LEAVE THIS SITE

Leading Lights: accreditation for domestic abuse services

SafeLives Leading Lights is the mark of quality for domestic abuse services and is increasingly being recognised by commissioners and funders across the UK.

The Leading Lights accreditation programme offers services, partner agencies and commissioners a set of standards for supporting victims of domestic abuse. The programme was launched in 2009 and many services have been offered coaching, workshops and assessment since that time, with over 50 gaining accreditation.

The programme is:

  • Open to all risk-led, community based domestic abuse services (e.g. outreach, floating support and Idva). Service managers can apply Leading Lights standards to all elements of their service provision - not just the Idva service.
  • Flexible. Accreditation is a simple, two stage process: a training course for service managers (which provides a portable qualification), followed by an external service assessment by SafeLives. The timescale for achieving accreditation is led by the service itself.

Benefits of Leading Lights accreditation:

  • Evidence the quality of your service: enabling you to make a stonger case for funding and to become commissioning ready
  • Support your service to provide the most effective response to keep victims safe
  • Improve morale: support staff to gain knowledge and confidence in their roles
  • Support partnership work: enabling you to develop a better relationship with commissioners
  • Develop consitstency across different functions and sites 

Services with Leading Lights accreditation will:

  • Receive a Leading Lights accreditation logo and certificate to use on all funding applications and materials
  • Have the opportunity to contibute to the development of the Leading Lights programme, influencing domestic abuse services and the wider domestic abuse sector
  • Form part of a network of accredited services.

There are currently more than 50 accredited Leading Lights services. 

As well as running Leading Lights, we are a co-signatory (alongside Imkaan, Rape Crisis, Respect and Women's Aid) to a set of service standards. We acted as co-developers with other organisations in the sector and by the Child and Woman Abuse studies Unit (CWASU) at London Metropolitan University. Download the 'Shared Core Standards'

Find out more

Leading Lights quote

How Leading Lights works?

What accreditation means to services

FAQs

Accredited services

 

Register your interest

Please complete the below form to register your interest for Leading Lights Accreditation for your service, and we will be in touch:

Click here to register your interest

If you are an existing Leading Lights service and due for reaccreditation in 2023/24, or you would like to know more general information on the Leading Lights process, please refer to the FAQs section above.

Contact: leading.lights@safelives.org.uk