimisation and stalking with additional metrics, it is currently unclear what these supplementary measures will include or how they will be weighed against the main benchmark. In any case, the narrow scope of the new combined measure has been raised as a concern both among academics and others working in the sector.
Some of the limitations of the measure are due to the unavailability of certain measures in data it is based on – the Crime Survey for England and Wales. The End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW) has highlighted that the new measure fails to reflect the full spectrum of violence experienced by women and girls, omitting online abuse, child abuse, ‘honour’-based abuse and sexual harassment (EVAW blog) as well as Female Genital Mutilation (EVAW briefing). These exclusions, as EVAW argues, risk distorting the true scale and impact of VAWG. Additionally, given alarming rates of teenage relationship abuse (e.g. Barter et al., 2009; Fox et al., 2013), we consider its exclusion to be a serious oversight in measuring VAWG – including girls – effectively. Since the combined measure excludes experiences of girls under the age of 16, its use as a main tool to measure government’s ambition to half ‘Violence against women and girls‘ may be misleading.
While the gaps outlined above stem from the limitations of the Crime Survey for England and Wales, we also have concerns about the scope of the measure which could be addressed with the data already available.
Firstly, the new combined measure excludes other offences which count within the CSEW as ‘violent crime’ or violence against a person. While men are more likely to be victims of such offences, disregarding women’s experiences of these risks undercounting their overall risks and impacts of violence (Cooper & Obolenskaya, 2021; Davies et al., 2025). For example, while a substantial amount of VAWG is covered by domestic abuse, sexual violence, and stalking, women also experience violence in other aspects of life, such as at work or in public spaces. Accounting for the above offences significantly increases the proportion of people experiencing violence and more accurately reflects the extent of violence experienced by women and girls.
Secondly, the new combined measure omits broader violence-related offences, for which data are available in the CSEW. This includes threats of violence and other criminal offences which are coded as ‘non-violent’ by the ONS (due to a methodological process involving priority ordering of offences), even though they involve the threat or use of force or violence (Davies et al., 2025; Pullerits & Phoenix, 2024). These offences should be included in any overall measure of VAWG regardless of who is most affected. However, their omission is especially problematic given that they disproportionately affect women (Davies et al., 2025; Pullerits & Phoenix, 2024), meaning the headline measure is likely to underestimate women’s experiences even further.
Although the government has suggested that other metrics are planned to be used, separately, to assess progress towards halving VAWG, having a narrow main measure risks reinforcing outdated gender norms where women are considered to be more affected by what happens at home rather than outside of it. Such a perspective fails to capture emerging forms of abuse and fails to reflect the full spectrum of women’s lived experiences with violence.
Collected new Domestic Abuse data had not undergone statistical validity and reliability checks and had not been subjected to wider scrutiny (as raised by VISION previously) before the decision to replace the old module with it was finalised.
Changes to the Domestic Abuse and Sexual Victimisation modules appear to have been made independently from each other, with limited coordination across the survey modules. Given the similarity in the phrasing of a few questions across the modules, this lack of foresight and integration appears to have resulted in overlapping content that could lead to confusion both for respondents and for those interpreting the data.
The development process has lacked transparency and consultation with external stakeholders, as raised by EVAW.
Recommendations for improvement
The ONS’s new combined measure of VAWG risks oversimplifying the complex realities of violence against women and girls. Even with supplementary metrics, relying on such a narrow primary benchmark – which lacks historical continuity and is limited in scope – will not adequately support evidence-based policy development or serve the needs of those most affected by violence and abuse.
To ensure more meaningful monitoring, we have three key recommendations to the ONS:
Prioritise historical continuity in Domestic Abuse data collection: We urge the ONS to revert to a Domestic Abuse module that aligns more closely with the previous version to ensure data continuity. While we welcome the inclusion of new questions on coercive control and family-related violence, we strongly believe these additions could be integrated into the long-standing existing framework without disrupting the historical comparability of the data. If a full reversion is not feasible, we recommend that theONS takes steps to ensure meaningful assessment of change and continuity using the new measure. These steps should involve: publishing clear comparability assessments between old and new measures; providing bridging data where methodologically possible; and maintaining transparency about limitations.
