Impact case study database

Despite national policy calls for wider and fairer access to UK higher education and the creation of an Office for Fair Access in 1994, students from ethnic minority groups and socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds remained strikingly under-represented at higher-tariff universities throughout the 1990s, 2000s and early 2010s. Professor Boliver’s work successfully highlighted the role played by inequitable university admissions practices and recommended changes that have influenced both government policies and university practices, resulting in a sustained trend towards more equitable access to higher-tariff universities for those from different ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

Reducing ethnic inequalities in admission to higher-tariff universities

Professor Boliver’s research highlighting ethnic bias in admissions decision-making at higher-tariff UK universities began to make an important contribution to the policy discourse when the Social Mobility Commission used it in a series of reports on the issue [E1]. The Commission cited the research findings [R1] in its June 2013 report Higher Education: The Fair Access Challenge [E1a] and in February 2015 Professor Boliver presented the research to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community chaired by David Lammy MP in Parliament . In March 2015, another Social Mobility Commission report entitled Data and public policy: trying to make social progress blindfolded [E1b] drew on Professor Boliver’s research [R1] echoing her concerns about UCAS’s decision to stop sharing microdata with researchers and policy-makers, arguing that “ The social mobility implications of this are illustrated by research carried out by Durham University’s Vikki Boliver. Using UCAS data, Boliver found that ethnic minority and state school applicants to Russell Group universities have to significantly out-perform their respective white and privately educated peers before they are as likely to be offered places […] Obtaining a better understanding of social mobility in the UK requires that researchers and policy-makers have access to UCAS-controlled data.”

The UK government began to take interest in Professor Boliver’s research [E2], the then Prime Minister David Cameron citing the research findings [R1 & R2] and championing the call to tackle unconscious bias in an article he authored for The Guardian in October 2015 [E2a], stating “… research has shown that top universities make offers to 55% of white applicants, but only to 23% of black ones. The reasons are complex, but unconscious bias is clearly a risk. So we have agreed with UCAS that it will make its applications name-blind, too, from 2017”. Professor Boliver was invited to 10 Downing Street in February 2016 to contribute to a roundtable discussion of Social Mobility and Diversity where, drawing on R1 & R2, she called for government to require universities to publish detailed admissions statistics annually to increase transparency and accountability, to challenge UCAS over its withholding of microdata from researchers and policy-makers, and to press universities to tackle ethnic biases in university admissions decisions. Each of these recommendations subsequently featured in the Higher Education White Paper published in May 2016 [E2b], in which the UK government announced its intention to (a) “ place a duty on institutions to publish application, offer, acceptance and progression rates, broken down by gender, ethnicity and disadvantage” (b) “ legislate to require those organisations who provide shared central admissions services (such as UCAS) to share relevant data they hold with Government and researchers in order to help improve policies designed to increase social mobility” and (c) “ consult the higher education sector on the feasibility of introducing name-blind applications for prospective students [which…] will potentially help reduce unfairness and inequality” (p.41).

The key beneficiary of this impact has been prospective students from the Black ethnic group, whose rates of entry to higher-tariff UK universities rose significantly from 4.4% in 2012 to 11.4% in 2020, with a corresponding reduction in the entry ratio for White relative to Black students from 2-to-1 to 1.1-to-1 [E3]. In his testimonial letter [E4], the Chair of All Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community, David Lammy MP, said: “ Professor Boliver provided the academic evidence required to underpin the political argument for changes to University admissions policy and practice. Critically, her work helped cement the case for the mandatory publication of annual admissions statistics broken down by ethnic group for every UK university. I have no doubt that through bringing this evidence into the public and political consciousness, Professor Boliver has made a significant contribution to driving the subsequent changes observed within University admissions policy and practice leading to an improved representation of BAME students at the UK’s most academically selective universities.”

Reducing socioeconomic inequalities in admission to higher-tariff universities

Subsequent research by Professor Boliver and colleagues on the use of contextualised admissions practices has been used by the Scottish Government [E5] and by the English Office for Students [E6] to promote the wider and bolder use of contextualised offer making, which is recognised as a key driver of reinvigorated national widening participation and fair access policies which aim to eliminate socioeconomic inequalities in access to higher education within a generation.

