Multi-agency approaches to domestic violence in a county in Northern England.

The thesis documents research on multi-agency approaches to domestic violence. The
research has been conducted in a county in Northern England - fictitiously named
Hillshire - and has focused on two areas in that county - fictitiously named Pittplace
and Steel site. The researcher has been particularly interested in multi-agency domestic
violence initiatives in Pittplace and Steel site and has sought to examine both what these
initiatives are and what they mean. The research has had two main aims. First, to
increase our understandings about partnership approaches, especially those focused on
domestic violence, and, secondly, to examine whether the increasingly de rigueur
collective action on domestic violence has brought change for women and their
children. Arguing that research findings in Pittplace and Steel site raise issues that lead
to the conclusion that multi-agency domestic violence initiatives are not making women
and children safer and that partnership approaches have, in truth, made little difference
- that there has been 'radical change but no change at all' - is the researcher's main aim
in this thesis.
The thesis develops through seven Chapters to the main conclusion on multi-agency
domestic violence approaches - that there is a disassociation between multi-agency
initiatives on domestic violence and service provision on domestic violence. Early
Chapters highlight that initial responses to domestic violence were grounded in
women's liberation but that more recent developments have occurred in the Home
Office's crime prevention agenda and that, although the organizations responding to
women and children are those that have their roots in the women's movement,
developments on domestic violence are increasingly happening in Home Office crime
prevention circles. The move to the multi-agency approach in such circles is also
documented here. Early Chapters also highlight certain themes - attendance, structures,
outcomes and power - that provide the basis around which the questions, topics and
problematics for the empirical research are organized.
Later Chapters set out the main findings in Pittplace and Steel site. Here, discussion
focuses on the main issues raised in the empirical research that construct the
researcher's main argument. These issues are again discussed under the four main
themes of attendance, structures, outcomes and power. Each issue discussed under
these themes is found to suggest either a disconnection in practice, a perceived
disconnection or a caused disconnection between the initiatives researched and service
provision on domestic violence. How these disconnections lead to the main conclusion
that there is a disassociation between multi-agency initiatives on domestic violence and
service provision on domestic violence and that such initiatives are not making women
and children safer is examined as the thesis draws to a close.