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Domestic Abuse

Overview

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 for the first time recognises children as victims of domestic abuse in their own right e.g. if the child sees, hears, or experiences the effects of the abuse, and is related to, or falls under “parental responsibility” of, the victim and/or perpetrator of the domestic abuse.

A child might therefore be considered a victim of domestic abuse under the 2021 Act where one parent is abusing another parent, or where a parent is abusing, or being abused by, a partner or relative. So, whereas we used to talk about children witnessing domestic abuse, there is a now a recognition that just living with a parent that is being abused has an impact.

Living with domestic abuse of a parent or carer is traumatising for children and young people. It can cause serious harm to their mental wellbeing that is very long lasting. There are many ways that children and young people may experience domestic abuse, these include, seeing the abuse; hearing the abuse from another room, seeing parents’ injuries and distress after the incident and being injured themselves by being nearby or trying to stop the abuse. Living with coercive control means that they are likely to suffer from being isolated from friends and family with their non abusing parent, and to be living constantly in fear due to the threats and intimidation from the perpetrator even if this is directed primarily at their parent / carer.

• The UK government’s legal definition of domestic abuse is ‘any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or personally connected to each other.
• This can encompass, but is not limited to, the following types of abuse:
  • psychological
  • physical
  • sexual
  • economic
  • emotional

‘Personally connected’ is defined as:

• (a)they are, or have been, married to each other;
• (b)they are, or have been, civil partners of each other;
• (c)they have agreed to marry one another (whether or not the agreement has been terminated);
• (d)they have entered into a civil partnership agreement (whether or not the agreement has been terminated);
• (e)they are, or have been, in an intimate personal relationship with each other;
• (f)they each have, or there has been a time when they each have had, a parental relationship in relation to the same child (see subsection (2));
• (g)they are relatives.

Relatives are defined as:

• mother, father, daughter, son, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, granddaughter, grandson. Aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or first cousin whether of the full blood or of the half blood.
• This includes in law or step family relationships.

Domestic abuse is rarely a one off incident – it is a range of behaviours that may or may not lead to physical injury but is often characterized by coercive control – a crime since December 2015, which more resembles kidnapping than assault and is about preventing someone from having the freedom to do what they want to do, involving isolation, intimidation and humiliation. The definition of domestic abuse also includes so called ‘honour’ based violence, female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriage, and it is clear that victims are not confined to one gender or ethnic group.

As domestic abuse mainly happens in the home it is difficult to tell if it is happening. Children who witness domestic abuse may become aggressive, withdrawn, display anti-social behaviours, suffer from depression or anxiety, run away from home and not do well at school. Sometimes however they may do very well at school and be well behaved in order to placate the perpetrator/abusive parent. If you think a child is living with domestic abuse consider a referral to safeguarding.

Key Facts

• It is estimated that there would have been between 25,973 and 28,334 children affected by domestic abuse in Sheffield in the last year (2021)¹.
• Childhood Local Data on Risks and Needs estimated that, between 2019 and 2020, approximately 1 in 15 children under the age of 17 live in households where a parent is a victim of domestic abuse².
• Around 1 in 5 children have been exposed to domestic abuse⁶.
• In their 2020 annual report, the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel found that domestic abuse was featured in 43% of incidents involving serious harm and 41% of fatal incidents³.
• For the most high-risk cases of domestic abuse that are referred locally to Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARAC), there were an estimated 13 children for every ten cases (2019 to 2020), further highlighting the prevalence of children and young people affected by domestic abuse⁴.
• It should be noted that evidence suggests many children who experience domestic abuse are not identified and may therefore miss out on support.

A third of children witnessing domestic abuse also experienced another form of abuse⁷.

• In 50% of cases domestic abuse continues even after the parents have separated⁸.
• 1 in 5 teenagers have been physically abused by their boyfriends or girlfriends⁹.
• 1 in 4 young women (aged 15-24 years) who have been in a relationship will have already experienced violence by an intimate partner by the time they reach their mid-twenties. Younger women are at highest risk for recent violence. Among those who have been in a relationship, the highest rates (16%) of intimate partner violence in the past 12 months occurred among young women aged between 15 and 24⁵.

Young People - abuse within teen relationships

It is important to remember that young people can also experience domestic abuse in their own relationships. In fact both young women and young men (aged 16-19) are more likely to experience domestic abuse than adults². Young adolescents are just as likely to experience abuse as older teenagers are. Using estimates from the Crime Survey of England and Wales as many as 2,862 (of which 2,068 are female) 16 – 19 year olds may have been a victim of domestic abuse in Sheffield in the last year, and 1,838 (of which 1,433 or female) have been a victim of partner abuse in the last year. Research by Bristol University and the NSPCC in 2016 showed that 27% of teenage girls aged 13-17 had experienced sexual violence in their relationships. Using the ONS 2020 mid-year population estimates this could equate to as many as 4,176 teenage girls having experienced sexual violence in their relationships in Sheffield per year.

Domestic abuse in teenage relationships can be just as severe and has the potential to be as life threatening as abuse in adult relationships. Young people who experience domestic abuse do so at a particularly vulnerable point in their lives. ⁷ They may experience a complex transition from childhood to adulthood which impacts on behaviour and decision making. It may impact on the way that they respond to abuse or if and how they engage with services.

YWAVE research in to Young People’s Domestic Abuse Services in Sheffield³ provides further insight into young people’s awareness of domestic abuse:

• 5% of those surveyed did not know what a healthy relationship was.
• 17% would not be able to spot the signs of an unhealthy relationship
• Less than half (41.5%) would not know how to find information about healthy relationships.
• 4% did not know what the term domestic abuse meant.
• 44% said they would not know where to get help if they or someone else they knew was experiencing domestic abuse.
• One in five of the questionnaire respondents had experienced domestic abuse in their family life, their own relationship or both.

In 2017 questions about controlling behaviour were included in the Every Child Matters survey⁴ for the first time for year 10s. The findings were that boys and girls were equally likely to understand they were in a controlling relationship but the level of the control, how much the young person likes the person who is being controlling and individual confidence levels are all factors as to whether the situation is considered to be OK and whether action would be taken by the young person to act to change or end the relationship. Whilst the statistical differences between gender responses are only marginal, it appears boys are slightly more likely to consider controlling behaviour is OK if they really like the person but more likely to act than their female counterparts, whilst the opposite applied to females; they were more likely to think the controlling behaviour was wrong but have less confidence and are therefore less likely to act to change the situation.

In order to assist practitioners, understand the risk to young people in their relationships, the Young People’s DASH Risk Assessment was adopted in Sheffield in 2022. This can be found along with guidance for use on the DACT website and training is available via IDAS https://sheffielddact.org.uk/domestic-abuse/resources/marac-information-and-forms/.

References

¹ https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-violence-and-abuse

² Crime Survey of England and Wales 2016

³ https://avaproject.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/chilypep-ywave-report-final-print.pdf

⁴ www.sheffield.gov.uk/ecm

⁵ http://sheffielddact.org.uk/domestic-abuse/resources/danac/

⁶ Radford, L. et al (2011) Child abuse and neglect in the UK today.

^{7, 10} ibid

⁸ Stanley et al 2009

⁹ Barter et al (2009) Partner exploitation and violence in teenage intimate relationships. NSPCC and Bristol University