Our Story

Victims were not being believed. Children were not being protected.
And professionals who ignored the law faced no consequences.

Again and again, families came to us broken, frightened and desperate — not because they had done anything wrong, but because the very systems designed to safeguard them had failed.

Police dismissed dangerous patterns as “civil matters.”
Social care blamed protective parents instead of abusive ones.
Courts minimised coercive control, ignored disclosures, and forced unsafe contact.
Children’s voices were silenced by those meant to speak for them.

These were not isolated mistakes.
They were patterns — national, repeating, predictable.

And for Theresa, our founder, there came a moment when she realised:

“If nobody else will stop this, we will.”

That is how 1VAA was born — not as a charity, not as an organisation, but as a movement:
A community of survivors, advocates, policy builders and truth-tellers determined to expose system failures and build something better.

A movement that refuses to accept another child dying because a professional “didn’t believe the mother.”
A movement that knows the law already exists — it is simply not being followed.
A movement that believes no victim should ever have to fight alone again.

Our founder, Theresa Murray, was supporting families long before 1VAA had a name — mothers fleeing violence, fathers desperately trying to protect their children, families shattered by professional failings. Every week another parent came to her with the same story:

“I reported it. No one listened.”
“They blamed me instead of the abuser.”
“Social services twisted everything.”
“The court said it was ‘conflict’.”
“My child is still unsafe.”

At first, Theresa worked case by case, fighting for each family individually — attending meetings, challenging assessments, gathering evidence, exposing manipulation, and teaching parents how to protect their children within a system that routinely ignored risk.

But as the months passed, the pattern became impossible to deny.

Different families. Different local authorities. Different police forces.
The same failures over and over again.

It wasn’t “one bad social worker.”
It wasn’t “one poor investigation.”
It wasn’t “one judge having a bad day.”

It was systemic.

Victims were being dismissed.
Children were being placed with abusers.
Evidence was being ignored or buried.
Professionals were not following the law — and there were no consequences when they didn’t.

Theresa realised that the problem was bigger than any one family could fight alone.

So she began collecting data.
Documenting failures.
Building case files.
Joining the dots across hundreds of families.

And from those families, a community was born.

A community that did not accept silence.
A community that refused to be blamed for the abuse they were surviving.
A community that believed in truth, safeguarding and accountability — even when the system did not.

That community became 1VAA — One Voice Against Abuse.
A movement built from lived experience, professional insight, and an unshakeable determination to make sure no child, no parent, and no family is ever abandoned by the systems designed to protect them again.

Different local authorities.
Different police forces.
Different judges.
The same failures.

What we saw was not accidental.
Not occasional.
Not the result of “staff shortages” or “training needs.”

It was structural.

We saw:

Police dismissing criminal offences as “civil disputes.”

Victims reporting violence, stalking, coercive control and threats were routinely told:
“There’s nothing we can do.”
Risk assessments weren’t completed. Evidence wasn’t collected. Children’s disclosures were ignored.

Social workers minimising abuse and blaming protective parents.

Instead of identifying perpetrators, many assessments focused on the victim’s reactions to trauma — labelling them “anxious,” “unstable,” or “non-cooperative.”
Abusers were framed as “engaged,” “polite,” and “willing to work with professionals.”

Family courts overriding safeguarding and forcing unsafe contact.

Judges dismissed patterns of abuse as “high conflict.”
PD12J was ignored.
Children were placed in the care of the parent they were most afraid of.
Protective parents were threatened with fines, prison, or loss of custody for simply trying to keep their children safe.

Professionals acting with bias, discrimination and unchecked power.

Victims were disbelieved because of their gender, disability, culture, neurodivergence or trauma responses.
Evidence was filtered through personal opinion rather than law.

No accountability. No consequences. No regulation with teeth.

Complaints disappeared into internal processes that protected staff instead of victims.
Regulators acted only after catastrophic harm — not to prevent it.

Families were not failing the system.
The system was failing the families.

And the consequences were devastating:

• Children traumatised.

• Victims criminalised instead of protected.

• Perpetrators empowered by agency blindness.

• Evidence buried or rewritten.

• Lives shattered by decisions made without understanding coercive control, trauma or risk.

The more families we supported, the clearer it became:

The system wasn’t broken.
It was functioning exactly as designed — without accountability, without enforceable safeguarding, and without consequences for wrongdoing.

That realisation led to a turning point:

1VAA could no longer focus solely on helping families survive individual cases.
We had to expose the system failures causing those cases.

And we had to build the solution that nobody else would.

