Home Office Project: Evaluation of the 'STAR' Young Persons' Project

In 1998 the Home Office announced the Crime Reduction Programme (CRP), which aimed to develop and implement an integrated approach to reducing crime and making communities safer. As part of this programme the Violence Against Women Initiative (VAWI) was launched in July 2000, and specifically aimed to find out which approaches and practices were effective in supporting victims and tackling domestic violence, rape and sexual assault. Thirty-four multi-agency victim focused pilot projects were funded and aimed to develop and implement a range of interventions for various population groups in a number of different settings and contexts. The projects were originally funded until the end of March 2002; however, 24 of these projects had their funding, and in some cases their evaluations extended until the end of March 2003. A further 24 'round 2' projects were funded in March 2001; however these were provided with money purely for services and were not evaluated by the Home Office. For evaluation purposes the projects were divided into nine packages, and projects with similar solutions or tactics, or those, which were operating in the same contexts, were grouped together. Seven different independent evaluation teams were commissioned to assess the projects in terms of their development, impact, cost and cost effectiveness. The findings from all of the evaluations have been collated and a series of research reports and concise practitioner guides have been published for both the domestic violence and rape and sexual assault projects.

This research project focused on the STAR (Surviving Trauma After Rape) Young Persons’ Project in West Yorkshire. This small-scale evaluation aimed to assess services provided by STAR which sought to support victims of rape and sexual assault aged 14-16.