Promising practice A Safeguarding Adults from Abuse (SAFA) pilot was undertaken in 2016, to develop a framework for safeguarding adults who are at risk of family harm and other forms of neglect, violence or abuse. The pilot was a collaboration between Waitematā Police, Waitematā DHB and the SAFA Collective. It aimed to improve participants’ recognition of vulnerability, and to support police understanding of the intersection between family violence, safeguarding, and community partnerships. In the pilot, the term ‘vulnerable adults’ was used to mean those individuals who have complex care and support needs and are experiencing, or are at risk of experiencing harm, abuse or neglect, and who, because of those support needs, are not able to remove themselves from an unsafe situation (and/or may need support to do so). Hobbs says: • Currently (2021) this work continues in Waitemata, and the Waitemata DHB has formed an alliance with Auckland and Counties Manukau DHBs to provide the same service. No outreach, long term, wrap around or 24/7 services There are a number of other specialist service gaps: • no accessible refuges that provide 24hour carer support for women who have disability-related support needs • no specialised violence services to respond to women who are disabled by alcohol and/ or other substance abuse problems as a result of living with violence and abuse, or for women who are mentally distressed, particularly as a consequence of their experiences of violence. Currently (because of funding, resource and staffing constraints) it is difficult for these women to be housed in mainstream refuges. Women with substance abuse problems and experience of mental distress require long term, often 24-hour, specialised support to identify the relationship between the violence they have experienced and the psychosocial and other manifestations they are experiencing158 It is important to recognise that while ‘vulnerable adults’ can be considered a homogenous group in legislation/by the law, a person is not ‘at risk’ just because they have a disability. In other words, a person’s disability should not lead to the automatic assumption that the individual is vulnerable or at risk.155 The pilot identified that:156 • police may not understand or recognise adults at risk • even if adults at risk are recognised, police have limited coding options they can use to capture or flag this • disabled people and/or adults at risk may not trust, or feel satisfied with, the response received from police when they report abuse no refuge/violence response services that house men and most refuges will only take boys younger than adolescence • lack of prevention, outreach, appropriate disability-sensitive screening, and physically accessible and disability-supportive programmes for disabled people who have experienced violence.159 • few services provide information in formats that are accessible to Deaf people and people with particular impairments. • • 44 without clear referral pathways and agreed collaborative agency responses, there is no guaranteed intensive case management, or means to ensure organisations work together to prevent harm, abuse and neglect. there is a lack of clear referral pathways to guide police responses across multiple agencies and there are no cross-agency processes or information sharing agreements Human Rights Commission