Collective Voice Women’s Treatment Working Group responds to the Government’s new Violence Against Women and Girls strategy

Nic Adamson, Chair of the Collective Voice Women’s Treatment Working Group, responds to the recent publication of the Government’s new strategy to address violence against women and girls (VAWG).

What does policy need to succeed for women and girls?

The government’s new Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy contains many positive and sensible things. It reflects what women and frontline workers have said for years: early support matters, trauma-informed approaches work, and services must fit the reality of women’s lives. None of this is new, none of this is wrong.

What will determine whether good policy actually makes a difference is something more fundamental: a shift in systems and cultures that too often default to seeing women as risk, rather than people in need of compassion and care.

For too many women, asking for help still feels dangerous, with unpredictable consequences. For practitioners, fear of blame hangs over every decision. Hostile headlines flicker through the minds of committed professionals, who are too often left having to muster courage to act with compassion.

The result is familiar and troubling. Women experience control instead of care, monitoring instead of trust, exclusion instead of support. I have heard this repeatedly, both from women using services and from those trying to support them.

We should not ignore risk. The safety of women and children matters deeply, and caution has an important place in practice. But when risk dominates decision-making, when defensibility becomes the goal, compassion is crowded out. Compliance should not come at the expense of care, and fear of scrutiny should not replace common-sense judgement.

The VAWG strategy rightly emphasises prevention, early intervention and whole-system working. These commitments matter, and they will make a difference. But only if we address the barriers that stop women asking for help in the first place. Responding flexibly to women’s needs should not be seen as the riskiest option.

Turning strategy into reality will not come from policy alone, it will come from changing how practitioners, leaders and systems think about need and risk. That change means valuing care, judgement and professional courage alongside proportionate risk management. Then, when services work together with trust and flexibility, strategies will not just sound right on paper. They will start changing women’s lives.

Read more about our ambitions for women-centred, trauma-informed systems in the Womanifesto.