Active Bystander Communities — the UK's First Community-Based Bystander Programme Against Domestic Abuse

Active Bystander Communities (ABC) adapts a university bystander-intervention curriculum, the Intervention Initiative, for the general public. Commissioned by Bristol City Council and developed by Dr Rachel Fenton at the University of Exeter Law School with Public Health England, Devon County Council, Splitz Support Service and the Hollie Gazzard Trust, ABC delivers three facilitator-led two-hour sessions combining film, role-play and active learning to teach residents how to safely recognise and interrupt situations of domestic violence and abuse.
A 2020 peer-reviewed evaluation in BMC Public Health piloted the programme with 70 adults (58 completing pre/post measures, 36 followed up at 4 months) recruited from community organisations in Exeter, Torquay and Gloucester. Using validated psychometric scales, the study found large, statistically significant improvements (p<0.0001; Cohen's d = 0.83–1.24) in domestic-violence myth rejection, bystander efficacy, behavioural intent and knowledge of the law, sustained — and on several measures strengthened — at four-month follow-up, with minimal backlash effects (2–3%).
The published evidence is a single-arm pre/post pilot with a small sample (n=58–70) and no randomised control group, and no published cost-effectiveness or population-level domestic-violence-incidence data exist; the authors describe the psychometric outcomes as recognised proxies for behaviour, not direct measures of abuse prevented. The model has since been commercialised for wider delivery via Kindling Interventions, but independent evidence of that scaled rollout has not been published.

Read the full analysis: https://news-archive.exeter.ac.uk/2020/may/title_798120_en.html