Professor Boliver’s research for the Scottish Funding Council [R3 & R6] has been used to support Scotland Government policies requiring the introduction of significantly lower academic entry requirements for contextually disadvantaged university applicants across Scotland and has spurred the Scottish Government to begin making individual-level rather than area-level indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage available for contextual offer making purposes. This latter research recommendation was endorsed by the Scottish Commission on Widening Access, which in its 2016 report entitled A Blueprint for Fairness [E5a] recommended the development of “ a consistent and robust set of measures to identify access students” which “ take account of the findings from SFC funded research on the use of contextual data in undergraduate university admissions being undertaken by Durham University” (p.66); as well as by the Scottish Commissioner for Fair Access who in his 2017 report Laying the Foundations for Fair Access [E5b] endorsed the Durham team’s “ *useful distinction between indicators which carry minimal risk of incorrectly identifying an individual as disadvantaged when they are not (such as eligibility for free school meals) [and] indicators that should be used with caution as they do carry such a risk (such as residence in a SIMD area)*” (p.30). A subsequent research report entitled Identifying Access Students published by the Scottish Government in 2019 [E5c] builds explicitly on the Durham team’s research [R3] to recommend that “ [a] multiple-year Free School Meals registration measure should be included in the set of measures” used to identify widening access students (p.18). Following the publication of the Durham team’s research, Professor Boliver has played a direct role in helping to implement the Scottish Government’s ambitious fair access policies, having been invited to serve as the academic expert member of the Scottish Framework for Fair Access Development Group, charged with developing an evidence-based toolkit and community of practice to foster fairer access to higher education in Scotland (2017-2018), and as the academic expert member of the Scottish Government’s Access Delivery Group, charged with implementing the recommendations of the Commission on Widening Access including the wider and bolder use of contextualised offer making (2018 onwards).

Similarly in England, Professor Boliver and colleagues’ research has been used by the Office for Students to support its advocacy of more ambitious contextualised admissions practices as a vital means of equalising access to higher-tariff universities in England [E6]. The Office for Students’ 2019 briefing to the sector entitled Contextualised Admissions: Promoting Fairness and Rethinking Merit [E6a] cites seven different research outputs authored by Professor Boliver and her team to argue that “ [t]here is a case for rethinking how merit is judged in admissions [since] focusing only on the top A-levels means that the potential of disadvantaged students is being overlooked” supported by a reference to a key finding of the research that “lowering advertised grades at high-tariff providers to BCC, for example, would broaden the pool of available applicants without a marked fall in academic standards.” In the same briefing, the Office for Students also acknowledged the limitations of area-level measures of contextual disadvantage including its own preferred measure, the local HE participation rate (known as POLAR), citing the Durham team’s research [R3] as showing that “ the most robust measure of disadvantage is whether or not a child receives free school meals for a sustained period of time.” (p.4). In its subsequent 2019 Annual Review [E6b], the Office for Students drew again on the research to argue that “ access for disadvantaged students, and good outcomes, are not a zero-sum game. Research shows that if students from disadvantaged backgrounds…are given the support they need during their studies – they can end up performing just as well as, if not better than, their more privileged peers.” (p19). The Access and Participation Plans for 2020-2024 submitted to the Office for Students by higher-tariff universities in England show that contextualised admissions has now become mainstream, with all 25 higher-tariff universities in England now taking contextual data into consideration when making admissions decisions, 20 committing to reducing entry requirements for contextually disadvantaged applicants, and 9 [E6c] citing directly the research by Professor Boliver and her team.

The key beneficiaries of the impact of this research have been prospective university students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds whose school attainment would previously have rendered them ineligible to enrol in higher-tariff universities. Contextualised admissions practices have enabled Scottish universities to make sustained progress towards a more equitable ratio of entrants from Scotland’s least-deprived as compared to most-deprived communities, down from 4-to-1 in 2014 to 3.2-to-1 in 2020 [E3]. Similarly, in England, contextualised admissions practices have reduced the ratio of entrants to higher-tariff universities from high as compared to low HE participation area from 6.7-to-1 in 2014 to 4.7-to-1 in 2020, and from non-FSM as compared to FSM backgrounds from 4.3-to-1 to 3.2-to-1 over the same period [E3].