But as the numbers grew, a deeper truth emerged:

These were not “unlucky families.”
These were not isolated mistakes.
These were symptoms of a national safeguarding collapse.

And because no regulator, agency or government department was willing to acknowledge the scale of the problem, 1VAA stepped into the gap.

We began documenting cases, patterns and professional failings.

Over time, this became one of the largest independent datasets of:

• police non-compliance

• domestic abuse misclassification

• coercive control minimisation

• social care malpractice

• family court safeguarding breaches

• evidence mishandling

• discriminatory and biased decision-making

Every family brought another piece of the puzzle.

Professionals began to contact us too.

Whistleblowers from police, social care, CAFCASS, education and healthcare reached out, saying:

• “We are not allowed to report what’s really happening.”

• “We are told not to put certain things in writing.”

• “We are pressured to close cases.”

• “We are punished for speaking up.”

Their testimonies confirmed what families already knew:
The failures were systemic — and protected by the system itself.

So 1VAA changed direction.

We didn’t just support families anymore.
We started:

• analysing patterns across hundreds of cases

• mapping where the law was being ignored

• exposing cross-agency safeguarding failures

• identifying repeat offenders in professional roles

• documenting risk escalation and child endangerment

• tracking national data on professional misconduct

**Then we did something no one else had done:

We built the solution.**

From lived experience, legal analysis and thousands of hours of casework, 1VAA developed a new national safeguarding model that finally enforces the law and holds professionals accountable.

A model built not from theory, but from the lived reality of the families who suffered under the old system — and from the frontline experience of those trying to protect them.

**This is how a community became a movement.

And how a movement became a national voice.**

1VAA evolved from supporting individual families to confronting an entire broken system — openly, unapologetically and with evidence no authority could ignore.

Our goal is no longer just to help families survive abuse.
Our goal is to stop the system enabling that abuse in the first place.

We are not here to reinvent safeguarding.
We are here to ensure it is finally followed.

Our work, our campaigns and our reform model are grounded in the values that define who we are and what we refuse to compromise on.

🔵 We stand for TRUTH.

The truth of victims.
The truth of children.
The truth hidden in police logs, emails, court papers and professional decisions.
The truth that systems often work harder to protect themselves than the people they serve.

We expose truth — clearly, fearlessly, and with evidence.

🟣 We stand for EVIDENCE.

Patterns, not opinions.
Facts, not speculation.
Chronologies, risk assessments, disclosures and professional records that show what really happened.

We do not deal in narratives or assumptions.
We deal in proof.

🟢 We stand for SAFEGUARDING.

Real safeguarding — not the checkbox version used by agencies.
Safeguarding that understands coercive control, trauma, child disclosures, grooming, and risk escalation.

Children should not be forced into unsafe contact.
Victims should not be punished for seeking protection.
Professionals should not override the law.

🟠 We stand for ACCOUNTABILITY.

No professional should be allowed to cause harm without consequence.

Not police.
Not social workers.
Not CAFCASS.
Not judges.
Not schools.
Not medical professionals.

Where the system fails, we document it, escalate it, and demand corrective action.

🟡 We stand for SURVIVOR-LED CHANGE.

Our movement is built from lived experience, trauma-informed practice, and real casework — not theory, committees or reports that gather dust.

The people who have suffered the consequences of system failure are the ones best placed to reform it.

🔴 We stand for HOPE — not false hope, but structural change.

The families we support deserve more than sympathy.
They deserve a system that works.
A system that listens.
A system that protects children before harm, not after tragedy.

That is why we created the national model of reform — a model built to enforce the law, regulate professionals, and make safeguarding non-negotiable.

This is what we stand for.
This is who we are.
This is why we will not stop.

Every major scandal told the same story.
Every case review exposed the same issues.
Every family brought the same questions:

“How is this allowed to happen?”
“How can they ignore the law?”
“Why is nobody accountable?”

We searched for the answer.
There wasn’t one.
No agency, regulator or government department had the legal authority to intervene when professionals broke safeguarding law.

• Police could ignore coercive control.

• Social workers could falsify reports without consequence.

• CAFCASS could silence children.

• Judges could override evidence and risk assessments.

• Local authorities could bury failures.

And victims — especially protective parents — were punished for speaking up.

The system did not need more awareness campaigns.
It did not need another review, committee, or working group.

It needed structure. Regulation. Enforcement.
It needed a mechanism to make the law mandatory, not optional.

So 1VAA built what was missing.

