The recent release of the new national Independent Sexual Violence Adviser (ISVA) Statutory Guidance marks a significant step forward in formalising and strengthening the ISVA role across England and Wales. Replacing the Home Office’s 2017 The role of the Independent Sexual Violence Advisor: Essential Elements document, this updated guidance reflects a deeper understanding of the diversity, complexity, and importance of the ISVA role in delivering sustainable, specialist support for victims and survivors of sexual violence.
As the UK’s leading ISVA training provider since 2011, LimeCulture welcomes this updated guidance and the continued clarity it provides for the sector. We were particularly pleased to see the emphasis placed on the professionalism of the ISVA role and the importance of robust training, which aligns closely with LimeCulture’s approach to supporting a skilled, sustainable workforce.
On the launch of the guidance Alex Davies-Jones, Minister for Victims and Violence Against Women and Girls, said: “Independent Domestic Violence Advisers and Independent Sexual Violence Advisers are vital in supporting victims of domestic and sexual abuse – from helping to navigate the court process to advising on services they can access in their community….Today’s guidance will help to improve the consistency of that support.” A message she reiterated, speaking at our most recent National Conference for ISVAs, which was held on 8 May 2025.
Over the past 13 years, we have trained more than 1000 new ISVAs and worked alongside ISVAs and ISVA managers from across the UK through our national ISVA Network, ISVA Managers Network, and Sexual Violence Commissioners Network, enabling us to stay close to the evolving challenges and realities of delivering ISVA support.
Setting the Standard: ISVA Quality Standards & Accreditation
In 2017 LimeCulture launched the Quality Standards for ISVA Services, offering a clear, practical framework for delivering high-quality, survivor-centred support. These Quality Standards were updated in 2022 to strengthen the provision for children and young people, ensuring their relevance to all aspects of the ISVA role.
The publication of the Statutory Guidance has provided a timely opportunity to reflect on how our Quality Standards—and the independent accreditation programme that accompanies them—interact with the statutory framework. Whil
e the Statutory Guidance for ISVAs establishes a baseline, it is naturally limited in what it can mandate. The Quality Standards for ISVA Services goes further: setting out what best practice looks like and enabling services to evidence their excellence and effectiveness.
What ISVAs Told Us: Survey Findings in Context
Most recently, LimeCulture undertook a national ISVA Insights Survey with responses from ISVAs and ISVA Managers across the country. Preliminary findings have been shared with ISVAs, ISVA Managers, and Commissioners for feedback ahead of the full report’s publication, ensuring the final analysis reflects the lived experiences and expert views from across the sector. While full results will be published shortly, several key themes clearly align with the priorities outlined in the Statutory Guidance
Training Gaps
LimeCulture welcomes the clear articulation within the Statutory Guidance of expectations around core ISVA training, which aligns with the structure and content of LimeCulture’s ISVA Development Programme. Our ISVA Development Programme continues to evolve in line with sector learning and emerging best practice, ensuring that ISVAs are equipped to meet the demands of this challenging and critical role.
The Statutory Guidance rightly promotes accessible, inclusive, and trauma-informed services. However, many of the respondents to our National Survey cited challenges accessing specialist Continued Professional Development (CPD) training, particularly around supporting key groups such as children and young people, male survivors, LGBTQ+ survivors, and clients with multiple or complex needs. These training gaps directly impact a service’s ability to deliver on the equity and inclusion principles outlined in the Statutory Guidance — an area LimeCulture will continue to support through our comprehensive training portfolio.
Emotional Support and Professional Boundaries
While ISVAs are not therapists, providing ‘emotional support’ is a core part of the ISVA role. While the Statutory Guidance acknowledges this complexity, it does not define what is meant by ‘emotional support’ or provide clarity on what this aspect of support should entail. Furthermore, our survey revealed ongoing tensions:
- ISVAs struggle with time pressures that make it difficult to provide effective emotional support
- Many feel unsure how to maintain boundaries when the emotional needs of clients are high
- A lack of structured space for reflection leaves practitioners vulnerable to burnout
These are not just personal well-being concerns; they affect the quality and safety of ISVA service delivery, underscoring the need for clear definitions and focused training around delivering ‘emotional support’. This will be an area that LimeCulture will be exploring in the coming months to ensure the ISVA workforce is better supported to practice safely, consistently and within the professional boundaries that underpin their role.
Caseloads and Complexity
The Statutory Guidance avoids setting maximum caseloads, instead emphasising that capacity should reflect the intensity and complexity of clients’ needs. This aligns with LimeCulture’s long-held position. In 2017, we developed the Safety and Support Assessment: a risk and needs assessment tool to help ISVAs assess the complexity of each case and put in place support plans more effectively. We will be revisiting this tool in the coming year to explore how it can better support services to balance demand with capacity.
Supervision and Self-Care
The Statutory Guidance’s recommendations around clinical supervision were strongly echoed by our survey respondents, who described:
- A need for supervision tailored to the emotional and practical demands of the ISVA role
- A lack of formalised management supervision
- Insufficient time or organisational focus on self-care and wellbeing
At LimeCulture, we believe that clinical supervision must be specific to the ISVA role and should sit alongside structured management oversight.
Crucially, this must be underpinned by an organisational culture that protects staff time for self-care, reflection, and resilience. To support this, we have developed a specialist course for ISVAs “Self Care Essentials: Wellbeing, Resilience & Self-Care for ISVAs” is launching shortly – an expression of interest can be completed here.
Looking ahead, LimeCulture will be seeking to collaborate further with ISVA services to define what high-quality, role-specific clinical supervision should look like. We aim to better understand how services are currently responding to this need and how we can best support them in implementing effective, sustainable supervision models.
Multi-Agency Understanding
ISVAs consistently told us that strong connections with other professionals are essential – both for ensuring coordinated, safe support for victims and survivors, and for helping ISVAs maintain clear boundaries in their own role.
One of the most valuable aspects of the Statutory Guidance is that it provides a clear, shared reference point for other agencies—such as the police, social workers, healthcare staff and educators—to understand what an ISVA is, and what they are not. When the ISVA role is misunderstood, it can:
- Undermine the quality of multi-agency working
- Place unrealistic expectations on ISVAs
- Blur professional boundaries and create risks for staff and survivors
The Statutory Guidance offers an important opportunity to strengthen multi-agency collaboration and promote a shared understanding that supports victims, survivors, and practitioners alike.
A Note on Outcomes and Data
One area missing from the Statutory Guidance, but central to our Quality Standards, is how data and outcomes are collected and used to inform ISVA service delivery. Currently, there is no consistent dataset or outcome monitoring framework for ISVA services. Through our work with ISVA Managers and Commissioners, this has been identified as a key challenge.
LimeCulture is committed to exploring how outcome measurement and data collection can better support assurance, improvement, and accountability across ISVA services
Looking Ahead
The publication of the new ISVA Statutory Guidance is a critical moment for the sector —we believe it must be seen not as the endpoint, but as the foundation for future progress.
At LimeCulture, we will continue to:
- Provide accredited training to ISVAs, including professional development and wellbeing support
- Support excellence through our ISVA Quality Standards and independent accreditation programme
- Convene ISVAs, managers, and commissioners through our national professional networks
- Offer practical tools and research-informed guidance that reflect the reality of frontline delivery
The Statutory Guidance sets the direction. LimeCulture remains committed to providing the support, structure, and community needed to help ISVAs — and the services they work in — thrive.