In his testimonial letter [E7], the Director for Fair Access and Participation at the Office for Students, Christopher Millward, said: “ *When I was appointed in 2018 [… I] visited universities across England to understand and discuss their work, and gave presentations to influential groups of practitioners and senior management such as the Russell Group to set out our emerging strategy for access and participation. As part of this work, I regularly used data and recommendations from Vikki’s research in order to define fair equality of opportunity, to demonstrate the current priorities of admissions practitioners and their implications for higher education access, and to show what students from under-represented groups could achieve given contextual offers and appropriate support on course. Building on these discussions, OfS […] published guidance on our new regulatory requirements in 2019. For the most selective universities, the guidance required targets to be set to reduce the gap in access between the most and least represented groups and to set out the measures that would be put in place to achieve this. In order to inform these targets and measures prior to submission of plans, we published an Insight Brief in May 2019 on contextual admissions, drawing extensively on Vikki’s research, and we held an event with sector practitioners, to which Vikki gave a keynote speech. We also drew attention to Vikki’s research in our guidance on effective practice, which was published alongside our regulatory guidance. As a result of this, all of the selective universities identified how contextual admissions would support the delivery of the targets within 5 year plans submitted later that month and we will be asking them to report on the impact of these measures during the coming years. We anticipate that this could lead to 6,500 more students entering the most selective universities each year by the end of the current plans. […] Around £1 billion is now invested in this work every year, but the activity has too rarely been based on conceptual clarity about the case for it and the evidence needed to shape, evaluate and improve it. In the case of contextual admissions, the imperative for this is particularly strong because it is controversial and contested by groups representing those who are perceived to miss out. Vikki’s research has been central to addressing these concerns, to the extent that contextual admissions are now central to admissions in all of the most selective universities in England.*”

Hackett’s body of research on children and young people with HSB has impacted on policy, practice and services from 2013 onwards (to present) and enhanced awareness in three main areas. This has been achieved as a result of the research:

1) Leading to the UK’s first public health guidance on HSB in childhood; 2) Producing evidence-based tools and products that have enhanced child protection professionals’ screening and assessment practices in the UK and internationally; and 3) Strengthening the integration of inter-agency practices through the provision of an operational framework adopted widely by child protection agencies across the UK and NHS England to audit and improve services.

NICE (2016) published the UK’s first national public health guidelines on HSB in childhood and described these as being ‘based on the best available evidence’. Hackett’s (2016) definition of HSB has been foundational to these guidelines [E1a], which are further underpinned by two funded systematic reviews [E1b, E1c] undertaken for NICE by Hackett and Campbell. These reviews represented the first appraisal of the quality of existing quantitative and qualitative evidence on HSB, leading to challenges to orthodox thinking in the field. Hackett gave evidence [E1d, E1e] to the NICE Public Health Advisory Committee on the nature and epidemiology of HSB in childhood drawing on research findings on the long-term outcomes for this group of children. The NICE guidelines have had significant impact in the UK, helping to reframe and move practice in health and social care settings towards assessment and early intervention approaches for both children with problematic sexual behaviours and adolescents who have sexually offended. The impact Hackett had over NICE has, in turn, had broader influence in informing policy development in the UK with the NSPCC [E2b] and internationally where, for example, Dale Tolliday, Advisor Sexual and Violent Behaviour, New South Wales Health (Australia), [E3a] describes the systematic reviews [E1b, E1c] as vital for the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse’s understanding of the best international evidence-base. Hackett’s research was cited 140 times by this Commission. Hackett has also given expert testimony on HSB (in 2018 and 2019) to the ongoing Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales and to the Council of Europe’s high-level conference on the Strategy for the Rights of the Child (2016-2021).

DU research is now used as the key reference point across the major UK national organisations and stakeholders working in this field (all of whom shape and influence grassroots practice in, for example youth justice, youth work and social work) including NSPCC [E2a], Barnardo’s [E4a] and the Home Office. For example, the Home Office funded Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse (2018) [E4b] cites Hackett’s publications 29 times and an NSPCC [E2b] briefing does so 10 times. Hackett’s research (cited 8 times) is built into the 2018 ‘T oolkit for professionals working with children and young people presenting with HSB’ published jointly by the Children’s Society, Victim Support and the National Police Chief’s Council. This research now underpins most existing local authority guidance on this issue (e.g. policies of the safeguarding partnerships in Yorkshire, Wiltshire, Calderdale, Merton, Birmingham, Devon, Brighton) [E2a and E5], ensuring a consistent approach to young people displaying HSB. This step change in consistency and practical understanding materially addresses the policy gaps identified in R1.

