Beyond Training: The Safe & Together London Partnership — Evaluation Report Year 2

An independent Year 2 evaluation by London Metropolitan University’s Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) found that the Safe & Together™ Model—implemented across six London boroughs’ children’s social care services in partnership with Respect—was associated with increased identification of domestic abuse and reductions in child protection plans in most participating boroughs. The report, authored by Maria Garner and Liz Kelly and published September 2023, evaluates the second year of the London Partnership, which grew from five East London boroughs (Hackney, Waltham Forest, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Redbridge) to six with the addition of Hammersmith & Fulham.

Domestic abuse identification increased in three of the four boroughs with available data. Child protection plans and/or children looked after decreased in four boroughs. Practitioner confidence in engaging with perpetrators increased, alongside a documented shift away from holding victim-survivors solely responsible for children’s safety. Hackney led development of a new borough-wide system for recording interventions with perpetrators, since adopted as a model for the other five boroughs. Quality assurance staff began applying Safe & Together principles when auditing case files. An increase in complaints from perpetrators in the two longest-running boroughs emerged as a further, if counterintuitive, indicator of practice change.

The evaluation frames the London Partnership’s implementation model—training, borough-based implementation leads, a shared “marketplace” of perpetrator behaviour-change programmes, and ongoing oversight—as distinct from earlier Safe & Together rollouts that relied on training alone. It also documents the operational strain of implementing across six sites under short-term, uncertain funding, offering a candid account of what sustained systems change requires in practice, not just in principle.