Improving collaboration
The Centre for Justice Innovation has just (27 February 2026) published new research combined with an evidence and practice briefing on improving collaboration between police forces and women’s centres. Women’s centres offer a trauma-informed, gender-responsive, holistic model of support that has a significant positive impact on women facing multiple disadvantages. They also result in cost-savings for the system and can play a crucial role for police forces aiming to improve how they support justice-involved women. Despite this, collaboration between women’s centres and police forces can be challenging: clashing cultures and differing expectations and approaches to working with women frequently act as barriers to effective partnership working.
The briefing draws on real-world examples to explore how partnerships between police and women’s centres can effectively work in practice and how these challenges can be overcome. Drawing on interviews, a collaborative workshop with practitioners from police forces and women’s centres, and an evidence review, it offers strategies to bolster effective collaboration to improve outcomes for women in contact with the justice system.
How are police and women’s centres working together?
The briefing highlights three key models for collaboration between police and women’s centres.
Women’s centre support as part of an out-of-court resolution
The most common form of collaboration is mandatory referral to women’s centre support via a police-issued out-of-court resolution. Depending on the geographical area, this could either be within a diversion scheme or a formal conditional caution.
In either case, the expectation attached to the referral is typically limited to one or two initial attendances at the women’s centre, with any further engagement offered on a voluntary basis.
This model was described as an effective route into accessing the full range of women’s centre support. While women’s centres have often been incorporated into community sentences, offering referrals to women eligible for an out-of-court resolution moves the point of engagement earlier, potentially addressing issues before they become further entrenched.
Supporting women who are arrested
In some areas, women’s centre staff are working within police stations, meeting with women in police custody. This is often conceived as a complement to existing all-gender liaison and diversion support, offering referrals into gender-specific women’s centre support. Practitioners
highlighted that making connections with women at this point of crisis is a powerful tool to encourage them to take up the offer of services later.
Support outside of justice system contact
The Centre for Justice Innovation also identified areas where police and women’s centres were working together – often in partnership with other agencies – to offer outreach services to women outside of the context of criminal justice involvement.
One area, for example, had created joint street patrols, which involved police and women’s centre caseworkers delivering street outreach services together, offering practical support and referrals into services to women who might not otherwise access them such as women
involved in sex work.
Another area holds monthly multi-agency ‘vulnerability meetings’. These bring together all agencies (probation, police, housing, drug & alcohol, women’s centres) to discuss specific women identified as being at risk and put in place support to mitigate that risk.
Barriers to collaboration
The report highlights four common barriers to effective collaboration between police and women’s centres:
- Cultural differences. The briefing found that some police officers disagreed with women-specific diversion schemes and were reluctant to refer while some women centre workers had low levels of trust in the police which made partnership working difficult.
- Restrictive eligibility criteria. In some areas, eligibility criteria for referral to diversion schemes were overly complex or restrictive, reducing the number of referrals.
- Logistical challenges – the main practical challenge was often delays in the security vetting required for non-police individuals to access custody suites.
- Funding and commissioning – many women’s centres continue to struggle with unstable funding arrangements with short term contracts making it difficult to attract and retain staff.
Building effective collaboration
The briefing provides advice on how police and women’s centres can improve their partnership work and concludes with six key recommendations for effective collaboration:
- Be clear about women’s distinctive needs, including the high prevalence of experiences of abuse and victimisation, to build support for gender-responsive approaches amongst police;
- Ensure that women’s centre interventions are framed as support rather than punishment. Use mandatory attendance conditions lightly and ensure that they are managed flexibly;
- Keep eligibility criteria for women’s centres support broad to maximise the number of referrals;
- Develop strong relationships between police and women’s centres which are built on transparent communication, aligned goals and personal connections;
- Take pragmatic and flexible approaches to vetting women’s centre staff to facilitate co-location;
- Leverage the resources and influence of the police to ensure that women’s centres have
sustainable funding to enable long-term partnership working.