R1 identified a postcode lottery in relation to the availability of services and significant inconsistencies in assessment approaches which led to concern about fairness, justice and effective risk management of cases across different geographical areas and sectors. DU research has therefore produced a number of evidence-based specific resources in order to enhance professional responses and improve consistency of approach. Hackett’s 2010 Continuum of Sexual Behaviour model and his subsequent 2014 research review [R4] were written to support professionals to differentiate between normal, problematic and harmful sexual behaviours at different stages of children’s and young people’s development. The continuum model has been widely adopted as a core theoretical model in the field throughout the UK, Europe and internationally. For example, the Durham research [R2] is embedded into ‘ Part five: Child on Child Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment’ of the Department for Education’s statutory guidance (September 2020) Keeping children safe in education, contributing to a more consistent approach and reframing of attitudes and support towards young people [E6]. The NICE guidelines and Australian Royal Commission also recommended the continuum model for use as a screening tool to support professionals in determining responses to children. Tolliday [E3] describes the relationship between the Australian Royal Commission, the uptake of Hackett’s continuum model and the NICE systematic reviews as a “brilliant alignment” that allowed Australian researchers to advocate for a common approach across different cultural contexts. This has led directly, according to Tolliday, to recommendation 10.3 in the Australian Royal Commission final report for proportionate and supportive interventions for all children affected by HSB, leading to a complete overhaul and restructuring of services across Australia [E3].

For children and young people who require a professional response as a result of their sexual behaviour, an in-depth holistic assessment is recognised as a key element. The AIM project provides sector-leading training in the field of HSB, and has developed an original suite of assessment tools rooted in DU research. R4 provided the underpinning evidence-base for the development of the latest (2019) version of an assessment tool (AIM3) relating to young people with HSB. Developed by Hackett (with Leonard) AIM3 [E7a] provides a new approach to assessment and a comprehensive tool and manual that is one of the most used globally, in the field [E7b]. AIM3 represents more than simply ‘AIM2 plus’. Commenting in the foreword to the new assessment tool, Pat Branigan describes it as a “powerful and intuitive way to develop bespoke safety plans and targeted interventions…this clear link between assessment, analysis and intervention is a huge and welcome step forward…this excellent tool will play a key role in ushering in the holistic, integrated and more timely HSB risk assessment response that is so much needed” (E7a, page 3). The Director of AIM, states [E7b], “the people we’re training,…they love the model, they love its simplicity…that it’s holistic and…that they are taking into account different aspects of the young person, so therefore, Simon’s work is having a massive impact on practice.” The Director of AIM, further describes how the implementation of the new AIM3 assessment tool across the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, USA, Canada and Spain is a step change in international understandings of assessment on HSB, providing a more dynamic, strengths-based and developmentally-sensitive model of assessment that sees the child and their behaviour in context. [E7c]. This widespread use of AIM3 across all parts of the UK and beyond has, in large part, reversed the inconsistencies in assessment practices and approaches first highlighted in R1.

DU [R1 and R3] identified significant problems in the co-ordination between agencies at national and local levels with resultant inconsistencies and weaknesses in interagency responses to HSB. In the absence of a national government strategy on this topic, Hackett worked in partnership with NSPCC to develop an evidence-based national operational framework to act as a platform for changing interagency practice and for supporting local areas to improve their services [E2a]. The framework and audit tool was piloted in 2016 across 8 local areas and was extended in 2017 to a further 10 local areas. The framework is now used by agencies Agencies throughout the UK including all five health trusts in Northern Ireland (backed by a judicial review which recommended its use), all 30 child protection committees in Scotland, all 22 North Wales local authority areas and approximately 50 local child protection partnership areas throughout England [E2a]. The framework [E2c], first authored by Hackett, is substantially underpinned by R4, citing DU research 34 times. The freely accessible resource provides a multi-agency continuum of responses, tools, practical examples, key principles and an audit checklist that draw on the latest evidence to support practice and decision making in the field. Central to the model is the repeated use of the audit tool so that each local area can measure impact and progress over time. The first edition of the framework was published in 2016 with a second, updated edition published in 2019 as a collaborative project between DU, NSPCC, NHS England, and Research in Practice. Hackett has presented on the framework at key international conferences in the UK, Australia, USA and at the Council of Europe. In 2018, the framework was shortlisted for a Children and Young People Now award in recognition of its impact on partnership working across the sector.

