AVA is an expert, groundbreaking and independent charity working across the UK.

Our vision
A world without gender based violence and abuse.

Our mission
Working with survivors to end gender-based violence by championing evidence-based change.

Our guiding principles
Survivors are at the heart of everything we do.
As a feminist organisation, we understand that ending violence and abuse means challenging societal attitudes in order to change the behaviour of individual perpetrators.
AVA is a fiercely independent organisation. We are informed by the lived experience of survivors, robust evidence and a passion for equality.
We can make more of a difference in partnership than alone. We all have a responsibility to work together to end violence against women and girls.
We strive to take an intersectional approach to all that we do.

Funded by London Councils, Ascent is a partnership project that is part of the London Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) Consortium, delivering a range of services to support women affected by domestic and/or sexual violence. Solace is lead partner, working with 14 organisations, on the Ascent Advice & Counselling partnership.

Donna has been Chief Executive of AVA since December 2014. She started her career in the Trade Union movement, specialising in equality and diversity issues, and spent 10 years as a member of the TUC General Council. She has run a number of third sector organisations, including Asthma UK and the Refugee Council. She has written extensively on health, equality and human rights issues. In 2013 Donna was awarded the CBE for services to equality and human rights. She is the executive chair of IRISi, the social enterprise delivering IRIS, the gold standard Domestic Violence intervention for General Practice.

Founded in November 2015, Sistah Space is a community-based service designed to bridge the gap in domestic abuse services for African heritage women and girls. They provide dedicated services for African heritage women and girls who have experienced domestic or sexual abuse or who have lost a loved one to domestic abuse. They provide a spotlight on the needs of the variety of women in the African and Caribbean community, including the Rastafarian/Grassroots community. Rastafarian women are amongst those who have the highest rates of under reporting of violence against them, Sista space provides specialist advocacy to women who are apprehensive about accessing mainstream services such as the police or other statutory services.

Elize Freeman is Service and Training Lead for the Dewis Choice Initiative. She is an accredited Gender Service Based Manager, IDVA and ISVA, with extensive experience working with older victim-survivors of domestic abuse and their families. Elize has developed and delivered training on behalf of the Initiative to professionals from Health, Police, Social Care and Domestic Abuse sectors and co-authored practitioner guidance, including “Transforming the response to domestic violence in later life”.

Hannah Bows is currently an Associate Professor in Criminal Law and Director of Equality and Diversity within Durham Law School. She is Co-Director of the Centre for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice (see here for details and to joint the centre: https://www.dur.ac.uk/cclcj/) and Deputy Director of the Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse (CRiVA). Hannah is half way through a project examining criminal justice outcomes and decision making in cases involving victims aged 60 and over, funded by a British Academy Wolfson Fellowship. Over the last six years she has conducted research examining different forms of violence against older people, with a specific focus on domestic violence, sexual violence and homicide of older women.