The None in Three Research Centre for the Global Prevention of Gender-Based Violence is an international research organisation working across many countries toward the prevention of gender-based violence. With projects funded by the UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund, UNICEF End Violence Against Children Fund, and the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The Centre aims to:

• Investigate forms of violence against women and children in our study countries (currently India, Jamaica, Uganda, the UK and Brazil).

• Develop serious prosocial computer games to change attitudes and behaviours relating to GBV.

• Evaluate the games’ effectiveness as educational interventions to prevent violence.

• Develop a policy hub to inform and guide actions at the strategic and operational levels across our study countries.

• Underpin and reinforce social and behavioural change.

Find out more about the None in Three Research Centre here.

***

In 2021, I was employed as a short-term stipendiary postdoctoral research associate to work with the UK project team, based at the University of Huddersfield, on producing a journal article based on an analysis of qualitative data previously collected by the team on intimate partner violence (a form of domestic abuse). This work resulted in the article Continuous Traumatic Stress: Examining the Experiences and Support Needs of Women After Separation From an Abusive Partner, published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence (2023).

Abstract: Intimate partner violence causes significant, long-lasting harm to almost one-third (27%) of the world’s population of women. Even when women leave abusive relationships, some men continue to exercise control over their ex-partners through psychological control, threats, violence, stalking, and other forms of harassment. In this qualitative study, 52 purposively sampled women who self-identified as victims or survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) from male partners were interviewed. Data were analyzed with a theoretically informed thematic analysis, supported by Nvivo® software. We found that leaving a violent relationship was a long-term process fraught with difficulty and ongoing risks of psychological harm. The concept of Continuous Traumatic Stress (CTS), first developed to understand the impact of state-sponsored violence and war, was found to be a particularly useful tool for the analysis of the impact of post-separation abuse. Additionally, CTS encourages researchers and practitioners to think anew about resilience-centered approaches to improving protection and access to justice for female victims.

The article is available Open Access here.

Elmore Community Services, based in Oxford, is a charity that provides support through various services for people across the Thames Valley with multiple and complex needs, who often do not fit easily into existing services and can be hard to engage. 

Elmore’s clients often have multiple separate support needs such as mental health issues, homelessness and rough sleeping, substance misuse, offending, physical disability, self-harm, learning difficulties, domestic abuse, sex working or experience of abuse and neglect.

You can find out more about the vital work that Elmore does, and the services they provide here.

New Beginnings Service

Elmore's New Beginnings service supports adults who have experienced childhood sexual exploitation to get practical and emotional support to move on with their lives. The severity of the experiences means survivors often cannot access specialist help elsewhere.

Together with Professor Nadia Wager, I conducted an independent evaluation of the New Beginnings service. The evaluation, undertaken between February and April 2021, aimed to provide a 360-degree reflection on the operation and impact of the service.

The evaluation consisted of three phases. 1) a deep-dive into the case files of all forty- four clients (18 closed cases and 26 current clients), 2) semi-structured interviews with two clients, two service managers, four case workers, two referrers/external partners and one commissioner, and 3) the analysis of the scores on a psychometric outcome measure taken at various points in the clients’ engagement with the service (Moving Forward from Crime Scale).

The overall conclusion of this evaluation was that the New Beginnings in its current shape and form offers a unique and much needed service to a highly troubled and or vulnerable group of people who have experienced horrific and multiple forms of victimisation. It does so with compassion, commitment, and tenacity. As one of the interviewees said; ‘Every town needs a New Beginnings service.’

Four recommendations were made to extend the reach, maximise the impact and ensure the sustainability of the New Beginnings’ service. These were; to expand the cultural diversity of the clients served, to increase access to therapeutic services for working with complex PTSD in a timelier manner, adopt a two-worker system generally to prevent service-facilitated client disengagement, and to form a consortium with other non-statutory service providers to enable collaboration on funding applications to enable fulfilment of the needs that were identified as difficult to meet.

Below is an extract from the the published evaluation report's foreword by Simon Bailey:

This evaluation of New Beginnings, a service supporting adult survivors of child sexual exploitation, shows that, with the right interventions, programmes—like those of Elmore Community Services, funded by Oxfordshire County Council—can make a real difference. This unique approach, based on meeting the bespoke needs of its clients, sets a standard of care, engagement and support all victims of CSA should be afforded the opportunity to benefit from.

In this important evaluation, Dr Nadia Wager and Dr Khai Wager have shown what meaningful support can look like and the difference it can make. Work of this nature is personally demanding and arduous and it is to their great credit that they have produced such a comprehensive evaluation. I hope the New Beginnings model now becomes the standard that all statutory CSA support teams and staff look at and aspire to emulate.

Simon Bailey QPM, DL, MSt (Cantab) 

formerly Lead for Child Protection, National Police Chiefs’ Council (2014-2021) 

and Chief Constable of the Norfolk Constabulary (2013-2021).

You can find more information about the report  by following the links below:

• View the report

• Elmore Evaluation Press Release

• Oxford Mail article

• Listen to a podcast about the service evaluation (with co-investigator)

• Radio interviews about the evaluation (with Elmore CEO and New Beginnings Service Manager)

Following our collaboration on the New Beginnings evaluation, Professor Nadia Wager (Teesside University) and I conducted a study on the risk for vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress from researching gender-based violence (GBV).

Motivated by a recognition of the need to better understand the potential impacts of researching GBV and the need to protect researchers’ well-being, the study aimed to assess the impact of studying GBV, the ability of researchers to predict any negative effects, the influence of additional roles that further expose researchers to GBV (e.g. teaching, working/volunteering as a practitioner), researchers’ use of self-care strategies and their reported protective efficacy, and their awareness of institutional policies and resources to maintain their well-being.

The study utilised an anonymous online mixed-methods survey which attracted 81 respondents from GBV research centres in countries where English is routinely spoken. The quantitative component utilised the World Assumptions Scale (Kaler, 2009) and Secondary Trauma Scale (STS, Bride et al., 2004). The open-ended questions permitted the respondents to describe their subjective experiences of the impacts and their attempts at coping.

The findings have been accepted for publication (pending minor revision) and will be available soon.