Broaden the scope of the ‘combined’ measure and make it explicit that it does not fully reflect the experience of girls: the definition of violence against women and girls should be expanded by using existing CSEW data to include “violence against the person” offences, as well as, possibly, other incidents where violence or threat of violence took place but that are not coded as “violent crime” by ONS. The CSEW currently provides insufficient coverage of technology-facilitated and online abuse, which should be a development priority going forward, given the increasing prevalence of these forms of violence both within domestic contexts but also outside of them. Additionally, since the combined measure does not capture violence experienced by girls under the age of 16, the government needs to make it clear that the headline measure, should it be used in the strategy, reflects only experiences of (young) women, not girls.
Enhance transparency and accountability in survey development: we call on the ONS to address technical and transparency concerns regarding their measures and commit to greater openness in their approach. Any new module should be subject to timely, transparent analysis and external scrutiny of it before it becomes a permanent change in the survey.
If the government is genuinely committed to halving violence against women and girls within a decade, it must first ensure its measurement approach is comprehensive, meaningful and methodologically sound. Relying overwhelmingly on a narrow headline measure risks presenting an incomplete picture of the problem of VAWG, and risks undermining both accountability and progress.
Cooper, K. & Obolenskaya, P. (2021). Hidden Victims: The Gendered Data Gap of Violent Crime, TheBritish Journal of Criminology, 61(4): 905–925. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azaa100
Davies, E., Obolenskaya, P., Francis, B., Blom, B., Phoenix, J., Pullerits, M. & Walby, S. (2025). Definition and Measurement of Violence in the Crime Survey for England and Wales: Implications for the Amount and Gendering of Violence, The British Journal of Criminology, 65(2): 261–281. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azae050
Fox, C. L., Corr, M. L., Gadd, D., & Butler, I. (2013). Young teenagers’ experiences of domestic abuse, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(4), 510–526. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2013.780125
Pullerits, M. & Phoenix, J. (2024). How Priority Ordering of Offence Codes Undercounts Gendered Violence: An Analysis of the Crime Survey for England and Wales, The British Journal of Criminology, 64(2): 381–399. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azad047
How can researchers meaningfully and ethically involve people with lived experience of the criminal justice system in data analysis?
This is the question myself, a group of VISION colleagues (Lizzie Cook, Polina Obolenskaya, Sian Oram, Les Humphreys and Sally McManus), Dani Darley (University of Sheffield) and a group of Revolving Doors’ (Home – Revolving Doors) lived experience members, explored via a face-to-face workshop in May and online feedback session in July, funded by City’s Participatory Research Fund.
These broad principles on doing participatory research are useful and have guided my approach to multiple recent projects. But something I noticed is that there is generally less guidance on involving people from marginalised groups, particularly those with lived experience of the criminal justice system, in the data analysis stage of research projects specifically. Despite the analysis being at the heart of the research process. Essentially, activating the “co” in co-analysis is still somewhat of a mystery. And whilst a definitive “how-to” guide to collaborative data analysis alongside stakeholders would be at odds with the flexibility and relational grounding that are the beauty of co-analysis, a little guidance could make the process smoother and more enjoyable for everybody involved. Without this, quite a lot of angst can be caused repeatedly asking yourselves: Are we trying to do too much? Are we doing enough? How much can we afford to do? How much do people actually want to be involved? How can we make this happen?
Ironically, a fair bit of time in our workshop to co-produce some best practice principles for doing co-analysis was spent going round in circles tackling questions around how to do it. Ultimately, the best approach to co-analysis depends on various factors, including the type of data being analysed, people’s individual experiences and preferences and access to resources etc. Nevertheless, addressing these questions openly and collaboratively, welcoming and respecting everybody’s perspective and actively thinking about all the factors that need to be considered, made for an enlightening and productive discussion. From which themes have been identified and are currently being transformed into principles (watch this space).
