Vale of Glamorgan Council

RBA Domestic Violence Task & Finish Group

Denise Dyer

October 2010

Introduction

During 2009, the RBA Domestic Violence Task and Finish Group was formed

in order to focus actions in the Domestic Violence Strategy 2008-10 and the Children and Young People’s Plan 2008-10.

At the time of forming the group, the Domestic Violence Strategy 2008-10highlighted a lack awareness of domestic violence as a crime and that joined up working could be improved.

Applying RBA™

The start of the RBA journey began by inviting everyone that it was felt had an interest in domestic violence to a meeting where the aim and function of the group was outlined and a brief introduction to the RBA process was made.

To get the most out of the meeting, selective elements of the RBA process were used as a means of focusing the work of the group.

During the initial meeting everyone worked through a ‘Common Language’ exercise. The value of this exercise became clear, as it became an ice-breaker opening the group to valuable discussions, which lead to a greater understanding of the different partners and the role they had to play.

The common language exercise also became a learning curve as no timekeeper (person ensuring that the group keep to the time allowed for each exercise) or gatekeeper (person identified by the group as having the final decision or able to move things along if no decision can be agreed on) had been allocated and as a result the Chair decided to put one of the ideas on hold until the next meeting so that the group could continue with other parts of the process as no unanimous decision could be made. During the next meeting the undecided item was revisited, only this time a timekeeper and gatekeeper were in place. Again no decision was reached and the gatekeeper made the final decision regarding the item.

Once the Common language exercise was brought to a completion, the group worked through the seven questions in ‘from talk to action’ the first two questions were done in minutes and question three to seven focused the future activities of the group.

During the next couple of meetings as a result of continually reviewing questions three to seven in ‘from talk to action’ a natural agenda for each meeting came into existence and an action plan was formed.

This meant that rather than producing a separate agenda and action plan the minutes were used for a dual purpose as they contained the process undertaken during every meeting:

Headings used in Minutes:

  1. Attendance & apologies
  • Review of partners
  1. Indicators & Baselines

Performance indicator / Progress / Story behind the baseline

  1. Q7. What do we propose to do (Action Plan)

Action / Progress / New action / responsibility

  1. Consultations for comment by group members
  2. Next Meeting/s

A benefit of this process is not only reduced paper usage but also the action plan becomes a living document giving time bound actions and the person or people responsible for them. As the minutes are reviewed at every meeting any issues arising can be dealt with and progress made monitored.

Very early on in the process the core membership of the group became apparent, and while a lot of people had an interest in the group some of them felt that they couldn’t contribute or didn’t have a role to play at the time and became “consultative partners”.

As the process developed these consultative partners were kept informed of what was happening and would feed into the group if they felt they had a contribution to make.

It was also interesting that the core membership group only had one member at manager level; all other members were of a variety of levels below management level.

Once the group was established work began on a creating a report, progress on the reportwas been delayed due to the problems associated with the collation and collection of suitable baseline data as a result of the nature of the subject area and the problems associated with recording and identifying cases of domestic abuse.

Although the production of the report was delayed, work on the actions continued and the group achieved a lot in a short time.

Through using this process:

  • A Multi-agency one-stop shop is under development
  • Partnership working has improved as the various agencies work together to provide a united service an example being educational courses in schools related to raising awareness of domestic violence.
  • A focused marketing campaign an example being posters on buses during domestic violence week and sports events.
  • Information was available to support the development of the Domestic Violence Strategy during 2010.

Conclusion

The use of the RBA process has illustrated that:

  • The continual review of partner’s, means that the group functions well as the right people are bringing their knowledge and skills to the group.
  • Thatgroup members do not always need to be at Manager level or above for outcomes to be achieved.
  • That sometimes the limitations of collecting suitable data for complex subject areas needs to be taken into consideration especially when trying to set benchmarks. Where such delays in obtaining baseline data occur the group should not be stopped from taking forward work on actions.
  • Low cost and no cost ideas are often easier to implement in a short time and help to motivate the group, by the second meeting one of the ideas had already been implemented.
  • That the RBA process should not be thought of as a one off exercise, as elements of the process can be used on a continual basis to develop and drive work being undertaken.

Applying RBA has been an invaluable process as it helped to bring together the right people to work in partnership and take forward work on domestic violence.

Children and Young People’s Partnership - 1 -