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ANNEX B: PILOTS
Getting it right for every child ( GIRFEC)
1. This is the Scottish Government's approach to helping children and young people in Scotland. It sets out guidelines to help families and professionals to work better together with children and young people and to give children and families more say in the help that they get. It recognises the importance of everyone working together towards a shared set of goals.
2. Pathfinder pilot projects are currently running in four areas: Edinburgh, Falkirk, West Dunbartonshire, and Dumfries and Galloway. The key objectives of the pilots are to:
- ensure that all agencies place the child's needs and interests at the centre of their activity;
- achieve better joint working amongst all relevant agencies, in all the interests of the child;
- test and refine the framework and tools for a multi-agency response which can then be used throughout the country as part of the Scottish Government's Getting it right for every child approach;
- adopt a unified, timely, appropriate approach to situations where children are affected by domestic abuse; and
- provide specialist advice on the single assessment, record and plan to be used by agencies.
Domestic abuse court
3. The National Group to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland, which became the National Group to Address Violence Against Women, set up a number of working groups to consider how domestic abuse and subsequently the wider violence against women ( VAW) agenda should tackled in Scotland.
4. In recognition of the prevalence and seriousness of domestic abuse, and of the possibilities that a specialist court could offer, the Sheriff Principal of Glasgow and Strathkelvin and other members of the judiciary in Glasgow established a steering group, comprising the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Strathclyde Police and others, such as Social Work Services and the Women's Support Project. Their aim was to pilot a specialist domestic abuse court in Glasgow.
5. Evidence from similar courts elsewhere in the UK has indicated that such courts have helped to develop best practice in multi-agency, integrated working that places the victim at the centre of the process.
6. As a result of the activities of these working groups, a pilot specialist domestic abuse court in Glasgow has been established to deal with the majority of domestic abuse incidents reported in Strathclyde Police's G Division.
Assist service
7. The Assist service is linked to the domestic abuse court. Its staff provide information, advocacy and support to adults, both male and female, young people and children, who are survivors of domestic abuse and are involved with the specialist domestic abuse court.
Multi-agency risk assessment conferencing
8. A new framework to help victims of domestic abuse and their families has been introduced across North Lanarkshire. Multi-agency risk assessment conferencing ( MARAC), which was developed in South Wales, has been introduced to identify victims of domestic abuse who are most at risk of experiencing violence in the future. The key element of MARAC is the risk assessment, which will be carried out by police officers attending incidents of domestic abuse. The risk assessment has three main objectives:
- to gather detailed and relevant information from victims that can be shared with other agencies;
- to identify those who will need more intensive support; and
- to make agencies aware of the most dangerous offenders.
9. Information gathered during these risk assessments will be shared among relevant agencies to promote the safety of abused women and their children. Evaluation has shown that, for women going through the MARAC process, repeat victimisation has fallen to 17%. This, compared to the domestic abuse repeat incident rate of 40% in the rest of the Strathclyde Police area, demonstrates significant improvement.
10. At present MARAC is operational in half of the local authority area and plans for continued implementation are on-going. The objective over the course of the next three years will be to ensure that MARAC is fully embedded within agency responses to violence against women.
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