Preventing the ripple-out effect: development of proactive support for the friends and family members of domestic violence survivors

Whilst domestic violence and abuse (DVA) has been historically viewed as a social problem, it has in recent years been recognised as a huge public health concern. We know that support from people close to a survivor can provide a buffer against negative health, impacts on quality of life, and also against future abuse, but little research has been conducted with this group of people.

For her PhD Alison Gregory carried out a study which explored the health and wellbeing impacts for those providing informal support to survivors (friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbours) - ‘On the outside looking in: the shared burden of domestic violence’. Building on the findings from this work, ‘preventing the ripple-out effect’ explores avenues of support which could be developed to help informal supporters help-seek and self-care, so that they in turn might be better equipped to support survivors.

This research has been funded by the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute as an Early Career Fellowship and runs until March 2017