Eleri Butler, Domestic Violence Strategy Co-ordinator, Brighton and Hove Council

Eleri Butler has worked on domestic violence and equality issues for over 20 years in a variety of capacities nationally and locally including providing support and advocacy for women and children who have experienced domestic violence; developing and managing local services; co-ordinating multi-agency responses to improve services, strategy and policy; writing guidance and resources; project managing EU equality and research programmes; researching, campaigning, consultancy and training. Since July 2010, Eleri has been project managing a Domestic Violence Intelligent Commissioning pilot in Brighton & Hove, based at the city’s Partnership Community Safety Team.

Prior to that, Eleri was seconded for two years to the Women’s National Commission, the independent UK advisory body on women’s issues to UK governments, during which she managed a programme of work to advise government on reducing and preventing violence against women and girls. In 2009/10, Eleri contributed to the development and implementation of the England Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy; the Stern Review into how rape complaints are handled by public authorities; the Department of Health Taskforce into the Health Aspects of Violence Against Women and Girls, and the Crown Prosecution Service Victims’ Views Assessment. This included managing and facilitating a programme of focus groups with over 550 women and girls about their experiences of violence and the response of local services, and publishing the findings and recommendations (‘Still We Rise’, WNC 2009; ‘A Bitter Pill To Swallow, WNC 2010, available at www.thewnc.org.uk).

Eleri is a qualified housing professional and also has an MA in Cult Film. She is also a Board Member of AVA – Against Violence and Abuse, a second tier organisation providing services to other agencies that develop policies around, and/or provide services to women, children and men who experience or perpetrate different forms of violence against women and girls, www.avaproject.org.uk.