Comment on the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s...
Commenting on the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s report on domestic abuse, Steve Crocker, President of ADCS, said:
“Domestic abuse is sadly persistent and widespread; it is the most common factor in situations where children are at risk of serious harm in this country today. Whilst this report recognises that children’s services and local partners are working hard to meet this challenge, the sheer scale of this issue means that agencies are stuck in a cycle of responding to crises and attempting to protect children and victims from the immediate risk of harm, rather than on prevention.
“Tackling domestic abuse effectively is complex; there is often more than one victim and multiple risk factors at play. No one agency can do this alone and as the Panel’s analysis states, the most successful interventions happen where there is co-ordinated, multi-agency based working. Domestic abuse can have a lifelong, devastating and intergenerational impact on victims of all ages. It is hard to read that responses may have fallen short in in some cases but the whole system recognises that there’s more to do to get it right for children and families. The learning from this analysis as well as the tools and case studies within it should be considered by local partnerships.
“Reforms under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 continue be progressed, but we really need an enhanced public health approach to tackling domestic abuse such is the scale and prevalence. Significant new investment is needed from government to bolster services at all levels and stages to see the necessary shift from intervention at the point of crisis to prevention of harm. A shift to a more systematic focus on prevention and changing perpetrator behaviours is long overdue and the government must lead this endeavour from the front as a matter of urgency.”
ENDS