The ManKind Initiative, the national charity supporting male victims of domestic abuse, alongside partners Hestia who support adults in crisis, have created National Quality Service Standards for male victims and survivors of domestic Abuse. These are aimed at services and commissioners to better support men who are victims and survivors of this crime.
The Standards were developed and produced by national safeguarding organisation, LimeCulture CIC. They are hosted and managed by the Male Domestic Abuse Network which supports the practitioner community working in this field.
The Standards are based on the views of domestic abuse practitioners, commissioners and survivors through extensive research conducted in spring 2020. They have also been reviewed by two of the UK’s leading academic experts in this field.
These Standards create a framework for the continuing development, commissioning and improvement of gender-informed services for male victims. This will support;
- male victims/survivors in being assured that their individual needs will be recognised and understood when accessing support from a service provider.
- existing services to review how they can further improve their provision or support new services with information on how to develop them
- commissioners in ensuring the services they commission are male victim-friendly and inclusive
- associated organisations (for example, police forces, housing bodies, local councils and clinical commission groups) to assess how they support male victims they come into contact with.
There are four main sections in the Standards covering:
- Leadership and Governance
- Access and Engagement
- Service Delivery
- Outcomes and Evaluation
.
Whilst independent, they are also aimed at forming a parallel set of Service Standards to those developed by the Male Survivors Partnership for supporting male victims/survivors of sexual violence. They therefore form an additional part of the overall quality and policy framework for supporting male victims of these crimes. The sexual violence standards were also produced by LimeCulture and are in the same format.