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Domestic Violence Training

With the current coronavirus outbreak, please be assured that NCDV is fully operational. We are running our normal services and have also increased our capacity to handle even more referrals. The investments that we have made in technological solutions over the past 10 years are now allowing our staff to operate without risk and provide solutions to more victims of domestic abuse and violence

We are also able to continue to offer our free training sessions to the police and support agencies as we have introduced remote training sessions via Zoom video conferencing. If this is an option that you wish to consider for your team, you do not need to subscribe to Zoom. Contact our training team and once a session has been booked, we will send you an e-mail containing a link inviting you and your colleagues to join us in a bespoke Zoom training session.

(If your organisation does not permit Zoom, still email and we can discuss alternative platforms and options.)

The National Centre for Domestic Violence has a team of dedicated specialist trainers located around the country. They provide bespoke in-house training to the police and support agencies, free of charge.

This 45 minute training includes:

How NCDV can help survivors of Domestic Violence.
The Cross Government definition of Domestic Abuse.
The three emergency injunctions that NCDV specialises in obtaining, namely Non Molestation Orders, Occupation Orders and Prohibited Steps Orders. The training includes victim application criteria i.e. who can apply and when.
How the three orders compare with Domestic Violence Protection Notices (DVPNs) and Domestic Violence Protection Orders (DVPOs).
How to refer victims to NCDV and how the feedback loop provides victims and third party referrers with updates.
The role of Legal Aid and options for victims who aren’t eligible for public funding.
The case building, court and service process.
The Police ASSIST database that contains copies of the injunctions.

If you are a police officer or a support agency who would like to receive this free training contact training today

A study by Thames Valley Police (March 2018) regarding the effectiveness of DVPO’s concluded in it’s initial recommendation: “A process should be considered whereby the National Centre for Domestic Violence (NCDV) are automatically notified by police of a DVPO being granted so that there is no delay in obtaining a Non-molestation order provided the victim consents.”

Already received training? We can deliver refresher sessions too. Please enquire below.

Police Only, if required we can deliver a short 15 minute free “ ASSIST “ Training Session. What is Assist?

Enquire Today

What is ASSIST?

ASSIST is accessible by all UK Police Forces 24/7 and provides immediate secure access to copies of injunctions and certificates of service often before they are on the PNC. The documents can be viewed online or sent to the officer via secure email. This is what the police have to say about it:

“The training was really useful not just for me but the whole team benefited from it.”

“Thanks to the brilliant Assist website, I was able to see that a non mol had been sanctioned but with a statement of non service attached to the order, so I printed it off, went to Stuarts HA and served him the non mol personally. I then completed a statement of service and sent it to NCDV so that the order could then be placed on our PNC.“

Click here to enquire about training.

Domestic Violence Training

(If your organisation does not permit Zoom, still email and we can discuss alternative platforms and options.)

This 45 minute training includes:

How NCDV can help survivors of Domestic Violence.
The Cross Government definition of Domestic Abuse.
The three emergency injunctions that NCDV specialises in obtaining, namely Non Molestation Orders, Occupation Orders and Prohibited Steps Orders. The training includes victim application criteria i.e. who can apply and when.
How the three orders compare with Domestic Violence Protection Notices (DVPNs) and Domestic Violence Protection Orders (DVPOs).
How to refer victims to NCDV and how the feedback loop provides victims and third party referrers with updates.
The role of Legal Aid and options for victims who aren’t eligible for public funding.
The case building, court and service process.
The Police ASSIST database that contains copies of the injunctions.

If you are a police officer or a support agency who would like to receive this free training contact training today

Already received training? We can deliver refresher sessions too. Please enquire below.

Police Only, if required we can deliver a short 15 minute free “ ASSIST “ Training Session. What is Assist?

Enquire Today

What is ASSIST?

“The training was really useful not just for me but the whole team benefited from it.”

Click here to enquire about training.

By Fiona Bawden, Times Online (8th May 2007)

“Steve Connor, a student at City Law School, is a man on a mission. Six years ago he was a fairly directionless 27-year-old. Today, as well as taking the Bar Vocational Course, he is chairman of the National Centre for Domestic Violence, a ground-breaking organisation that he dragged into existence after a friend could not get legal help to protect her from an abusive partner.

Connor’s route to the Bar has been circuitous. In 2001 he returned from a year in Australia (he says that he would not dignify describing it as a gap year), and took a job as a process server in South London. The job (“I just saw it advertised in the paper”) was not quite as dull as it sounds. On one occasion he was threatened with a machete, on another, he was nearly stabbed by a man he had arranged to meet on Clapham Common to serve with a non-molestation order: “He’d seemed really friendly on the phone…”

The turning point in his life came when a friend, who was being abused by her partner, turned to him for support. Connor went with her to the police. She did not want to press criminal charges so the police suggested that she visit a solicitor to take out a civil injunction. “We must have seen 12 solicitors in a morning. We just went from one to the next to the next to the next. Everyone was very eager to help until we sat down to fill in the forms for the legal aid means test,” he says. The woman, who had a small child, did not qualify for public funding. But, Connor says, her financial situation as it appeared on paper did not bear any relation to her financial situation in reality. “She had a part-time job and she and her partner owned their home. Yet she didn’t have any money. Her boyfriend was very controlling and controlled all the money; he kept the chequebooks and didn’t let her have access to the bank account.”

The injustice of the situation got under Connor’s skin. “I just couldn’t believe that there was no help available to people who did not qualify for public funds but could not afford to pay.

I just kept feeling that this must be able to be sorted if only someone would address it.”That “someone” turned out to be him.

In 2002, thanks entirely to Connor’s doggedness, the London Centre for Domestic Violence was formed. It started out with him and a friend, but is now a national organisation, covering 27 counties, and has helped approximately 10,000 victims last year to take out injunctions against their partners.

NCDV now has nine full-time staff, 12 permanent volunteers and has trained over 5000 law and other students as McKenzie Friends to accompany unrepresented victims into court. We have also trained over 8000 police officers in civil remedies available regarding domestic violence. The National Centre for Domestic Violence (NCDV) has branches in London, Guildford and Manchester and is on track to have branches in 16 areas within the next two years.

NCDV specialises exclusively in domestic violence work and could be characterised as a cross between McDonald’s and Claims Direct. The high degree of specialisation means that its processes are streamlined: clients can be seen quickly and the work is done speedily and cheaply. “Sometimes, we will have one of our trained McKenzie Friends at a court doing 10 applications in one day,” Connor says.

Clients are not charged for the service. NCDV staff take an initial statement: clients who qualify for legal aid are referred to a local firm; those that don’t get free help from the centre itself. It runs on a shoestring, heavily reliant on volunteers and capping staff salaries at £18,000 a year.

Steve expects to qualify as a barrister this summer and hopes that having a formal legal qualification will give the centre added clout. “We are already acknowledged as experts and consulted at a high level, so I thought it would be helpful if I could back that up by being able to say I’m a barrister,” he says. He is just about to complete a one-year full-time BVC course at the City Law School (formerly the Inns of Court Law School) and, all being well, should be called to the Bar in July. Although Connor sees his long-term future as a barrister, he says that he has no immediate plans to practise. “I want to get NCDV running on a fully national level. Then I may take a step back and have a career at the Bar.”