Policy Brief: Measuring the justice outcomes that survivors of intimate partner violence seek

“Measuring the justice outcomes that survivors of intimate partner violence seek: An updated prototype” offers a practical tool designed to help practitioners deliver justice services that are truly people-centred in terms of the outcomes they deliver.

The links below will lead you to the Justice Dashboard where you can read the policy brief and download the printable outcomes measurement tool.

Beginning with a focus on a particularly intractable legal problem – intimate partner violence (IPV) – we carried out qualitative research that identified 21 outcomes that survivors of IPV across three different counties typically seek.

Our next challenge was to understand how progress towards these 21 survivor-centred outcomes could be measured. We consulted eight experts in empirical legal research, restorative justice, and outcomes measurement to find out. In a follow-up study “Measuring the outcomes that survivors of intimate partner violence seek: An updated prototype,” we integrated their advice to develop a survivor-centred outcomes measurement tool.

This tool provides an example of what outcomes-based working in the justice sector can look like. It can be used by practitioners to more holistically understand the kind of help that IPV survivors need, and assess to what extent the help they provide (whether in the form of an intervention or a referral) “works” in the sense of delivering the outcomes that a given client has identified as most important. It also empowers IPV survivors to make their voices heard in the resolution process, and provides new insight into the justice outcomes that IPV survivors seek and achieve.