A few spoilers:
Lots of ‘p’ words are involved, including planning, preferences, perfection, practicality and power
Transparency and avoiding tokenism are two of the most important principles for our participants in determining whether they found co-analysis enjoyable or not
Ethical standards and institutional processes need reframing if they are to authentically support participatory projects involving co-analysis
Co-analysis is messy, heavy and can’t just be squeezed in as an extra; the emotional labour that goes into both managing and participating in co-analysis must be valued
Co-analysis can also be fun. People with lived experience want to have fun with it, and it’s nice for them when academics can even have a bit of fun as well
Blog by Dr Darren Cook, VISION Research Fellow in Natural Language Processing
Earlier this month, Dr Elizabeth (Lizzie) Cook and I had the opportunity to introduce our developing project on Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) at the Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre’s second annual conference in Leeds. The two-day event brought together academics, practitioners, and policymakers to explore the themes of reducing harm and strengthening justice.
In a session on Measuring Vulnerability: Harnessing Routinely Collected Data, we outlined how natural language processing (NLP) could be used to improve access to and analysis of the Home Office’s growing library of DHR reports. We highlighted both the opportunities and challenges of applying advanced computational methods to such sensitive material and set out our vision for building a tool to make the full corpus of DHRs more searchable. By improving searchability, researchers and policymakers can more effectively explore recurring themes and insights within the reports.
Our talk prompted thoughtful questions and constructive feedback from an interdisciplinary audience of around 30 participants, which will help shape the next stages of the project.
What are Domestic Homicide Reviews?
Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) are reports that examine the circumstances surrounding a death resulting from suspected domestic violence or abuse. Introduced in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004) and implemented in 2011, these reviews provide a detailed, chronological account of the victim and perpetrator. They are written in narrative form and aim to identify lessons that can be learned from a domestic homicide.
Since June 2023, over 600 reports have been made publicly available through an online repository with a view to improving transparency and to encourage greater opportunity for learning.
Why does access remain a challenge?
Despite the progress made with the repository, researchers and practitioners still face barriers that limit how effectively the reports can be used. In our talk, we focused on two key challenges: (1) At present, each report must be extracted individually, which is impractical for projects working across hundreds of documents, and (2) The repository’s search functions rely on a fixed set of tags added by the Home Office. Users cannot create new categories or adjust existing ones, which restricts the kinds of questions researchers can ask. As a result, while the reports are technically public, their full potential as a resource remains difficult to unlock.
Building better access
Our presentation built on earlier consultation work with public and third sector organisations, and we shared some of the next steps we are planning. These will be set out in more detail in an upcoming research protocol paper co-authored with Sumanta Roy, a member of our VISION Advisory Board and Head of Research, Evaluation & Development at Imkaan, and Ravi Thiara, VISION Co-Investigator and Professor at University of Warwick.
Our central idea is to explore the feasibility of creating a structured dataset that summarises the key features of the DHR library. This would capture information such as victim and perpetrator demographics, the commissioning body, safeguarding risks, recommendations, and missed opportunities.
To do this, we are developing a tool that applies text-mining and natural language processing (NLP) techniques to extract information directly from the reports. The resulting dataset will be both searchable and filterable, allowing users to focus on increasingly specific subsets of the material. We also want to build functionality that enables users to download customised sets of reports rather than relying on individual downloads.
How will this help researchers and policymakers?
By improving access, searchability, and flexibility, our project will make it possible to work with DHRs at a scale that has not previously been possible. Instead of relying on small samples or manual searches, researchers will be able to look across hundreds of cases, identify recurring patterns, and ask new kinds of questions. The creation of a structured dataset will also support more consistent and comparable findings, helping to strengthen collaboration between academics, practitioners, and policymakers.
In the longer term, we hope this work will not only make DHR research more efficient but also ensure that the lessons within these reports are more easily applied to safeguarding practice.
