We’re excited to share our report on the Restart programme feasibility study (April 2024-August 2025), funded by Foundations – the What Works Centre for Children and Families.

Led by The Drive Partnership and delivered across six London boroughs, Restart aims to address a pressing need: how to respond better to low-to-medium risk domestic abuse perpetrators – a group that often goes unsupported, while keeping adult and child victim-survivors safe.

Restart has two strands:

1. Safe & Together model implementation: training, case consultations and audits that equip Children’s Social Care (CSC), Early Help and Housing professionals to spot domestic abuse earlier, hold perpetrators accountable, and keep adult and child victim-survivors safe and together.
2. The Restart intervention: one-to-one sessions for perpetrators using tools like motivational interviewing and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to build motivation for behaviour change. This is paired with check-ins and risk monitoring for their (ex-) partner, plus an optional housing pathway offering temporary and longer-term accommodation to create breathing space for families.

As evaluators, Cordis Bright worked with delivery partners and experts by experience to assess Restart’s readiness for future impact evaluation and the changes needed to strengthen delivery.

Key findings:

• Restart fills a critical gap in support, enabling earlier intervention and stronger CSC and Early Help responses to domestic abuse.
• Both strands are well-evidenced, but need clearer alignment as a joined-up programme.
• The study identified three ways Restart may improve outcomes for children, despite being an adult-facing intervention.
• Local areas with strong leadership, buy-in, and priorities to address domestic abuse perpetration implemented Restart more effectively.
• Regular meetings and shared learning were vital for consistent delivery.

The study calls for a clearer delivery model, stronger routine data collection, and low-burden evaluation methods – so Restart can further support families. Our findings highlight how the programme can help CSC and Early Help address overlooked perpetrator behaviours. With the forthcoming Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy, there’s a vital window of opportunity to embed robust evaluation and strengthen the evidence base on what works to prevent and address domestic abuse in the UK. Foundations is scoping an impact evaluation of domestic abuse workforce training.