The monograph on improving the response of first responders to domestic violence in Europe aims to identify gaps in the cooperation of first-line responders and deliver recommendations, toolkits and collaborative training for European police organizations and medical and social work professionals. The goal is to improve integrate institutional response to domestic violence. Shared training and adequate risk assessment tools will create a positive feedback loop, increasing reporting rates of domestic violence to police, the medical profession, and community and social work practitioners.
Interagency cooperation is a necessary response to domestic abuse to care best for victim-survivors. However, for many reasons especially pertaining data security, digital solutions to support such action remain scarce. This chapter explains what needs to be considered when installing such a tool into a network of front-line responders' activity by pointing to the advantages of digital communication platforms to manage high impact domestic abuse and summarising what IMPRODOVA researchers' expertise presented regarding the status quo of exchange of information in domestic abuse cases. Afterwards, criteria are defined that need to be fulfilled by an ICT tool set up for the management of domestic abuse by professional front-line responders. Moreover, criteria to be fulfilled by the users of the ICT tool set up for the management of domestic abuse by professional front-line responders are discussed. Finally, the stashcat® app is presented as a suitable tool meeting the before defined criteria to a great extent. This is also attested by the evaluation of the stashcat® app during its piloting by a Slovenian network of front-line responders. In sum, this chapter shows that digital solutions can assist professionals to communicate quick and effectively when supporting victim-survivors of domestic abuse.
The introductory chapter of this book presents the book's structure as a whole and gives a brief overview of its single chapters and their interrelatedness. The aim of IMPRODOVA - Improving Frontline Responses to High Impact Domestic Violence was to deliver recommendations, toolkits and collaborative training for European police organisations and medical and social work professionals to improve and integrate the institutional response to high-impact domestic violence. IMPRODOVA had two main components: analysis of current institutional responses to high-impact domestic violence and the development of effective solutions to improve those responses. Efforts were made to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach and contextualise our solutions, tools and guidelines to make them applicable to a wide range of societies.
With a total of 141,792 incidents in 2019, domestic violence is a serious problem throughout Germany. The country chapter provides an overview of crime statistics and results from victim studies and a cost study. Concerning legislation, there have been two major waves improving victim protection in recent times, initiated by implementing the Act on Protection against Violence in 2002 and the ratification of the Istanbul Convention in 2018. An ongoing trend towards interagency cooperation and setting up coordination bodies can be noted in the social sector, also incorporating law enforcement agencies and medical institutions. After delineating the scope of responsibilities of front-line responders in the police, medical, and social sectors, the country chapter describes examples of good practices for interagency cooperation. The country chapter concludes with the main challenges to be anticipated in combatting domestic violence. The three main objectives identified are minimising unreported cases, expanding the scope of interventions, and improving victim protection in the short and medium-term. In the long term, the implementation of policies and standards will be vital to evaluate and improve prevention and protection measures to assure a high and nationwide comparable quality standard.
The main goal of the IMPRODOVA project was to find ways to optimise domestic violence intervention and prevention. We found that effective cooperation of front-line responders comes from a common understanding of the problem. When trying to understand the phenomenon thoroughly, we realised that cross-national comparison of domestic violence definitions is a complex undertaking, as different countries use varied definitions. Intimate partner violence, domestic violence and family violence are used across all countries to describe the phenomenon. However, we can observe primarily gender-based definitions in all three front-line responders sectors. One of the promising findings of our analyses is that international standards are relatively well implemented in all the partner countries. For better cooperation of all stakeholders, we developed a training platform on domestic violence and supported it by analysing the possibilities of using the digital communication platform for inter-agency collaboration to address domestic violence adequately. Multidisciplinary cooperation across the sectors in risk assessment and case documentation was mentioned by many countries as a favourable objective, resulting in more dynamic and comprehensive risk assessment processes. That leads to developing a risk assessment tool – the Domestic Violence Risk Assessment Integration Module to achieve a more integrated European response to domestic violence.
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