Looking back to the conference
Presenting at the Vulnerability and Policing Futures Conference gave us the chance not only to share our ideas but also to test them with an audience of experts. The thoughtful discussions and questions we received will help guide how we take this project forward.
by Justin Coleman, Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network
The UK Prevention Research Partnership VISION consortium’s 4th annual conference on violence prevention was a truly impactful day. As part of the Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network Lived Experience Advisory Group (VAMHN LEAG), representing a lived experience perspective, I found the discussions both thought-provoking and essential. The event skilfully blended academic rigor, professional expertise, and, crucially, profound lived and learned experience, prompting vital questions about how we truly move forward in creating a more inclusive and effective violence prevention landscape.
The Imperative of Inclusive Practice: Who Are We Really Serving?
A key takeaway was the urgent need for radical inclusivity. While Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) was rightly highlighted and the clear and marked volume and % percentage numbers are stark, I question if we’re inadvertently creating gaps for other survivors. As a male survivor of abuse, as a child, I wonder if our messaging and funding focus heavily on one demographic, how do we ensure male survivors, LGBTQ+ individuals, and marginalised communities (young and older) feel seen and supported? True trauma-informed practice, to me, means moving beyond “what’s wrong with you?” to “what happened to you?” for everyone who is impacted by all forms of violence and abuse. No matter who you are, this simply shouldn’t happen to anyone.
Data, lived experience, and investment: Are we looking at the full picture?
The power of data in policy was clear, but it also raised concerns. Are investment strategies relying on outdated statistics? If resource allocation isn’t based on continuously updated, comprehensive data, are we truly capturing the evolving landscape of violence and the needs of all survivors today? Quantitative data alone can miss nuanced realities that lived experience and ethnographic insights provide. We need a dynamic balance where current lived realities inform and refresh our understanding, ensuring our leadership is deeply connected to ‘our’ diverse lived experiences.
Redefining safety and dignity: Beyond the checklist
The concept of “safety” in support spaces commented on at the conference resonated deeply. Can we ever guarantee “safety,” or should we strive for environments that are continually “safer” and more “supported”? This shift moves us beyond ticking a box to an ongoing commitment. The most impactful word was “dignity.” Shouldn’t ensuring dignity be a fundamental aim at every stage of a survivor’s journey, enabling genuine opportunity for healing and empowerment?
Breaking silos: The path to unified prevention
Effective violence prevention demands a cross-government, cross-sector approach. We need to collaborate beyond our immediate professional bubbles, integrating insights from areas like the criminal justice system to inform victim services. While “whole-family” approaches were discussed, I questioned if we can expand this to truly embrace “whole-community” approaches, ensuring LGBTQ+ individuals, isolated people, and every member of society has an equitable voice and space in prevention, responsibility, and repair.
Moving forward: A collective responsibility
This conference was a crucial step, bringing vital voices to the table. The co-produced animation with VAMHN and SafeLives, available on the City St George’s University of London YouTube channel, https://youtu.be/z6LbYDGfBZw?si=3-tJYXDqLfM16pE-, is an excellent resource for understanding lived experience engagement. To truly mobilise an effective cross-government response, we must continue to ask:
Are our investment decisions agile enough to respond to current data and the evolving needs of all survivors?
Does promoting the financial cost of crime and low conviction rates discourage reporting?
How can we ensure every violence prevention initiative is genuinely trauma-informed and inclusive, making all children, male, LGBTQ+, and all marginalised survivors feel equally seen, heard, and supported? What is the cost of not being inclusive?
Are we creating enough opportunities for genuine connection and partnership across diverse stakeholders at events like this, rather than just delivering information?
Are we bravely embracing “safer” and “dignity” as guiding principles, continuously improving how we support survivors?
Are we actively breaking down silos to build robust and equitable prevention and support systems?
The future of violence prevention depends on challenging existing paradigms, embracing inclusivity, advocating for trauma-informed practice and care, and working together from all perspectives with updated knowledge and a shared commitment to a safer journey towards dignity for all. This VISION conference stimulated valuable questions and directions, strengthening my determination to build connectivity, dignity, and safer spaces for survivors.
