Insight that drives change.

Needs assessments shouldn’t be just data exercises, they’re an opportunity to understand what's really happening in your local area and what needs to change. Done well, they bring together evidence, voice, and context to inform better decisions, stronger services, and safer systems.

At Davis and Associates, we specialise in designing and delivering needs assessments that are trauma-informed, inclusive, and practical. We work with local authorities, partnerships, and services to understand need in a meaningful way, and to turn insight into action.

Whether you're meeting a statutory duty or exploring an emerging area of concern, we can help you build the evidence base to shape your strategy, commissioning, and delivery.

Our needs assessment principles:

  • Trauma-informed: designed with sensitivity to people’s lived experiences and the impact of harm

  • Systems-thinking: understanding how services, policies, and practices connect (or don’t)

  • Mixed-methods: drawing on both quantitative data and qualitative insight

  • Rooted in coproduction: engaging survivors, communities, and practitioners meaningfully throughout the process

We work closely with you to ensure the assessment reflects your context, supports your priorities, and builds local ownership of the findings.

Our needs assessment services:

  • Under Section 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act (2021), Tier 1 local authorities are required to assess the need for safe accommodation for victims of domestic abuse and their children. We can deliver your Safe Accommodation Needs Assessment in line with the statutory guidance, or support a broader system-wide assessment that includes prevention, early intervention, and recovery. We also offer support with annual refreshes and stakeholder engagement.

  • Since January 2023, a new legal duty under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022) requires specified authorities to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence. We support local areas to meet this duty through the development of Serious Violence Strategies and the completion of Serious Violence Strategic Needs Assessments, combining qualitative and quantitative methods and applying a public health lens to interpersonal violence.

  • Domestic Abuse
    A comprehensive assessment across the whole system, prevention, early intervention, crisis response, recovery, and longer-term outcomes. Our approach includes data analysis, lived experience engagement, and partnership insight.

    Sexual Violence
    Understanding local prevalence, support needs, access to services, and barriers, with a focus on both acute response and longer-term recovery and empowerment.

    Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)
    Exploring intersections across domestic abuse, sexual violence, harassment, and other forms of gender-based harm, incorporating system mapping, survivor insight, and service impact.

    Safeguarding and Exploitation
    Reviewing local responses to child and adult exploitation (including CSE, CCE, modern slavery), often in the context of wider safeguarding arrangements and partnership working.

    Transitional Safeguarding
    Exploring how young people experiencing harm are supported as they move into adulthood, identifying gaps in policy, practice, and service design.

  • If you have a particular thematic area you are seeking to respond to in a more evidence informed way, we can work with you to undertake a specific bespoke needs assessment. For example:

    Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Needs Assessments
    Assessing local approaches to addressing perpetration, including service provision, referral pathways, and professional confidence. We've worked with areas to map current responses and identify opportunities for change.

    Older Adults Experiencing Abuse
    Exploring the specific needs of older people affected by domestic abuse, carer harm, or neglect, and how services can respond more effectively.

    Community or Setting-Specific Assessments
    We can also work with you to explore needs within particular settings or groups, for example, university populations, housing schemes, racially minoritised communities, or migrant survivors. If you have a specific question or concern, we can help shape the right methodology to explore it.

Where the magic happens:

We don’t just hand over a report, we work with you to translate findings into action. Our recommendations are clear, practical, and designed to be used, whether that’s to inform commissioning, strategy development, partnership planning, or service redesign.

Because we also offer strategic support, review services, and education and learning, we can continue to support you after the needs assessment is complete, helping you embed learning, deliver improvement activity, or build internal confidence and capacity.

Our track record:

  • Domestic abuse whole system needs assessment incorporating the statutory Part 4 safe accommodation elements.

  • All age explotation needs assessment to understand responses to all forms of exploitation across four Local Authority areas making up the Cheshire 'sub-region'. An aim of th eneeds assessment was to understand current definitions across the system, as well as responses to establish which crime and safeguarding types should be included in an all age transitional strategy.

  • Domestic Abuse Safe Accommodation needs assessment to support Domestic Abuse Act (2021) compliancy. We continued to support Salford in developing their safe accommodation strategy and approach.

  • Domestic abuse perpetrator needs assessment to understand the needs of those using harmful behaviours, and how the system currently responds to inform new approaches.

  • Strategic review of the whole system response to domestic abuse which included a comprehensive sfae accommodation needs assessment in line with the Part 4 Domestic Abuse Act (2021) safe accommodation duty.