More generally, interest in the (2019) second edition of the framework shows an exponential spread of the resource, totalling 3,226 agency downloads from 11 Feb 2019 to 11 Nov 2020 and audit launch events undertaken in over 50 areas [E2a]. As a set of conceptual and practical tools, the framework has now saturated the UK child protection landscape with broad and profound impact upon local area systems and practices. For example, in testimony for NSPCC, Sarah O’Brien, Strategic Director for St Helen’s Council comments [E5]: “I would absolutely say to any other local authority area that the framework…has been a really, really powerful tool for St Helens. It was a framework that we could galvanise all the partners on and it wasn’t just that the framework and filling in the audit, all the supporting materials that came with it and some of the videos….has been really, really useful in St Helens”. The impact of the framework has been widespread. It has, for example, been central to Nottinghamshire Council’s response to its historical failure to protect children in care from sexual abuse, as investigated by IICSA, through the commissioning of an independent audit of its service by NSPCC using the framework [E2a]. The framework has been recommended as a model of best practice for Australia by the Australian Royal Commission and Hackett has worked with the state government in New South Wales to support their own development of a version of the framework as a central plank in their response to the Australian Royal Commission recommendations [E3].

Finally, the framework has considerably enhanced both the scope and scale of NSPCC’s work on HSB. In 2019, NHS England officially adopted the framework and Hackett worked with NSPCC to produce additional guidance and resources for NHS staff which integrate his own continuum model with the well-known Brook traffic light tool. These NHS resources have been disseminated widely in the health sector, with 18,701 downloads between 19 February 2019 and 30 September 2019. Pat Branigan, the NSPCC’s HSB Lead [E2a] explains how transformative the framework has been for the NSPCC itself, as a model of how the organisation can contribute to systemic change across other agencies. He says that the framework has been “A game changer. If you have a local area talking and using the same language, all of a sudden they are recognising and responding in the same way. It just makes sense…. So, it’s a cultural change mechanism as well. And it’s certainly helped us as an organisation have a much more consistent and coherent response.” He concludes that “the framework and the success of it has given the organisation confidence to be more upfront and open about how we work with HSB” [E2a].

In 2010, before Project Mirabal, domestic violence perpetrators were rarely mentioned in policy documents, organisations working with perpetrators struggled to gain funding, and the efficacy of interventions were frequently questioned. Without a UK evidence base on the outcomes for victims and children related to perpetrator attendance at a DVPP, it was difficult to make a convincing argument for policy or funding commitments. 10 years on, in 2020, perpetrators have been included in the Domestic Abuse Bill 2020, nearly 100 organisations have signed a Call to Action for a domestic abuse perpetrator strategy for England and Wales, DVPPs are included in the End Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy 2016-20, and there is greater confidence and clarity that can be given to policy makers, funders, and multi-agency partners about the ability of DVPPs to change the behaviour of violent men and improve safety and freedom for women and children. A series of engagement activities including briefing notes, open access journal papers, a website with videos and tools for practitioners (www.projectmirabal.co.uk\), meetings with policy makers, and collaborations with voluntary and statutory sector organisations over a 10-year period has meant that Project Mirabal has provided a central contribution to these achievements.

Recognition that there was, for the first time, evidence that DVPPs could create behaviour change for some perpetrators was publicly acknowledged the day the final report [R3] was launched in 2015 by Theresa May, then Home Secretary, who stated that the findings provided ‘ valuable insights into the effectiveness of domestic violence perpetrator programmes’ and announced that the research would support a shift towards addressing the ‘root causes’ of domestic violence [E1]. Project Mirabal findings were then used to guide the perpetrators section of the UK Government’s ‘Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy 2016-20’ [E2], which outlined the priorities, actions and investment into initiatives aimed at preventing violence and abuse. The strategy draws directly on R3 in the section ‘Perpetrators: Changing behaviours to prevent abuse and reduce offending’ stating ‘ *Within domestic abuse, there are high levels of repeat victimisation and less than 1% of perpetrators receive a specialist intervention. Previously, the evidence base for perpetrator interventions has been mixed, contributing to a shortage of such programmes. However, local areas are increasingly recognising the importance of tackling perpetrators as the root cause of abuse, drawing on a growing evidence base for their value as illustrated by the recent Mirabal project findings.*’

