The Drive Project – The Drive Partnership

The Drive Project is our flagship intervention working with those causing harm in their relationships to prevent abusive behaviour and protect victim-survivors. Service users have been assessed as posing a high-risk, high-harm level of domestic abuse to the people that they are in intimate or family relationships with. They also often have multiple needs and are resistant to change. The Drive Project has an intensive case management approach that challenges service users to change and works with partner agencies – like the police and social services – to disrupt abuse.

Our Impact

“The intervention brought a stop to online abuse, which I’d endured for years. I felt me and the children were safer. I felt reassured. He acknowledged his behaviour and apologised, this was by far the biggest thing to take away from this. This was a new person, he would never admit anything, so when he apologised and full acknowledged his behaviour it opened up the door for me to move on and to also gain closure, I never thought this would happen, I had given up hope yet the Drive Project enabled this to be a reality.” Survivor testimony.

“I’d say it’s improved me a lot and it would be beneficial to a lot of people. And it would be wouldn’t it? How would it not be? Learning to control & manage your behaviour. Helping with things you may not be great at.” Drive Project service user.

The Drive Project is currently being delivered in 7 police force areas across England and Wales. From 2016 to 2023, The Drive Project has worked with 4,644 high-risk perpetrators, helping to reduce the risk that they pose, and to keep 5,201 adult victim-survivors and 9,359 children victim-survivors safer.

The University of Bristol undertook an independent, three-year, evaluation of The Drive Project during its first phase of delivery (2016-2019). The evaluation concluded that The Drive Project reduces abuse and the risk perpetrators pose. Key findings include:

Reduction in abuse: The number of Drive service users using each type of DVA behaviour reduced substantially: physical abuse reduced by 82%; sexual abuse reduced by 88%, harassment and stalking behaviours reduced by 75%; and jealous and controlling behaviours reduced by 73%.
Reduction of risk: For the duration of the intervention, IDVAs reported the risk to the victim reduced either moderately or significantly in 82% of cases.
Reduction in repeat and serial perpetrator cases heard at MARAC: MARAC data showed that Drive helped to reduce high-risk perpetration including by serial and repeat perpetrators. Drive repeat and serial cases appeared less often at MARAC than the control group, the difference was statistically significant and was sustained for a year after the case was closed.
Reduction in police involvement: Police data shows a 30% reduction in number of criminal DVA incidents for Drive service users in 6 months after the intervention compared to 6 months before. By comparison, there was no change for control group perpetrators for the same period.