The Portal Podcast: Linking Research and Practice for Social Work · Sarah Lonbay

Domestic abuse services for men, women, and children

·55 min·2 clips

Lesley Deacon and Sarah Lombe introduce Sarah Martin-Denham as a colleague and guest on the Portal podcast. The conversation sits within the show’s broader effort to connect research and practice in social work. Martin-Denham is invited to explain the project and how it developed. She begins by tracing it back to earlier qualitative research on school exclusion. That work focused on risk and protective factors. It involved children, parents, and professionals from education and health. She explains that the commission came from a local authority. After that, she was approached again to evaluate a transformation programme in social care. The hosts give her room to build that background before moving directly into the domestic abuse topic. The exchange stays grounded in how research becomes service knowledge. It also keeps circling back to what practitioners actually do with the findings. A key thread is the difference between recommendation and requirement. A service can be recommended by a social worker. It can also be mandated through a child protection plan. Martin-Denham points out that compulsory attendance can change why someone turns up. Even so, many people still choose to engage once they are there. The hosts tease out the difference between simply attending and taking part. That distinction becomes one of the episode’s central themes. They also ask what positive effect looks like in the research itself. Martin-Denham says some participants were at midpoint in the programme while others had completed it. That makes long-term follow-up especially important. The conversation makes clear that immediate feedback is not enough. A service may have positive effects, but those effects need to be checked over time. Martin-Denham adds that, at present, no one seems to be evaluating the later impact. She mentions feedback sheets but contrasts them with proper long-range follow-up. The discussion settles on a practical social work question: how do you know support has worked if you never see the person again? The episode ends with that tension still open, which gives the conversation its shape and weight.

As heard by us

A careful look at domestic abuse support, engagement, and what counts as success.

Domestic abuse support is approached as a practical question here: who gets referred, what engagement actually looks like, and how to tell attendance from real change.

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Why you'd press play

You want a grounded social-work conversation about domestic abuse support, mandated attendance, and whether change lasts.

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