New ISVA/IDVA Guidance: A Step Forward for Victims

New ISVA/IDVA Guidance:

A Step Forward for Victims, But Older People Still Need Dedicated Support

At Hourglass, we welcome the publication of new statutory guidance for Independent Domestic Violence Advisers (IDVAs) and Independent Sexual Violence Advisers (ISVAs), issued under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024. We were pleased to contribute to the formation of this guidance through submitting written evidence and attending a number of meetings with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). It marks an important step toward ensuring that all victims of abuse receive consistent, professional, trauma-informed support across services and sectors.

Crucially, the guidance explicitly recognises Older People’s Domestic Violence Advisers (OPVAs) as a specialist strand within the IDVA role. This is a welcome and long-overdue acknowledgement of the unique experiences of older victim-survivors of abuse, who are overlooked and underserved in mainstream safeguarding and support services.

The guidance also makes clear that support should be tailored to the needs of each victim, with age recognised as a key factor. It requires public bodies to work with specialist services and stresses the need for appropriate training when working with older adults - something Hourglass has long championed.

We already deliver this specialist provision. Our OPVAs are trained in the nuances of the abuse of older people, including cases involving adult children, coercive control masked as care, and abuse intertwined with dementia or economic dependence. But for this role to meet the sheer scale of need across the UK, we now need dedicated funding and commissioning of OPVA posts in every local area.

This new guidance offers a strong foundation, and we urge commissioners and statutory services to build on it by properly resourcing the specialist support that older victims deserve.

Abuse doesn’t stop at 60. Nor should specialist support.