News

There really is no place like home. Sadly, it is in the home that one in four women will experience violence in their lifetime from a partner or ex-partner. Domestic abuse accounts for a quarter of all violent crime and has the highest rate of repeat victimisation of any crime.

And it happens just about everywhere. Cheshire, for example, certainly has areas of deprivation (in Crewe and Ellesmere Port, for example), but the county has a rather leafy image. But each year, Cheshire police are called out to over 10,000 domestic incidents. And they are just the ones that are reported; many more people presumably suffer painfully in silence.

In 1997 some brave thinking led to the creation of the Cheshire Domestic Abuse Partnership (CDAP). It was believed that rather than being just another "problem" for some families, domestic abuse was potentially a cause of parental mental health problems and substance abuse, and children needing services. Today nearly 41 per cent of children in need in Cheshire have reported domestic violence.

"Violence between parents is so often the cause of children coming into services," says development manager and chair of CDAP Sue Bridge. "And if you look into the inquiries into child deaths, those children were killed by the man who was already known to have been abusing the woman."

CDAP started out modestly aiming to raise awareness through information and training, but has gone from strength to strength. Bridge says: "It is part of mainstream services and we work together to share good practice on prevention, protection and support." Information is available through a directory of services, website and leaflets including a concertina credit card-sized version. Its training programme, now in its eighth year, has been delivered to around 3,000 multi-agency staff.

Multi-agency is a key word. CDAP brings together social services, police, health, education (each year in the UK 30,000 children flee with their mother to refuges, disrupting their home life and schooling), probation, Women's Aid, Cheshire domestic violence outreach service, crime and disorder partnerships, Relate, the Council for Racial Equality, Victim Support, Connexions, the NSPCC, Refuge Forum and Chester diocese.
In 2000 CDAP was awarded a grant from the Home Office crime reduction programme to set up a range of schemes, including data monitoring and its impressive outreach service.

"Early intervention could substantially reduce the numbers of children needing services," says Bridge. "We recognised that while there were refuges for women to escape to, we didn't have any services in the community for those who might still be living with a violent partner and weren't ready or wanting to move out of that relationship; or who wanted to make things better."

The outreach service, managed by Stonham Housing, which also runs a refuge in Chester, supported 941 women (and 1,489 children) in its first two years: "Our target was 360 women a year."

Research shows that for a woman the most dangerous time is when she decides to leave. "That is the time when the control is being taken away. Every three days in this country a woman is killed at the hands of their partner or ex-partner," says Bridge.

Desperation is often the reason for leaving. As one victim of domestic violence explains: "I left to protect my child. He put a pillow over his head, 'Shall I kill you or him first?' I only got out because the neighbour heard my screaming and called the police."

Although domestic abuse is inching up the political agenda, and is a significant underlying cause of poor outcomes for children, it gets only one mention in Every Child Matters in the outcomes framework.

But Bridge remains positive. "At least it's there. The big worry now with the split between adult and children's services is that if we see children without their parents - we are ignoring where their problems come from. And if we don't have the services supporting those parents experiencing abuse, we are not going to make things better for those children."

Lessons Learned 

• Data monitoring has given a clear picture of incidences and related needs. Information is fed back to services and police to help identify gaps and needs.
• Cheshire has achieved a 27 per cent increase in reporting. "The rise does not necessarily mean more domestic abuse is happening but rather that people are more confident in reporting it to agencies," says CDAP data monitoring officer Judith Gibson.
• Bridge feels opportunities have been missed. "What hasn't been grasped sufficiently is that domestic abuse isn't just another issue, it is fundamentally behind many of the others."