High Risk High Harm - Behaviour Change
Delivered by Ahimsa as part of the Integrated Domestic Abuse Service Plymouth (IDASP)
Ahimsa has been delivering specialist behaviour change work with Plymouth's highest-risk domestic abuse perpetrators since the High Risk High Harm service was established — building four years of embedded practice before the launch of IDASP in April 2026.
From April 2026, Ahimsa delivers the specialist behaviour change element of the Integrated Domestic Abuse Service Plymouth (IDASP) — a landmark commissioned partnership bringing together First Light, Ahimsa, Barnardo's, and Bridges Outcomes Partnerships. This is the first time Plymouth City Council has commissioned and funded a fully integrated domestic abuse service — building on over 30 years of integrated practice that Ahimsa has been delivering independently.
Ahimsa's role within IDASP is the behaviour change work — one-to-one work with individuals at high risk of causing serious harm. Those referred into this service often present with complex needs: chaotic lifestyles, drug and alcohol use, criminal histories, and repeat offending and abuse across multiple relationships. Our practitioners bring decades of specialist experience, rigorous risk assessment, and a responsive approach that has been developed and refined through years of embedded practice in Plymouth. This work is delivered alongside integrated IDVA support for partners through the IDASP partnership, ensuring victim safety is central from the outset.
What the programme involves
The High Risk High Harm service is an intensive case management intervention for the highest-risk perpetrators — those identified through MARAC and MATAC as posing significant, ongoing danger to partners, ex-partners, and children.
Ahimsa's Behaviour Change Facilitators work with individuals on a weekly one-to-one basis for six months. It is intensive, relational, specialist work — grounded in Ahimsa's trauma-informed, mindfulness-based approach — with the explicit aim of disrupting abuse and supporting meaningful behaviour change with people who have often had multiple previous interventions without sustainable change.
The service operates within a coordinated multi-agency framework. Ahimsa works in close partnership with police, probation, and partner agencies through MATAC, with regular information sharing and coordinated risk management throughout.
Integrated support for partners
Ahimsa's High Risk High Harm work is integrated — meaning that alongside the behaviour change work with the perpetrator, dedicated IDVA support is provided to the partner (or ex partner) through the IDASP partnership. Victim safety drives every decision we make. Information from the IDVA informs the behaviour change work, and vice versa — always within agreed information sharing protocols.
Our approach
Working with people at this level of risk requires a particular kind of expertise. Individuals referred into this service often present with complex needs — including substance use, mental health difficulties, housing instability, and entrenched patterns of coercive and controlling behaviour.
Ahimsa's approach centres on Cultivating Receptivity — building the conditions for genuine engagement before attempting to address behaviour directly. This is not about minimising accountability. It is about understanding that confrontation alone does not change behaviour in this group, and that motivation to change must be carefully developed alongside rigorous risk management.
Our work is aligned with the Respect Standard for Intensive Case Management interventions, ensuring it meets the highest quality and safety standards in the field.
Breaking the cycle
Everything we do in the High Risk High Harm service is driven by the safety of those experiencing abuse. The most effective way to protect victims of the highest-risk perpetrators is to intervene directly with the person causing harm, while simultaneously ensuring those at risk have dedicated, specialist support.
Every decision made in this service — from initial risk assessment through to case closure — is made with victim safety as the primary consideration. We work in close partnership with IDVAs and statutory agencies to ensure that the behaviour change work never operates in isolation from the safety of those most at risk.
The largest ever UK evaluation of a high-risk perpetrator intervention, carried out by the University of Bristol, found that targeted work with high-harm perpetrators reduced physical abuse by 82%, sexual abuse by 88%, and harassment and stalking by 75%. Victims-survivors were safer and more likely to be free from abuse than in cases where only victim support was provided. These changes were sustained more than a year after the intervention ended. (Hester et al, University of Bristol, 2020)
Strategic partnerships and referrals
High Risk High Harm referrals are made through MARAC, Police, Probation, and other agencies with consent. The service is not open to self-referral.
Ahimsa welcomes conversations with commissioners, strategic partners, and other agencies about our High Risk High Harm practice — including consultation, partnership development, and the potential to extend this model beyond Plymouth.
To discuss a strategic partnership or consultation, please contact Jenny Adjene, Ahimsa’s CEO
Training for professionals
Understanding Perpetrator Behaviour (60 minutes, online)
This case study-based session walks you through how domestic abuse perpetrators present, how risk escalates, and how behaviour change practitioners respond to high risk, high-harm situations.
Using an anonymised case, you'll see perpetrator work in practice - delivered by Lynn (High Risk, High Harm Service Coordinator). The session has been presented at conferences and receives excellent feedback from professionals who say it changed their understanding of behaviour change work.
Designed for Plymouth professionals who encounters perpetrators in their work and wants to understand what effective intervention looks like.
Duration: 60 minutes
Format: Online
Call Us
01752 213535
Not sure if Ahimsa is right for your client? Call us and we'll be happy to talk it through
