Why are so many referrals into refuge unsuccessful?

On Track is Women’s Aid’s bespoke case management and outcomes monitoring system and is currently used by over 100 local domestic services. Where organisations and service users’ consent, the data collected by keyworkers contributes to a national dataset held by the research team at Women’s Aid. Thanks to our member services and other domestic abuse services using the system, the On Track national dataset is the largest dataset in England on the experiences of survivors accessing domestic abuse services. We also want to thank On Track user organisations, their key workers, and their clients for their immense contribution to our national dataset, enabling us to put the lived experiences of survivors at the heart of our work.

Since 2016 we have used On Track data to report on the national demand for refuge services in our Annual Audit reports which have consistently shown that over 60.0% of referrals into refuge services are unsuccessful in each financial year. To investigate why this figure is so high, we conducted analysis using On Track referrals data from 62 refuges across England in the financial year 2022-23.

We found three most common reasons why referrals were unsuccessful:

• The refuge did not have the capacity to support the client / survivor: 40.6% of unsuccessful referrals. This includes when the refuge did not have an available bedspace or when a service did not have the resources to meet the needs of the survivor.
• The client / survivor did not accept the refuge space: 35.4% unsuccessful referrals. When someone is still experiencing domestic abuse, entering a refuge is complicated and dangerous leading to situations where survivors are prevented from accessing support services, or changing their mind about accessing support. There are also situations where survivors will decline support when it because the location of the refuge is too close to the perpetrator’s residence, the location of the refuge would cause disruption to their caring responsibilities, or because they are unable to afford the refuge space.
• An inappropriate referral was made on behalf of a client / survivor: 18.0% unsuccessful referrals. These include referrals which were made on behalf of someone not experiencing domestic abuse, referrals with insufficient information recorded, or instances where the client could be supported more appropriately by a partner agency.

We also saw that capacity is not just about bedspaces. Included in the 40.6% of unsuccessful referrals which were rejected due to the service lacking in capacity, 17.5% of unsuccessful referrals were rejected because the refuge was unable to meet the specific support need(s) of the survivor. Despite a significant number of survivors who access refuge requiring specialist service provision, we saw that refuge services often don’t have the capacity or resources to accommodation additional support needs. This is a significant reason why referrals into refuges are unsuccessful, showing that women with additional support needs still face significant barriers to accessing safety.

In order to reduce the number of unsuccessful referrals and ensure refuge services are resourced to support all women accessing their services and provide the specialist service provision necessary, we are calling on the government to increase long-term and sustainable funding for specialist refuge services by investing £427 million per year, as a minimum, to fund specialist women-led and ‘by and for’ domestic abuse services in England.

The briefing also shows that current levels of service provision are not currently meeting need. Local authorities need to regularly conduct needs assessments, listen to the insights provide by the needs assessment and from specialist domestic abuse services to ensure they are commissioning the correct provision to support the survivors in their local area.