This summer I was placed in Essex County Council's (ECC's) Whole Family Early Help (WFEH) Project Innovation Team, partnered with Barnardo’s. My first week was a whirlwind induction into the team, the discovery work so far, and where commissioners sit in the big picture.
The WFEH programme is part of ECC’s Pan-Essex Domestic Abuse Model. Informed by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, its aim is to co-design approaches that support whole families earlier, preventing escalation, reducing harm, and strengthening resilience. Rather than only intervening once abuse is entrenched, the project seeks to break cycles of harm by engaging not just victims, but also perpetrators, children, and extended networks such as friends and family. My placement fell within the discovery and defining phases generating evidence, identifying gaps, testing concepts, and selecting a focus.
Busy days were filled with meetings alongside commissioners, local working groups, boards, and professionals. It became clear quickly that commissioning wasn’t about “shopping for service providers.” It demands creativity: finding new ways to work within constraints, adapting services to shifting needs, and solving problems with no obvious answer. After all, the Innovation Team itself emerged from the realisation that a gap in domestic abuse services existed.
As someone with lived experience of domestic abuse, I was ecstatic to be in these spaces. It had long been a personal goal to use my insight to help others. At the same time, I found myself feeling nervous, wondering if I 'deserved' to be in these spaces. The language of commissioning was filled with acronyms and jargon I didn’t yet understand. I doubted myself, constantly asking questions. To cope, I built a personal glossary of terms, which became unexpectedly valuable later when I shared it with our new project manager. What I thought of as a coping strategy became a contribution to the team.
By week two, I had moved from listening to actively contributing. I attended a training conference on the Caring Communities Commission, sat in on a housing support meeting, and presented my thematic trend analysis of three services. I also began looking into emerging results from our surveys and focus groups which suggested family and friends may need more support to help their loved ones. Over the next week, the pace accelerated. Working with my colleague Tia, I explored the emerging gap around family and friends. Southend, Essex and Thurrock had brilliant victim/survivor services, a new perpetrator service, a flexible funding grant and housing support. Yet, early intervention opportunities were still being missed where friends and family had identified a problem and there was nowhere for them to go until the risk had escalated - with links to 'empathy fatigue', reducing the effectiveness of informal support. We created a presentation synthesising academic literature, government guidance, expert opinion pieces, current service models, recent service innovations, and statutory reports. Together, we produced insights that sparked new lines of thinking for the team. It struck me that our nuanced, human-driven insights were precisely the kind that an AI bot would miss unless carefully directed. This made me reflect on the strengths and limits of AI in such sensitive, innovative work.
I began to see what my colleague Ceezet meant by the “ebbs and flows” of commissioning. After a slower start, the project gathered momentum, with the family and friends gap becoming a focal point for innovation. For me, this meant stepping up. I dug deeper into research on children’s experiences, drafted shared definitions of Whole Family and Early Help between ECC and Barnardo’s, and even reached out to academics whose work had shaped our thinking.
In the final stretch, I took on greater responsibility. I presented quarterly reports at a pan-Essex board meeting, contributed in discussions with the Head of Strategic Commissioning and Policy, and strengthened working relationships across ECC and Barnardo’s. My quarterly analyses of 4 service groups with actionable recommendations influenced domestic abuse service strategy for the upcoming quarter. I also returned to the survey work I had helped design earlier: first through posters and online promotion, and finally in person at Colchester Pride with my colleague Aida. By talking directly to people, we raised focus group registrations dramatically in one day. This tangible outcome showed me the human power of connection.
The project involved a wide range of stakeholders: commissioners, Barnardo’s staff, housing providers, GPs, academics, boards across Southend, Essex and Thurrock, and survivors themselves. My role was small in the scale of this ecosystem, but it taught me important lessons about leadership. I learned that leadership is not about dominating the room; it can be about synthesising perspectives, asking questions others might overlook, or creating tools, like my glossary, that make colleagues’ lives easier. I learned the importance of humility in seeking guidance and the courage required to step into responsibility before you feel ready.
The most significant impact of my placement was persuading the team to focus on family and friends. I found supporting statistics, mapped evidence, and contributed to the groundwork for the business case. Now, the team will be co-producing a service to 'hold the hand, not the risk', with the pilot due to start February 2026. Having a strong social support network reduces the chance of re-vicitimisation within 12 months by 3.25x - in other words, 325%. I am beyond hopeful that this innovation will save lives, empower people to live safer and happier lives, and create stronger social networks. No-one should have to go through domestic abuse alone.
Working in a new and personally challenging environment was not easy. Given my own experience of domestic abuse and a difficult year leading up to this internship, even stepping into the placement required courage. At first, I felt out of my depth, but I was encouraged to view my curiosity was a strength. I learned that innovation requires leaning into uncertainty, that AI tools can support but never replace human nuance, and that evidence must always be paired with empathy.
Looking back, I realised that courage took many forms throughout this project. For me, it meant the bravery to participate despite personal history, to channel that experience into something constructive. For the team, it meant innovating without a clear roadmap, using evidence to test new approaches. And most of all, it meant the courage of survivors, families, and practitioners who shared their lived experience to shape better services. That collective courage is what gives commissioning its meaning. We stand with everyone whose lives have been touched by domestic abuse.
Essex COMPASS Domestic Abuse Helpline - 0330 333 7 444
National Domestic Abuse Helpline - 0808 2000 247