To read the latest Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network newsletter: June VAMHN newsletter
VISION researchers, Dr Polina Obolenskaya, Dr Annie Bunce and Dr Ruth Weir, recently published a blog for the London School of Economics (LSE). Breaking the cycle of harm in adolescent relationships looks at the Netflix series, Adolescence, and the portrayal of the reality of teenage violence, and the complex causes behind it.
The researchers draw on their research into adolescent toxic relationships to highlight the sources of such behaviour, and argue that schools can play an important role in prevention and early identification of harmful relationships between peers.
On a balmy May evening, VISION researchers Dr Anastasia Fadeeva and Dr Ladan Hashemi had the pleasure of presenting at Pint of Social Science, an engaging public event held at a local pub. The event, organised by Caroline (Cassie) Sipos, Business Development Manager for the School of Policy and Global Affairs, City St George’s University of London, was part of the broader Pint of Science movement.
This event, one of many on the same night, is an annual global festival bringing academic research into informal, accessible spaces such as pubs or cafes. The environment enables researchers and the public to connect over important social issues, drinks, and conversation.
Anastasia showcased her research on violence against older people, an often-overlooked area of abuse and harm. She spoke about different forms of violence in older age, including physical, emotional, and economic, and discussed the social and structural barriers that allow this violence to remain hidden. Anastasia also shared the findings from the recent study that measured the prevalence of violence in older age and the associations between violence and mental health in later life. The talk concluded with calls for stronger protective measures and greater public awareness to safeguard the dignity and wellbeing of older populations.
Ladan shared the Breaking the Silence campaign, which uses culturally sensitive animations to amplify the voices of women in Iran affected by violence. Grounded in a survey of 453 Iranian women, the campaign highlights the widespread and multifaceted nature of violence against women and girls, and the urgent need for greater awareness and legal reform. Through powerful storytelling, the animations address issues such as coercive control, economic abuse, and technology facilitated abuse, while promoting the role of active bystanders and signposting available support services. The campaign aims to break taboos, raise awareness, and foster dialogue about women’s rights and freedoms in Iran.
The evening provided a lively and welcoming space for thoughtful conversations and personal reflections. The audience was engaged with both talks, asking insightful questions—often the kind that don’t come up in professional or academic settings. Pint of Social Sciences was a reminder of the value of public engagement and the importance of making research accessible beyond academia. Events like this help to build understanding and inspire collective action towards a more just and informed society.
A Warning for Parents, a Teaching Moment, or Just a Drama?
by City St George’s UoL doctoral researcher Sylwia Wypyska-Kieran
I finally got around to watching the show. I braced myself for it. I work in this field, and when I sit down to watch TV, I want an escape. And more importantly, I have a son the same age as the main character. I was scared—I know how dramas can pull the right emotional strings to shake you to your core. And this show does exactly that.
It grips the audience, tapping into their deepest emotions to climb the charts. It spreads fear about youth violence, fueling the anxieties of parents who are already overwhelmed by the mysteries of the online world. At the school gates, friends tell me how upsetting it was. Online, acquaintances share tips on how to ‘better control’ our children, while colleagues publish their expert opinions. Following the discourse surrounding the show is fascinating. But let’s start from the beginning.
Katie was murdered. In a typical narrative about crime, the show’s focus is on the perpetrator – a 13-year-old boy. This compelling drama has done an amazing job of avoiding the othering of the boy who killed, a common and widely criticised practice in the media. Jamie looks young and innocent. His child-looking face shatters the stereotype of a perpetrator, which is so important for society’s understanding of the reality of everyday violence. We feel for him. We see a child whose life has crumbled. We feel for his parents, we feel their pain, self-blame and disbelief. Together with the detectives, we seek the answers. Why?
I was expecting the answer to be the manosphere. The trailer and discourse surrounding the show heavily focused on that. The online world of incels and Andrew Tates. I was surprised and rather confused to see that the manosphere was not a direct effect on Jamie’s behaviour. Katie was bullying Jamie, calling him an incel and telling him that no one will ever go out with him.
How did a drama about a boy who murdered a girl manage to make her seem responsible for his crime? Whilst I pondered whether I misunderstood the implication, I saw a comment online ‘What the boy did was definitely wrong but didn’t it start from the bullying by the girl!!!’.