Respect, the national charity leading the development of safe, effective work with perpetrators, used the Mirabal findings as the primary evidence that DVPPs work for men who are ready, willing, and able to change, and to lobby government and other agencies and make the case for DVPPs.  Respect CEO, Jo Todd, said that she has ‘ been able to cite Project Mirabal findings with policy makers within the Home Office, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and with funders and commissioners to advocate for DVPPs’, saying that since Mirabal ‘ it’s clear that this has gone up the priority list’ [E3]. Additionally, Respect, working with the Drive Project, (a partnership between Respect, SafeLives and Social Finance established to address a gap in work with high-harm perpetrators of domestic abuse) were able to cite the Mirabal findings as an example of the ‘ growing body of research to demonstrate the effectiveness of quality-assured interventions’ in the ‘Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Strategy for England and Wales – Call to Action’[E4]. This publication, signed by a broad coalition including 65 third sector organisations, police forces/crime commissioners and businesses calls on the UK Government to include a perpetrator strategy as part of the Domestic Abuse Bill 2019-21.

The impact that the Mirabal findings had on providing an evidence base for intervening with perpetrators has been described by Thangam Debbonaire MP as a core reason for the greater inclusion of perpetrators in the Domestic Abuse Bill. Debbonaire used the findings in a meeting with Victoria Atkins MP in her role as Minister for Women, distributing hard copies of the final report [R3] to give the academic weight when lobbying for this. In her Commons speech for the second reading of the ‘Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence’ (Ratification of Convention) Bill, Debbonaire quoted Mirabal extensively stating ‘ they [Westmarland et al.] found that most men who completed a Respect-accredited domestic violence perpetrator programme…stop using violence and reduce the instance of most other forms of abuse against their partner. At the start, almost all the women said that their partners had used some form of physical or sexual violence in the past three months. Twelve months later, the research team found that after their partner or ex-partner had completed the programme, most women said that the physical and sexual violence had stopped—most, but not all.’ [E5a]

In a separate testimonial interview, Debbonaire argued that Project Mirabal has been an important factor in formal and informal lobbying for more perpetrator interventions, using it in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on domestic violence perpetrators, briefing various MPs including front benchers about evidence on DVPPs, and raising DVPPs and Mirabal in Oral questions including in Justice and Home Office. She states: ‘Having such rigorous academic research, it’s not the only reason why we’ve got perpetrators in the Bill – but it wasn’t in at all before and if it wasn’t for Mirabal findings making their way to ministerial eyes and for MPs to use that in internal and external lobbyists then it still might not be.’ [E5b]

At an international level, Project Mirabal has been hailed as ground-breaking because it represents a radically different, wider way of understanding and measuring behaviour change. This broader approach (R1 and R3) has been cited in international plans, frameworks and policies. The Council of Europe ‘Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence’, which came into force in August 2014, places obligations on member states to take action to prevent violence against women. Article 16 requires state parties to set up or support programmes for domestic violence perpetrators (Article 16, paragraph 1). The Council of Europe produced a supporting publication ‘Domestic and Sexual Violence Perpetrator Programmes: Article 16 of the Istanbul Convention’, which provides practical, evidence-based advice to policymakers and practitioners across all 47 Council of Europe member states on the design of the required intervention programmes. This document highlights the need for defining success in DVPPs and identifies the six Mirabal measures as a means to achieve this, describing them as ‘ a nuanced and subtle understanding of success’ which is ‘ more realistic and grounded’ and which focus on ‘ much more than just ending the violent behaviour of the perpetrator’. [E6]

The six measures of success influenced the Australian Royal Commission into Family Violence which was established in 2015 in response to a number of family violence related deaths in the state of Victoria. In its summary and recommendations report (2016), Project Mirabal is referenced on ten occasions [E7a]. The report lists key findings from the six Project Mirabal measures of success and these are acknowledged as having ‘shifted the focus’ of DVPPs (or MBCPs – Men’s Behaviour Change Programmes in Australia). The Mirabal finding that the length and depth of programmes was important to creating change was also used to provide empirical evidence to claims made by witnesses to the Commission that programme duration was important. Recommendation 86 of the Royal Commission into Family Violence was that the Victorian Government convene a committee of experts on perpetrator interventions and behaviour change programmes to advise the government on what should be available in Victoria [E7a]. Westmarland was one of two international experts invited to join the Commission’s Expert Advisory Committee on Perpetrator Interventions. Westmarland provided advice based on Project Mirabal findings in Commission meetings and presented the findings in person to the Special Minister of State, Gavin Jennings. The Mirabal measures were identified by the Advisory Committee report as an innovative way of providing a consistent way of measuring success of DVPPs concluding that ‘ A common evaluation framework for perpetrator interventions could address some of the challenges [with inconsistency of evaluating outcomes outlined earlier in the report] … and set out some general principles to ensure rigour and consistency in evaluations and better comparison of outcomes’ [E7b]. Committee members were noted as making a vital contribution to the Victorian Government’s family reform agenda, and Westmarland was personally thanked for her expertise and experience which Jennings described as ‘ invaluable.’ [E7c].

