By Shivi Bains, Elizabeth Dunk, Lazaros Gonidis,  Jenna Harewell,Emma Howarth, Claire Powell

  Background - The domestic violence and abuse core outcome set (DVA-COS) is an agreed set of five outcomes intended for use in evaluating interventions for children and their families with experience of domestic abuse. The purpose of a core outcome set is to harmonise outcome measurement, helping to reduce variation in outcome selection and measurement across studies, with the aim of preventing research waste. This minimum, but not exclusive, set of outcomes also aims to ensure interventions capture impact meaningful to all stakeholders, whether through routine data collection within domestic abuse services or as outcomes in trials and research evaluations. Since the development of the DVA-COS, work has been undertaken to consolidate and validate outcome measurement instruments (OMIs) to use within the core outcome set. The work reported here builds on and extends these efforts (Powell, Clark, et al., 2022; Powell, Feder, et al., 2022). Aims Foundations, the national What Works Centre for Children & Families, commissioned a programme of work, comprised of two work packages, to develop and validate OMIs for use in the DVA-COS. This report focuses on work package 1, which sought to identify and appraise measurement tools, using the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) Process, to assess three of the five core outcomes of the DVA-COS: family relationships, feelings of safety, and freedom to go about daily life. Work package 2 sought to validate the Short Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS) for use with child and young people populations with experience of domestic abuse and is reported separately. Methods To meet the aim of work package 1, this project adopted a four-stage process. Within stage A, OMIs were identified through rapid reviews of the domestic abuse literature (peer-reviewed and grey) and through targeted searches of the non-domestic abuse literature; these searches were informed by concept workshops with 15 key stakeholders to highlight priority concepts within the outcomes. In stage B, candidate OMIs and their associated studies were quality appraised, using the COSMIN protocol, and the highest-scoring tools were shortlisted for assessment of their acceptability and feasibility. Feedback workshops and stakeholder votes, held within stage C, determined which tools should proceed to the consensus workshop. Concluding this process (stage D), a consensus workshop was held with 29 domestic abuse practitioners, commissioners, researchers, and survivors to allow stakeholders to discuss and reach agreement on recommending OMIs for the three outcomes. Key findings In total 144 OMIs were identified across all evidence sources and from previous work. A systematic process of conceptual mapping, quality appraisal, and examination of acceptability and feasibility issues resulted in a shortlist of 18 OMIs (seven OMIs mapping to family relationships, six mapping to feelings of safety, and five capturing freedom to go about daily life) for discussion by three stakeholder groups. Of these, eight OMIs (three OMIs for family relationships, three for feelings of safety, and two for freedom to go about daily life) progressed to the final consensus workshop. Votes held during the consensus workshop identified the Children and Families Against Domestic Abuse (CAFADA) Wellbeing and Safety as the preferred OMI to assess two outcomes: family relationships (81.5%) and feelings of safety (74.1%). A provisional recommendation for use of this tool was agreed, given that it was recently developed and so it lacks psychometric validation. Therefore it is recommended that before widespread use, this OMI is subject to further adaptation and evaluation in cooperation with the tool developers. In particular, thought is needed about the tool’s suitability for a wider range of interventions, including those supporting perinatal families or services including the person that harms. No agreement, and therefore no recommendation, was reached for an OMI capturing freedom to go about daily life. Feedback from the consensus workshop highlighted a range of positive attributes that explained the CAFADA Wellbeing and Safety’s high acceptability for use within domestic abuse contexts, such as visually appealing design, trauma-informed and strengths-based language, and the complementary adult and child versions. The consensus workshop also highlighted key areas of development such as removing gendered language, being inclusive of non-traditional family structures, and being accessible to children of different ages or cognitive maturity. Conclusion This work makes important strides towards the realisation of a DVA-COS. It establishes a consensus with respect to the provisional recommendation for use of the CAFADA Wellbeing and Safety scale, in research and practice contexts, to assess feelings of safety and family relationships. This provisional recommendation is dependent on further work being carried out to refine the tool and to evaluate its implementation in real-world contexts and in relation to different types of childand family-focused interventions. The not insignificant challenges of implementing a core outcome set are discussed, including the importance of creating trauma-informed guidance to ensure the DVA-COS adopts a care-first approach and to mitigate any unintended consequences. Key findings In total 144 OMIs were identified across all evidence sources and from previous work. A systematic process of conceptual mapping, quality appraisal, and examination of acceptability and feasibility issues resulted in a shortlist of 18 OMIs (seven OMIs mapping to family relationships, six mapping to feelings of safety, and five capturing freedom to go about daily life) for discussion by three stakeholder groups. Of these, eight OMIs (three OMIs for family relationships, three for feelings of safety, and two for freedom to go about daily life) progressed to the final consensus workshop. Votes held during the consensus workshop identified the Children and Families Against Domestic Abuse (CAFADA) Wellbeing and Safety as the preferred OMI to assess two outcomes: family relationships (81.5%) and feelings of safety (74.1%). A provisional recommendation for use of this tool was agreed, given that it was recently developed and so it lacks psychometric validation. Therefore it is recommended that before widespread use, this OMI is subject to further adaptation and evaluation in cooperation with the tool developers. In particular, thought is needed about the tool’s suitability for a wider range of interventions, including those supporting perinatal families or services including the person that harms. No agreement, and therefore no recommendation, was reached for an OMI capturing freedom to go about daily life. Feedback from the consensus workshop highlighted a range of positive attributes that explained the CAFADA Wellbeing and Safety’s high acceptability for use within domestic abuse contexts, such as visually appealing design, trauma-informed and strengths-based language, and the complementary adult and child versions. The consensus workshop also highlighted key areas of development such as removing gendered language, being inclusive of non-traditional family structures, and being accessible to children of different ages or cognitive maturity. Conclusion This work makes important strides towards the realisation of a DVA-COS. It establishes a consensus with respect to the provisional recommendation for use of the CAFADA Wellbeing and Safety scale, in research and practice contexts, to assess feelings of safety and family relationships. This provisional recommendation is dependent on further work being carried out to refine the tool and to evaluate its implementation in real-world contexts and in relation to different types of childand family-focused interventions. The not insignificant challenges of implementing a core outcome set are discussed, including the importance of creating trauma-informed guidance to ensure the DVA-COS adopts a care-first approach and to mitigate any unintended consequences

