Victim-Survivor Support and Advocacy

Our workstreams often involve victims and survivors, and as such, we take a pro-active approach to ensuring their voices and experiences are considered and included in all appropriate research projects.

We also work with and consider 'marginalised groups' – those who are at risk of being subjected to discrimination due to the interplay of personal characteristics or grounds that include age, gender, health status, disability, socio-economic level or other factors. We work to understand marginalised groups in the UK and beyond, including, but not limited to, people with disabilities, low-income groups, migrants and refugees, ethnic minorities, women, children, and LGBTQ+ individuals.

 We work closely with police services, non-government organisations, and other external agencies to conduct robust, evidenced-based research in diverse areas, such as child sexual abuse, violence against women and girls, and vulnerabilities of neurodiverse groups, to better equip policing and other public sector agencies to identify and support marginalised groups.

Our work and research centres on the following themes:

• Working collaboratively with the Victim Survivor Consultative Panel, experts with lived experience, and victim and survivor support organisations to ensure this theme is sensitive and empowering to victims and survivors, and that our language is appropriate and consistent.
• Developing and sharing best practice regarding how to ensure victims and survivors have 'a meaningful seat at the table' in relation to policy and practice responses tackling child sexual abuse and sexual violence.
• Identifying and filling research gaps to elevate the unknown or hidden experiences of victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and sexual violence, such as developing co-produced research with children and young people in these spaces and exploring the impacts of intersectionality among victims and survivors.
• Understanding the heightened risk marginalised groups face of being victims of crime, particularly in the areas of child sexual abuse, and violence against women and girls.
• The international context of research on marginalised groups: exploring global and comparative approaches and further developing the role of police and other agencies in reducing vulnerabilities and responding to victimisation and/or offending of marginalised groups.