Navigating domestic violence service provision

According to research by the Office of National Statistics, an estimated 2.0 million adults (1.3 million women, 695,000 men) aged 16 to 59 experienced domestic violence in the UK in 2018.

This project explored the potential of designing an online service directory to support domestic violence service providers in the North of England.

Work addressing the negative impacts of domestic violence on victim-survivors and service providers has slowly been contributing to the HCI discourse. However, heavily-politicised specialisms with conflicting values and practices – such as domestic violence service delivery – can be especially difficult to navigate.

Managing the organisation, ensuring our services are up to date, staff trained up, hiring new people, ensuring we have enough funding to keep going when everything feels like it’s working against you … it’s tough … yeah, just tough. Participant in study

This is a mixed methods study consisting of interviews, a design dialogue and an ideation workshop with domestic violence service providers in the North East.

Through this three stage process, the study found there were varying levels of technical competence amongst the staff, strained relationships with other organisations, and an anxiety at being potentially exposed to either criticism or oversubscribed through the use of a digital directory.