Lessons Learned from the Restart Programme and Key Standards for Developing a Perpetrator Housing Pathway
5th March 2025
The Drive Partnership is pleased to share a new report, ‘Lessons Learned from the Restart Programme and Key Standards for Developing a Perpetrator Housing Pathway’, developed by Dr Kelly Henderson, Dr Nicole Renehan, and Professor Sarah Wydall, which builds upon learning from the Restart programme to develop key principles and guidance for establishing a sustainable perpetrator housing response.
Restart is an innovative pilot project providing earlier intervention for families at risk of, or experiencing, domestic abuse. It brings together children’s social care, housing and domestic abuse services to identify and respond to patterns of harmful behaviour at an earlier stage. Restart is a collaboration between the Drive Partnership, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, Respect, and Cranstoun, and has been delivered across six London Boroughs.
The report is aimed at local authorities, housing organisations and other services interested in working towards the development of standardisation in the responses across different areas. As outlined in the executive summary, “in seeking to provide a sustainable perpetrator pathway, the report sets the scene on housing in relation to domestic abuse as a barrier for women looking to escape and rebuild their lives. The report covers housing learning to date from the Restart Programme, including barriers to success, and sets key foundations for successfully implementing a perpetrator housing pathway.”
This report is also accompanied by a practical guidance document, ‘Creating a Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Housing Pathway’, developed by the report’s authors to illustrate how legislation and policy can be used to improve practice. The accompanying guidance is aimed at professionals in local authorities, housing organisations and other services who have an interest in standardising responses across areas, establishing key principles, and developing a coherent and sustainable approach to perpetrator housing. As outlined in the introduction, “the guidance considers how local authorities and housing providers in partnership with domestic abuse perpetrator programmes might use legislation and policies in responding to housing needs of perpetrators of domestic abuse in a bid to support victim survivors. The legislation is set out in the appendices of the evidence-based resource.”
Addressing systemic gaps in responses to domestic abuse and those causing harm across housing systems is a key focus of the Drive Partnership’s National Systems Change work, which brings together the insights of survivors, service users, practitioners, specialist organisations, researchers and policy makers to develop sustainable, national systems that respond effectively to domestic abuse to increase the safety of victim-survivors. The publication of this report builds upon existing research and collaborative efforts between the Drive Partnership and wider partners to align domestic abuse and housing professionals for a more effective response to domestic abuse.
The report’s author, Dr Kelly Henderson, said, “Housing intersects with domestic abuse in significant ways, whether through the need for emergency, safe accommodation at crisis points, through housing providers understanding the signs of abuse and being equipped to signpost to early support, to the impact of feeling safe and settled on recovery for victim-survivors, including through the provision of diversionary accommodation for those causing harm.”
Kyla Kirkpatrick, Director of the Drive Partnership, said, “Restart is all about improving the lives of children who are living as victims of domestic abuse. It is vital that we go further and faster to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children, and we believe that housing has a crucial role in helping make this happen. This report underlines the positive impact of the Restart programme for adult and child victim-survivors, and adds further evidence to the case for improved responses to those causing harm across the housing system. This builds upon a key recommendation within the Drive Partnership’s Call for Further Action for the Government to review evidence on risk-managed housing pathways for perpetrators, and explore the adoption of this approach more widely to ensure safe accommodation – at home – for adult and child victim-survivors. We look forward to building on these foundations with Dr Henderson and her team, as well as continuing conversations alongside our partners towards impacting meaningful change across housing and domestic abuse.”
The Restart project originally launched in 2021 to deliver in Camden, Croydon, Havering, Sutton and Westminster. In June 2024, a new site at Barking and Dagenham was added as part of a feasibility study supported by Foundations, What Works Centre for Children & Families within its REACH Plan – a five-year roadmap to find out what works to prevent domestic abuse and support child victims. This protocol summarises plans for a feasibility study of the Restart programme. As of April 2025, Restart is being delivered across five sites in London.