Alongside the high-level contributions of Project Mirabal to changes in policy there have been a series of direct service level improvements in the way DVPPs actually carry out their behaviour change interventions. The changes stem from the nuance in the findings (not just ‘they don’t work, or ‘they do work’) [R3], and the new knowledge about how change happens [R1-6]. For example, many DVPPs were concerned about the Mirabal finding that financial abuse only reduced very slightly after attendance on a DVPP. The Domestic Violence Intervention Project (DVIP) in London (the largest DVPP in England and Wales) arranged a workshop for their staff to discuss how best to respond to this finding, which they described as ‘ a wake up call’, particularly given that they report most of their work is not about physical violence but coercive control. The evidence pointed to a need to increase the focus on non-physical abuse, resulting in the financial abuse part of the manual that the DVPP is based on and, which provides the materials their facilitators all follow, being re-written [E8a].

In Scotland, a national set of programmes called the Caledonian Model work with criminal justice as well as community referrals. Specifically, the Caledonian Model ‘programme theory manual’, the guide which summarises the evidence base and that programme managers and facilitators use to underpin their practice, references Mirabal and lists the six measures in relation the fact that it ‘ considers men’s programmes as part of an integrated system and a co-ordinated community response’ rather than as isolated interventions. [E8b].

The ‘Time Out Technique’ is a temporary interruption technique which requires the perpetrator to remove themselves from a situation. There are rules about what the perpetrator should do and not do during the Time Out. Project Mirabal research [R5] found that Time Outs were used in different ways, and sometimes misappropriated by perpetrators to extend their controlling behaviour. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS), Ministry of Justice, changed their digital media content on the Time Out Technique to take into account Mirabal research including how to reduce the potential for misappropriation [R5]. According to Jason Morris, Senior Interventions Design Manager for DVPPs at NOMS, Westmarland ‘ used her expertise to supervise this piece to ensure that it was as consistent as possible with the evidence-base.' This new digital media clip was then rolled out across the National Probation Service and also broadcast on the WayOut TV channel in 50 prisons.

Mirabal has brought a greater level of sophistication to understandings of what compromises success and in as such has become the ‘go to research’ that is cited by practitioners, particularly in the UK, Australia, and the US, when the question of whether DPVPs ‘work’ is raised. This is important in ensuring that DVPPs continue to develop to be as effective as possible. Stephen Madill, Senior Social Worker at Safer Families Edinburgh states ‘ I’ve noticed a difference when you’re able to talk about the Mirabal data and specific items that have led to less cynicism, not so many sceptical looks on people’s faces, and this been a journey for workers over the last 30 years.’ [E9a]. In the USA, New York City Administration for Children’s Services conducted a three-year demonstration project, providing prevention and clinical services to families who are involved in child welfare and impacted by domestic violence, using ‘ tools provided by Project Mirabal as the framework for measuring program impact on participants’ [E9b]. Similarly in Australia, Rodney Vlais, policy analyst, writer, researcher and trainer in family and domestic violence perpetrator interventions and intervention systems nationally states that in Australia, ‘ It would be uncommon for anyone providing a presentation or responding to queries about the effectiveness of men's behaviour change programs without at least mentioning this research and its findings.’ [E9c].

In November 2019 Westmarland was awarded the ‘Ed Gondolf COMPASS Award’ in the USA, which ‘ recognizes and honors those who have significantly guided and expanded efforts to protect survivors through advancing and evaluating accountable perpetrator intervention research and programming’ for the ‘ importance, significance and tangible contribution it [Mirabal] has made’ toward intervention programmes around the world. [E10]