Foundations publishes Feasibility Study of Restart
5th January 2026
The Drive Partnership welcomes the publication of a Feasibility Study of Restart – the Drive Partnership’s innovative, multi-agency pilot project providing earlier intervention for families at risk of, or experiencing, domestic abuse. Undertaken by research, evaluation and consultancy firm, Cordis Bright, the Feasibility Study was commissioned and published by Foundations, the national What Works Centre for Children & Families, as part of its REACH Plan; a five-year roadmap to find out what works to prevent domestic abuse and support child victims.
The Feasibility Study examines the delivery of Restart, including the underpinning programme theory, evidence base, outcomes and implementation in practice, and considers whether a future impact evaluation of the programme would be possible. The key findings highlight that Restart “addresses a critical gap in support for families affected by domestic abuse, providing timely, coordinated responses to low and medium risk perpetrators”, with effective implementation shaped by local system readiness for Restart, and sets out clear next steps to strengthen delivery, data systems, and evaluation design. Within the report, Safe & Together model implementation’s core aims were also widely endorsed and praised for clarity and emphasis on perpetrator accountability.
Restart, a collaboration between the Drive Partnership, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, Respect, and Cranstoun. Restart works at system and operational level, delivering Safe & Together training level alongside dedicated implementation support for Children’s Social Care, Early Help and housing staff, aiming to improve awareness, knowledge and understanding of domestic abuse across workforces. Restart supports practitioners to identify and respond to patterns of harmful behaviour at an earlier stage at both system level and family level. The Restart intervention aims to increase safety for families by providing short-term, one-to-one interventions with the person causing harm, and parallel, separate support for the non-abusive parent. It is designed to intervene earlier and works to address denial, minimisation, and partner blame to better prepare people for longer-term work. Restart also works with Local Authorities to develop and improve housing pathways for those causing harm to enable adult and child victim-survivors to remain safe and together in their home – temporary, alternative accommodation can also be offered to the person causing harm during the intervention to create safe spaces for both parties to engage with support.
Kyla Kirkpatrick, Director of the Drive Partnership, said: “Children so often experience domestic abuse long before it becomes visible to wider family, friends or services; with crucial opportunities to respond earlier being missed, and the long-lasting impacts throughout life overlooked. Restart has been designed to address these gaps and ensure that families experiencing domestic abuse are identified and responded to earlier, and child and adult victim-survivors can remain safe and together.”
Dr Aoife O’Higgins, Director of Evidence at Foundations, the national What Works Centre for Children & Families commented “We look forward to supporting Restart as they apply learnings from the feasibility study to strengthen the programme and prepare it for a future evaluation. We know from this preliminary work that the programme addresses a critical gap in whole-family and system-focused support. The involvement of experts by experience throughout the study was invaluable and enriched the work by grounding findings in lived experience. Foundations will also be exploring whether elements of Restart, such as Safe & Together can be evaluated in isolation and generate evidence in support of the Restart model.”
Dr Kathryn Lord, Principal Consultant at Cordis Bright added “The feasibility study provides valuable learning for the domestic abuse sector, helping to strengthen earlier, system-wide responses for families and clearly setting out what is needed to support future impact evaluation and evidence-building in this space.”
To read the full report and its findings, please visit this link.