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Embrace

Embrace was the Alcohol Concern children, families and domestic abuse project.

The Embrace project spent three years developing the Embrace Model within nine adult alcohol services across the country. Funded by the Big Lottery Fund Embrace initially worked with these nine sites to develop a more family-focused approach to their clients and to take account of domestic violence and abuse throughout their work. 

The Embrace Model aims to:

• Train the workforce to understand good practice in these areas of work, and improve their ability to make risk assessments and care plans involving children and families, including those who experience domestic abuse.
• Ensure that services are fully aware of and sensitive to the issues and able to create effective links with other services and organisations to have a multi-agency approach.
• Help in building effective joint working partnerships including information sharing, common assessments and referral pathways.
• Develop resources of policy, procedures and protocols when working with families and alcohol-related domestic violence.

We were not a direct service provider, and did not aim to develop new specialist services. Our aim was to encourage and enable alcohol services to 'think family' and 'think safety'. To mainstream and embed children, families and domestic violence/ abuse issues into their everyday practice.

The Embrace team provided training and consultancy to pilot sites and assistance in developing new policies, procedures and protocols, as well as support with building partnerships with other local agencies and with commissioners and other funders.

The project also produced regular newsletters, resource supplements, and briefings. In later phases of the three-year project, Embrace offered regional and national training and also produced guidance for commissioners, practitioners and policy makers. The Embrace model will continue to be rolled out nationally via the Alcohol Concern Consultancy and Training Unit.

The project was externally evaluated - download our Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 evaluation reports.