About

About

Coefficient is a consultancy with expertise in building data-powered digital tools for the public sector. We have been commissioned for 12 weeks to create prototype tools that can improve the experience for RASSO victims & survivors.

We are keen to work with potential users who can provide insight on what’s most valuable to build at this early research & design phase. We believe technology has a role to play in victims of rape and sexual assault & we are working closely with Durham PCC to accomplish this.

Funding

This commission is funded by the Police Digital Service supported by stakeholders in Home Office, Durham PCC, Impact Lab and ACE to investigate ways in which technology can be used to support victims of rape and sexual assault.

What are the goals of this project?

Our goals are to reduce overwhelm for victims, as well as those supporting victims; and thereby to increase reporting rates and reduce attrition rates by helping victims to find timely and appropriate support. We are planning to achieve this by:

  1. Create a comprehensive national dataset of the 1000+ charities and support services across the UK with appropriate filtering by location, demographics, the victim’s situation, and needs.
  2. Creation of a web portal that provides access and filters to the above dataset, so victims can access the right support, at the right time, in a few a clicks as possible.
  3. Understand whether modern tools such as a chatbot powered by the above dataset, and then embedded on multiple websites to provide immediate and effective signposting relevant to the victims demographic, background and situation.

What might this look like? (Real world examples)

Some examples of features that this single tool could have

  • A more advanced and national scale version of the London Survivors Gateway with additional options like services offered, accepting referrals, languages offered, disability access, age, gender, ethnicity, demographic.
  • A database and interactive portal for Charities to update their service information for rape and sexual assault victims. A similar example is the women’s aid support service directory (for refuges and victims of domestic violence)
  • A supportive advice chatbot such as that found on the Revenge Porn Helpline
  • An interactive Rape and Sexual Assault Services finder with customisable filters to ethnicity, background, age, gender, disability type, language spoken, self referral available and services offered (such as counselling or criminal justice system navigation). Similar to the service finder offered by AirBnB or a Post Office Branch finder.

What we need from wider contributors and stakeholders

An estimated 1 in 100 rapes were recorded by police in 2021, however support services and charities have a unique insight into the experience of victims and survivors, throughout their engagement with the police and criminal justice system, as well as the large majority of incidents that go unreported.

We are asking you, as representatives of RASSO victims and survivors, to help us to:

  • Understand the challenges experienced as victim representatives when supporting victims of rape and sexual assault
  • Shine a light on the large majority of cases that are not reported to the police and identify ways we could reduce barriers to reporting
  • Provide feedback on the tooling we have created to ensure it solves a real problem for victims
  • Create a strong business case for future scaling of this work to a national level

We will show you interactive demos of the product

Who are the users of this potential product

We have identified several core groups who may benefit from these tools:

  • Victims, witnesses and those supporting victims of rape and sexual assault.
  • Victim support services such as helplines, first responders, ISVAs and navigators to guide victims towards local relevant & available support.
  • Online portals such as police force websites, NHS, and third sector websites that may benefit from API access to the dataset, or embedding the chatbot on their website.
  • Data analysts at the local & national government level who can benefit from high-quality reliable up-to-date information on the provision of RASSO support services.

Contact

For further details, please reach out to Emma Humphrey at emma@coefficient.ai who is overseeing administration, outreach and communications on this project.