Work Package 1.   

Foundations UK: 2025. 126p.

By Brian Taehyuk Keum,  Lianne Wong & Jung Yun Na

Social media is a major vehicle that can facilitate people’s exposure to gun violence and polarized attitudes that favor gun ownership, yet little research has examined how such exposure affects people’s mental health in today’s digital era. To advance empirical research in this area, the current study developed the Gun Violence on Social Media Scale (GVSMS) using best practices in measure development. Items were developed via a literature review, a survey of social media platforms, and an expert review. Exploratory (N = 277) and confirmatory (N = 241) factor analyses yielded a 2-factor structure with the following subscales: (a) Gun Violence Content (4 items); mediated exposure to gun violence through social media content, and (b) Pro-Gun Attitudes (3 items); exposure to polarized pro-gun attitudes on social media. The initial psychometric properties of the GVSMS were adequate. Internal consistency estimates were adequate, and construct validity was established with positive associations with other gun-related measures, negative mental health outcomes (depressive, anxiety and trauma symptoms), and non-significant associations with impression management. Implications for research practice are discussed.

Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma

By Sarah Anderson

Focus on the interconnection of interpersonal violence, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), trauma and justice-involvement has increased interest internationally among policymakers and practitioners working within criminal justice contexts for ‘trauma-informed’ approaches and interventions which facilitate recovery. This article discusses limitations of employing these concepts to make sense of the lives of criminal-justice involved people. Drawing on UK-based research using interviews and collage-workshops to gather autobiographical narratives of 16 repeatedly-criminalised men, a case vignette is presented to show the institutional and structural contexts of interpersonal violence, and the critical role of the criminal justice system (CJS) in obscuring and perpetuating violence. This raises doubt about the CJS's capacity to respond to trauma. The contribution of this article is to integrate theoretical conceptualisations of violence and empirical findings to critique the possibility of trauma-informed practice (TIP) within a criminal justice context.

Howard J. Crim. Justice. 2025;64:24–43 pages

By Jonathan Alexander

"What happens when the defining moment of your life might be a figment of your imagination? How do you understand — and live with — definitive feelings of having been abused when the origin of those feelings won’t adhere to a singular event but are rather diffused across years of experience? In Bullied: The Story of an Abuse, Jonathan Alexander meditates on how, as a young man, he struggled with the realization that the story he’d been telling himself about being abused by a favorite uncle as a child might actually just have been a “story” — a story he told himself and others to justify both his lifelong struggle with anxiety and to explain his attraction to other men. Story though it was, Alexander maintains that some form of abuse did occur. In writing that is at turns reflective, analytic, and hallucinatory, Alexander traces what it means to suffer homophobic abuse when such is diffused across multiple actors and locales, implicating a family, a school, a culture, and a politics — as opposed to a singular individual who just happened to be the only openly gay man in young Alexander’s life. Along the way, Alexander reflects on Jussie Smollett, drug abuse, MAGA-capped boys, sadomasochism, Catholic priests, cruising, teaching young adult fiction about rape, and a host of other oddly but intimately related topics."

Brooklyn, NY: punctum books, 2021. 182p.

By Jennifer E. Storey, Afroditi Pina, and Cherise S. Williams

Victims of stalking suffer severe and varied impacts requiring assessment and treatment. Research to inform support is limited. This study examines a national sample of stalking victims to identify the types and prevalence of impact reported and the predictors of impact. A secondary analysis of 258 stalking cases reported to a stalking charity was conducted. Four categories of victim reported impact were coded; psychological and substance abuse, physical health, practical impact on life, and impact on others. Stalking duration, severity, the diversity of stalking behaviors, and the relationship between the victim and perpetrator were investigated as predictors of impact. In all, 48 types of impact were identified with victims experiencing an average of four types. Psychological impact was the most prevalent (91.5%). Several new forms of impact were identified including a variety of impacts on persons known to the victim (e.g., children, friends) in 35.3% of the sample. Increased diversity of stalking behavior was predictive of impact in all models (explaining 11% of the variance in total impact scores), except for physical impact which was not analyzed due to low prevalence. Stalking impact was prevalent and varied, suggesting that victims (and potentially those close to them) require trauma-informed support from clinicians. Future research should include the development of a stalking impact index to improve the consistency of research and clinical assessment of need.

Canterbury, UK: Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2023. 26p.