Posted February 18, 2025
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Launch of the new Signs and Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment (DARA) in Sussex from Tuesday 18 February 2025
Following a successful launch of the new Signs and Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment (DARA) in Brighton and Hove division in Sussex we are now ready to utilise our new safeguarding toolkit across the Sussex county from Tuesday 18 February 2025.
Since the launch of the new Signs template in B&H, we have seen a 25% improvement in the quality of information shared with our partners. This is a major shift in how we will start to accurately record information about our victims. Signs & DARA will combine our risk assessment around domestic abuse, children of notice, vulnerable adults at risk, hate and anti-social behaviour (ASB), and fraud. The automation that Signs provides will remove duplication and manual entry for our officers, saving them time when completing the form, which can be redirected into areas of priority, protecting the most vulnerable.
What are Signs and DARA?
Signs is the new way to record safeguarding issues and replaces SCARF for recording safeguarding concerns. With the increasing volume of referrals, we’ve made strategic enhancements to ensure we can prioritise cases more effectively, minimise delays, and get to the heart of the issues officers need to share with our partners swiftly. Unlike SCARF, Signs offers the opportunity for automation, significantly improving our ability to manage high volumes and prioritise critical cases. This streamlined approach ensures that the information shared is not only timely but also of the highest quality, relevant, and actionable for all involved parties.
In addition, Signs enables us to analyse trends and better understand our data. This insight allows us to proactively identify vulnerable individuals and conduct comprehensive reviews, ultimately leading to more targeted interventions and better safeguarding outcomes.
With the move to Signs, we are enhancing efficiency, strengthening collaboration, and improves our ability to respond to safeguarding concerns more effectively than ever before.
DARA replaces DASH and shifts the focus from individual incidents of violence to the identification of controlling and coercive (C&C) behaviour by recognising patterns over time. This approach enables us to identify risks at an earlier stage, improving our ability to intervene proactively. Specifically designed for frontline practitioners, DARA aims to better detect coercive control — a form of abuse that is widely recognised as one of the most dangerous to victims. C&C behaviours are directly linked to the domestic abuse (DA) homicide timeline, and their early identification is crucial in preventing abuse from escalating into more severe harm.
By focusing on identifying and addressing controlling and coercive behaviours early on, DARA offers a powerful tool in safeguarding victims and breaking the cycle of abuse before it reaches a critical point.
Sussex Police has also changed the way it shares Operation Encompass notifications with education establishments. To comply with governance around the sharing of personal data, notifications will be sent via an encrypted zip file which will require a unique password to open. For each notification two emails will be generated, one containing the encrypted file and the other a unique password to unprotect the document.
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0300 124 6810Address
Newhaven Enterprise Centre,
Denton Island, Newhaven,
East Sussex, BN9 9BA