⭐ The Justice & Legislation Executive (JLE)

A national regulatory body designed to enforce the law across police, social care, CAFCASS, judiciary, medical, education and safeguarding agencies.

JLE is the first model to create a single unified line of accountability — so professionals can no longer hide failures inside separate institutions.

⭐ The Justice (Victim & Crime) Management Regulation (JVCM)

A single operational framework that removes loopholes, variation and subjective “professional discretion.”

JVCM ensures that every case involving domestic abuse, coercive control, stalking or child risk is handled:

• lawfully

• consistently

• transparently

• with mandatory escalation when agencies fail

It replaces chaos with compliance.

⭐ The Statutory Safeguarding Compliance Officer (SSCO)

The role that never existed — but always should have.

A legally trained safeguarding specialist with the authority to:

• demand files

• review evidence

• intervene when risk is ignored

• remove professionals from a case

• escalate criminal negligence

• ensure PD12J, the Children Act, the Domestic Abuse Act and ABE standards are actually applied

Every catastrophic case could have been prevented if an SSCO had been involved.

We will not allow those failures to continue.

⭐ Together, these reforms form the first enforceable safeguarding model in the UK.

Not a policy.
Not guidance.
Not recommendations.
An operational system with teeth.

They exist because victims needed more than support.
They needed a system that finally listened, acted — and protected.

Families asked us to fix what the government would not.
So we did.

A future where:

Police follow the law because they must, not because they choose to.

Coercive control is recognised.
Risk is taken seriously.
Evidence is collected.
Victims are protected, not doubted.

Social care understands trauma instead of weaponising it.

Protective parents are supported, not pathologised.
Children’s voices are prioritised, not rewritten.
Assessments are based on evidence, not opinion.

Family courts uphold PD12J, child welfare and human rights — every time.

No more “contact at all costs.”
No more minimising abuse.
No more silencing disclosures.
No more legal systems being used as weapons against victims.

Professionals who breach their duties face real accountability.

Not internal reviews.
Not closed-ranks protection.
Not “lessons will be learned.”
Actual consequences — removal, retraining, investigation, prosecution where appropriate.

And no family is ever left to fight alone.

Support is accessible.
Information is clear.
Evidence is understood.
Protection is consistent.
Children’s safety is central.

This is not just a vision — it is a plan.

The JLE, JVCM and SSCO reforms provide the blueprint.
JSOC provides the oversight.
Harry’s Law and Luna’s Law give victims the protection and transparency they deserve.
Our community provides the strength and the evidence to drive national change.

We are building a safeguarding system that finally works —
for victims, for children, and for future generations who deserve better.

This is the future we fight for.
This is the future we will build.

There are many ways to stand with us and become part of that change.

🔵 Join as a Member

If you need support, or you want to understand your rights, gather evidence, prepare for court or challenge unsafe decisions, you can join 1VAA as a member.

Membership gives you:

• access to guided support

• evidence review

• safeguarding strategy

• meeting preparation

• escalation routes

• survivor-led community

• clear, factual guidance without judgement

You do not have to face this alone.

🟣 Share Your Experience (Safely and Confidentially)

Every case you share — every log, timeline, disclosure, police failure, social care report, court order — helps us build the national evidence base that proves what is happening across the UK.

This is how change is made:

• one family’s truth

• becoming one dataset

• becoming one national voice

No single story is ignored; together, they are undeniable.

🟢 Support the Campaigns

Harry’s Law, Luna’s Law, JSOC, JLE, JVCM and SSCO are not ideas — they are solutions.
Real, operational, legally grounded solutions that can be implemented now.

You can support these campaigns by:

• sharing them

• discussing them

• raising them with MPs

• advocating within your community

• helping us spread the truth the system tries to hide

Your voice adds weight.
Your story adds power.
Your courage shifts policy.

🟠 Stand With Survivors

Even if you are not in crisis, you can:

• volunteer

• help families prepare chronologies

• offer professional insight

• support advocacy

• promote trauma-informed safeguarding

• be a voice for those the system silences

Every skill helps.
Every advocate matters.

🔴 Be Part of a National Reform Movement

Change does not come from silence.
It comes from survivors, professionals, parents and allies standing together and saying:

“This is not good enough.
We will not accept it.
And we will change it.”

1VAA is the platform.
You are the movement.

This is your invitation.

If you want to join us — whether to seek support, share your experience, stand with other survivors, or help build the new safeguarding system this country so desperately needs — we welcome you.

One voice becomes many.
And many voices change nations.

Join us.
Stand with us.
Be the change with us.