Vital Sheffield domestic abuse services dealing with thousands of victims every year

The contract to provide community-based support services is being commissioned to start on April 1, 2024. The contract is currently held by IDAS (Independent Domestic Abuse Service).

Sam Martin, head of commissioning (vulnerable people), said that the council is happy with the way that IDAS is delivering the service but the contract legally has to go out for retendering.

The bidder winning the seven-year contract will run a domestic abuse helpline, one-to-one support, group recovery programmes and a Sanctuary Scheme to support people remaining in their own homes stay safe from attack from an ex-partner or family member. It will also provide informal support, a buddying scheme, guided self-help resources and workforce training.

A report to the Sheffield City Council’s adult health and social care policy committee on Wednesday (June 14) said that the contract forms part of a range of outsourced services around domestic abuse. These also include providing safe accommodation, support for children affected by domestic abuse and work helping perpetrators to change their behaviour.

All providers work in partnership with council staff including social workers and safeguarding teams.

‘Silent victims’

The report states: “The contract amount will not exceed £1,468,608 per annum, however if further central government funds are not secured after March 2025 then the contract amount will revert to the core amount funded by the council, the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, the Integrated Care Board and a grant from the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities of £1,118,608.”

Coun Mick Rooney asked what services exist for children who witness abuse, adding: “Often, they are the silent victims in all of this”.

Alison Higgins, strategic commissioning manager for domestic and sexual abuse, replied that children are seen as victims in their own right, including those who witness abuse, and that their needs are assessed as part of the process in place.

She added that police refer “loads of kids to the safeguarding hub every week”. The contract pays for a worker to be in the safeguarding hub to ensure that all the work is joined up, sharing information about cases they are working on with children’s services.

Another organisation called Haven provides one-to-one support for children and there are also therapy services including Door 43, who provide mental health support. Ms Higgins said: “In both those contracts we could fund them five times over and not meet the demand but we have got some services in place.”

‘Horrendous’

Coun Ruth Milsom questioned whether targets were a useful measure of how services are provided, pointing to a target of 3,000 calls for the helpline, as against the 5,021 calls actually received. She asked: “Is that a horrendous indication of the scale of the problem we are looking at?”

Ms Higgins replied: “There is more need than there is supply, we haven’t got enough money to meet the needs, so we are having to think about how we do that, and obviously we can’t just say to providers ‘slog yourselves into the ground’ so we are having to work creatively on that.”

She added that the service is asking providers what they think about solving that conundrum. She said that they will have to adjust funding for the ‘front door’, where people first contact the service, to meet the 5,000 level, then thinking about what support services should be prioritised and how that could be done.

The report to councillors states that 23,860 adult victims are estimated to have experienced domestic abuse in Sheffield in the last year, with around 8% experiencing both partner and family abuse.

An estimated 13,334 children were living in a household with partner abuse in the past year with up to 28,334 children affected by domestic abuse in Sheffield in total in the last year.

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The service will be asked to develop online resources so that someone who is able to do so can find out about the help they need, said Ms Higgins, although she added that many people can’t do that.

“We know that people still need emotional support, no matter how competent you are, no matter what job or how well off” she added. “We are getting more support groups going and using volunteers.”

The committee will hear more about how abuse prevention services, including the White Ribbon campaign, are working in the city in September.

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