Respect
Respect is a membership organisation leading on the development of safe and effective work with perpetrators, male victims, and young people using violence in their close relationships.
The Drive Partnership
SafeLives, Respect and Social Finance came together in 2015 to form the Drive Partnership. We had a shared ambition to change the way statutory and voluntary agencies respond to high-harm, high-risk perpetrators of domestic abuse.
Today, the Drive Partnership continues to work to transform the national response to perpetrators of domestic abuse, by disrupting, challenging and changing the behaviour of those who are causing harm.
The Drive partners provide ongoing governance and leadership for all of our work through a joint project board. We also advocate as a partnership for systems and policy change – to develop sustainable, national systems that respond more effectively to all perpetrators of domestic abuse.
The Drive Project
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.
In 2025, the Home Office announced a four-year funding programme to scale the Drive Project across England and Wales.
82%
Reduction in physical abuse
88%
Reduction in sexual abuse
82%
Moderate or significant reduction of risk to the victim-survivor in 82% of cases
Findings from the 2019 University of Bristol report into the Drive Project Pilot: The Drive Project – a pilot to address perpetrators of domestic abuse.
Safelives
SafeLives is the UK-wide charity dedicated to ending domestic abuse for good. SafeLives works with organisations across the UK to transform responses to domestic abuse.
Social Finance
Social Finance is a not-for-profit organisation that partners with government, the social sector and the financial community to find new ways of tackling social problems.
10 years of the Drive Partnership
7,000
perpetrators engaged in programmes
9,000
9,000 adult victim-survivors supported
15,000
15,000 child victim-survivors supported
We have:
- Contributed to the evidence base on interventions for high-risk perpetrators
- Made victim-survivors and families safer – verified in independent academic research
- Advocated at a national level to influence the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan 2022, and the inclusion of perpetrators as an explicit focus in the government’s violence against women and girls strategy
- Received national recognition for the Drive Project as best practice for multi-agency work with perpetrators, cited in the Domestic Abuse Plan and the violence against women and girls ‘Freedom from Violence and Abuse’ strategy 2025
- Established the Action on Perpetrators Network, with 230 members who share learnings and best practice, and advocate for action on perpetrators
Domestic abuse – a pattern of controlling, coercive or violent behaviour, including sexual violence, usually by a partner or ex-partner, it is most often experienced by women and perpetrated by men
Perpetrator – the person committing the abuse
Service user – the perpetrator engaging in our intervention
Victim-survivor – someone who has experienced or is experiencing domestic abuse
MARAC – Multi-agency Risk Assessment Conference, where agencies (police, health, child protection etc.) discuss high-risk domestic abuse cases
IDVA – Independent Domestic Violence Adviser, who works with victim-survivors and their families
CHIDVA – Children’s Independent Domestic Violence Adviser, who supports children as victim-survivors of domestic violence in their own right
