Evaluating local responses to children and young people: Insights, gaps, and opportunities

Key findings

Multi-agency working

About a quarter of professionals from education (22%), and a quarter of children’s social care (statutory) (26%) and children’s services (universal/early help) (26%) told us they had not had training around domestic abuse that focused on children in the last two years. 

• Children as victims – Professionals do not feel children are always recognised as victims, or that the risks those perpetrating abuse present to children, including post-separation, are always acknowledged.

• Education sector – Professionals value the voice and position of schools and education settings as key contacts, but education is not always asked for input and does not always receive information.

• Professional training and confidence – Not all professionals receive training in domestic abuse with a focus on children and they are not always confident in how to balance supporting families while also keeping children and victims safe.

• Victim-blaming – Non-abusive parents are often viewed as responsible for their children’s safety, despite having no control or responsibility for the abusive behaviour.

• MARAC – MARAC creates opportunities to identify and safeguard children and young people who may be at risk.

• Operation Encompass – When there is robust training, clear safeguarding pathways, and timely information sharing, Operation Encompass can be effective.

Experiences of children and their families

More than four in five (84%) respondents to our professional survey identified children’s wellbeing as a key area of need, second only to mental health needs (96%).  

• Children as victims – While children’s wellbeing was identified as a key priority, victim-survivors and professionals feel children are not consistently viewed as victims of domestic abuse in their own right.

• Children used to abuse – Children are used by perpetrators of abuse as a mechanism to control the non-abusive parent, and child contact post-separation can facilitate further abuse, harassment, and control.

• Barriers to support – Concerns about the impact on children, or losing their children, is a barrier for the non-abusive parent to seek support.

• Poor professional responses – Victim-survivors’ experiences of the police and family court were largely negative with many describing inaction and not being believed.

• Lack of support – there is limited specialist support for children and a lack of suitable refuge accommodation for families with children, especially those with male teenagers or children with additional needs or disabilities.

• Professional uncertainty – An area of professional uncertainty is balancing child safeguarding when maintaining relationships between children and parents using harmful behaviours.

Young victim-survivors of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and young people using harm

59% of professionals who responded to our survey told us they had training in domestic abuse focused on children in the last two years.  

• Young people in abusive romantic relationships – There is a gap in domestic abuse provision for young people under 16 in abusive romantic relationships that fall outside of the Domestic Abuse Act definition.

• Lack of services – Services for young people experiencing and using harmful behaviours in romantic relationships are limited.

• Child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse (CAPVA) – Professionals have varying understandings of CAPVA with few resources for guidance, and pathways for support are limited.

• Support and safeguarding – Support and safeguarding for young people can be complex, particularly transitional safeguarding for 16–18-year-olds who are moving from child to adult services and when working with young people using harmful behaviour, who remain protected within children’s safeguarding frameworks.

• Healthy relationship education – Victim-survivors and professionals think that children and young people should learn about healthy relationships and domestic abuse at an early stage.