Principles and Standards
The Respect Accreditation Standard replaces the Respect Statement of Principles and Minimum Standards of Practice 2004
The Respect Statement of Principles and Minimum Standards of Practice 2004 is no longer in use. It has now been replaced by the Respect Accreditation Standard 2008.
Download: Standard 030608A4 FINAL WITH GUIDANCE.pdf
This Standard has 105 requirements, each of which has to be met in order to be accredited. The decisions about accreditation are not taken by Respect staff but by an independent panel. The Standard is focussed on providing the setting to provide the best possible opportunities for victims of domestic violence and their children to be safer as a result of the intervention work with perpetrators. All domestic violence intervention programmes who are members of Respect will have to meet this Standard by April 2011.
This Standard went through several rounds of consultation and revision. This is the document against which all member organisations running perpetrator programmes are now assessed for accreditation. Many national governmental and non governmental organisations have signed up to support this Standard, including the Home Office, CAFCASS, The Ministry of Justice, Women's Aid, the Association of Directors of Children's Services and Relate. For the full list, download this latest version of the Standard (June 2008) which includes this list on page 2. The main text of the Standard has not been altered from the version uploaded in March 2008.
Minimum requirements for application
Organisations should apply for accreditation only when they have rigorously assessed their own working against each requirement. Respect offers support, technical assistance and other services to help programmes to reach this standard. The assessment is of the management, delivery and operation of the programme and supporting structures, not of an individual programme manual. Many different models of work could therefore be used by accredited organisations.
Programmes must have: safety as the aim of the programme; a written model of work including descriptions of how the work is done and why it is done in that particular way; intervention work for perpetrators of domestic violence; a parallel linked support and safety service for partners and ex-partners of programme participants; case and risk management; consistent and secure record keeping.