Domestic Violence and Abuse (DVA) in Military Families: Improving Signposting to Specialist Support

Executive summary
The aim of this project was to establish a military families specialismi on the Routes to
Supportii (RtS) online system for domestic violence and abuse (DVA) services so that military
families experiencing DVA can be better signposted to appropriate services, whether military,
quasi-military, or civilian services, with specialist knowledge (note RtS was formerly called UK
Refuges Online until 2010). To achieve this aim, this project sought the views of key
stakeholders with an interest in military families suffering DVA, in order to help first inform a
definition of what a service offering a ‘military family specialism’ would look like, and so in
turn, be able to identify such services to add to the RtS system. Stakeholders included: the
Ministry of Defence (MOD); Military Welfare Agencies; DVA specialist civilian services; DVA
Perpetrator Programmes; military charities; DVA policy makers; and victim/survivors of abuse
from military families.
Eight telephone-based interviews and four face-to-face interviews with practitioners were
conducted during the fieldwork. Five site visits took place across three case study sites which
included attendance at DVA meetings between practitioners and informal discussions with
practitioners. Six victim/survivors took part in a focus group. The research team delivered
one training session to military personnel and observed another for the purposes of this
project (both took place on military bases). In total, 34 DVA services self-identified as offering
a specialist service for military families and were added to the RtS system.