ISEDA Policy Brief: European Common Approaches to Fight Domestic Violence and Abuse

Executive Summary

The Innovative Solutions to Eliminate Domestic Abuse (ISEDA) project, implemented between 2022 and 2025, is a Horizon Europe project involving 15 partners from nine European countries. The project focused on researching, developing, piloting, and evaluating innovative approaches to improve the prevention, protection, and systemic responses to domestic violence and abuse (DVA). This policy brief presents the project's key findings and strategic recommendations, including country-specific insights, to support a coordinated European approach to tackling DVA.

Key Solutions

· Training Programme and Victim Interview Simulator for Police Officers. The programme combines expert-driven training materials with an interactive, intuitive interview simulator that helps develop trust, assess DVA scenarios more effectively, and avoid re-victimization.
· Informational Chatbot for Victim-Survivors. Designed to bridge gaps in access to information and guidance.
· Perpetrator Programmes. A standardised IMPACT Outcome Monitoring Toolkit to support the evaluation of behavioural change and victim-survivor safety through perpetrator interventions.
· Awareness Raising Campaigns. Implemented to enhance public awareness and early prevention of DVA and gender-based violence (GBV) through multi-country campaigns.
· Education Programmes. Preventive education on DVA and GBV in cooperation with educational institutions and youth centres.

Policy Recommendations

Prevention
· Add education into primary and secondary school curricula to sensitize young people and educators to the problems related to DVA and GBV.
· Integrate mandatory courses of DVA in higher education and professional training across key sectors to confirm adequate expertise in services.
· Scale up inclusive, sustained awareness campaigns on different forms of DVA and GBV.
· Promote the integration of perpetrator programme interventions into broader justice, health, and social care systems to prevent repeat violence and ensure the security of victim-survivors.

Protection
· Incorporate trauma-informed, victim-centred, interactive virtual tools into police training to improve the handling of DVA scenarios.
• Strengthen coordination between police, health and social care, and civil society organisations to close systemic gaps and ensure comprehensive information and protection for victim-survivors.

Prosecution
· Provide specialised training for police and legal professionals on the dynamics and diversity of DVA cases to improve judicial outcomes.
· Ensure timely, victim-centred legal proceedings, including fast-track procedures and strong protection measures.
· Criminalise coercive control in countries where it is not yet recognised, and ensure legal recognition of psychological, economic, and digital forms of abuse to close critical legal gaps.

Provision of Services
· Implement accessible 24/7 informative digital services such as chatbots, integrated with—but not replacing—human support systems.
· Enhance cooperation between perpetrator programmes and victim support services to ensure more effective violence interventions and risk assessment.