Assessment of CADA Projects

Descriptions

1.To provide an assessment of the current evaluations carried out by the 9 projects funded by the Children Affected by Domestic Abuse (CADA) fund, and provide an evaluations framework for future evaluations. 2. The contracting authority is the Home Secretary for the Home Department (the "Home Secretary"). 3. Through Section 56 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 the Home Office created the CADA fund, which aims to fund services for children affected by domestic abuse. 4. Currently nine projects in England and Wales are funded through the fund, these projects have been funded since the financial year 2018/19. The key deliverables that all projects must deliver on currently are: •provision of high-quality support and advice for children who are affected by Domestic Abuse; •increased awareness of Domestic Abuse and the services and support available to Children affected by Domestic Abuse; •reduction in harm caused by Domestic Abuse; and •reduction in prevalence of Domestic Abuse. 5. The fund is due to enter it's fourth year and the Home Office would like to improve the standard and consistency of CADA project evaluations, both to provide evidence that the above deliverables are being met and to ensure that childhood outcomes are improving under the interventions delivered by these projects, as this will be a key deliverable next year. As such we are commissioning an assessment of current evaluations and a framework for future evaluations. 6. It is a requirement of this project that whoever undertakes the work has an understanding of the current landscape for the provision of services to children affected by domestic abuse at a national level. The provider must understand the key barriers that local authorities and organisations find in not only providing the services but also robustly evaluating them. This is so that any evaluation framework will be feasible to implement within the constraints and barriers faced. 7. It is a requirement that any organisation that undertakes this work has a solid understanding of the evidence thresholds in this space to inform an understanding of 'what works'. It would be preferable for the provider to have an existing framework set up to evaluate this. This requirement will allow us to quickly and efficiently begin to build the evidence on what works in this space, and ensure value for money by removing the risk of duplication. 8. It is also a requirement that organisations looking to undertake this work have a good understanding of what evidence currently exists in the provision of services for children affected by domestic abuse, and what evidence gaps exist and critically need to be filled. This will ensure that any evaluation framework will be geared not only towards getting the most out of each project, but ensuring value from the fund as a whole.