The detective’s son pulls his Dad aside and tells him about the secret language of teenagers. I work with some amazing people whose work is all about young people’s participation. Teenagers don’t live on The Planet of the Adolescents, to which we have no access. Yes, adolescence is a distinctive period in people’s lives and we do have to understand the psychosocial challenges young people face. But let’s not align adolescence with violence and let’s not separate ourselves from them. It is harmful to them, to us, and to society as a whole.
‘Adolescence made free for schools as Keir Starmer meets creators’, the BBC reports, alongside calls to introduce anti-misogyny lessons. But we can’t teach our way out of misogyny. It seems like a reactive decision made without consultation with experts or young people. The context, complexities and consequences of this decision could be immense.
The boys I have spoken to, as part of my research exploring responses to harmful sexual behaviours, have told me that they feel shut down in conversations about relationships and sex. It is consistent with other studies around the topic. They already feel they do not have a space where they can explore and learn about relationships or their identities as men. Will showing this series to them open up a conversation or prove them right? My bet is on the latter. We risk pushing them further into a corner—driving them toward the very spaces where they do feel heard.
As part of the work, researchers Dr Mirna Guha (Anglia Ruskin University) and Dr Katherine Allen (University of Suffolk), hosted a leadership event on 3 April 2025 for racially and culturally diverse women. Held at a venue provided by the City of London police, the event was part of a leadership programme implemented through the HUM (‘Us) : A Place-based Emerging-Leaders Model designed and piloted by Mirna and Katherine to diversify leadership in domestic abuse and sexual violence services. Research aims include ensuring culturally responsive and representative support for minoritised victims-survivors in East England.
Prior to the April event, Mirna and Katherine researched the leadership needs of 19 overstretched frontline practitioners i.e. ‘emerging leaders’ from racialised communities working within White-majority and at times professionally isolating generalist services across Bedfordshire, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. East England is home to scattered racialised and diasporic communities where women’s leadership in local politics and policymaking is low. Based on this, three events on trauma-informed, culturally responsive and diverse styles of leadership have been co-produced with national DASV experts. Participants were invited to also join a regionally pioneering Community of Practice (CoP).
At the April event in London, 15 emerging leaders from racialised backgrounds gained insights into the strategies, opportunities and challenges of practising culturally and racially representative leadership through an inspiring keynote by Superintendent Jasvinder Kaur, Domestic Abuse Lead at Suffolk Constabulary and co-founder of the National Women of Colour in Policing network. Furthermore, nine Black and racialised women speakers associated with statutory institutions viz. Cambridge City Council and the National Police Chief’s Council.
Voluntary organisations also spoke including Apna Haq in Rotherham, Asian Women’s Resource Centre in London, and Karim Foundation in Cambridge. Others also shared their experiences of navigating rural and predominantly White spaces, and their strategies for claiming space, giving voice to community members and creating opportunities for other culturally and racially diverse women leaders. One notable theme was the pathbreaking role each panellist had assumed during her career, opening (or at times creating) doors for herself and those who followed. Discussions across the day dwelled on temporality and the changing political landscapes as well as place-based challenges linked to rurality.
Overall, the leadership model, including this event and others and the growing leadership CoP, with a current membership of 25 emerging women leaders, aims to address these contextual and temporal challenges by bolstering and diversifying racialised women’s leadership in public services to ensure equity for minoritised victims-survivors.
By laying the groundwork for a regional advisory board through the CoP, the model challenges the epistemic erasure of racially and culturally minoritised women within the design of DASV, and broadly, public services which exacerbate the postcode lottery of services across England and Wales. Inspired by Pawson and Tilley’s (1997)[1] approach to realist evaluation (which seeks to understand what works for whom and in which circumstances) Mirna and Katherine aim to evaluate the impact of the leadership programme and CoP on how emerging leaders navigate specific challenges rooted in specific professional, relational and spatial contexts.
[1] Pawson, R. and Tilley, N., 1997. Realistic evaluation.
