Dewis Choice: A Welsh Initiative promoting justice for older victim-survivors of domestic abuse

The chapter describes the development of Dewis Choice, a four-year, Big Lottery funded project, launched in 2015 in two locations in Wales, one a city area and the other a predominantly rural county. The project, which combines service provision and research, is aimed at people sixty years of age and over who experience domestic abuse. As such, it represents a response to the gap in service provision for this age group and recognition that older people do not receive the same access to services as their younger counterparts. As research shows, service and legislative responses can often, albeit unintentionally, discriminate against older people (Wydall et al., 2018). The Dewis Choice service is unique in empowering older victim-survivors to make informed choices about their justice options, be they civil, criminal, and/or restorative. From a research perspective, the adoption of participatory action research and a qualitative longitudinal design helps to capture the experiences of older victim-survivors at different stages in the ‘justice-seeking’ journey and illustrate how their conceptions of justice are subject to change over time.