Intervening earlier

Why?

To prevent domestic abuse, we need to change attitudes and raise awareness of the signs and impact of domestic abuse. Our focus is pro-active prevention and identifying domestic abuse as early as possible to prevent situations escalating, reducing impact, and reducing likelihood of repeat. We recognise that prevention of domestic abuse in the first place is the single most cost-effective way of addressing the issue.

How?

We will take a whole population approach to raising awareness about domestic abuse. This will involve working with communities to create a culture where domestic abuse is out in the open and people who are harmed access the services they need. We need to increase public awareness that domestic abuse is not OK. As a result, there will be less tolerance to the behaviours of those who harm. We will work towards achieving this through the Open the Door campaign.

Creating an environment for disclosure is crucial if we are to intervene in the cycle of domestic abuse at an early stage. Incidents or patterns of abuse often remain hidden and may not be disclosed for a variety of reasons including shame, culture, stigma, a fear of not being believed. Additionally, people's confidence, both in terms of services and in their own ability to deal effectively with the abuse and the associated relationship is a barrier to disclosure.

It is important that children and young people understand what a healthy relationship looks like so that their expectations are raised about what to expect from their own relationships as they grow up. It is through education that we will prevent domestic abuse in the upcoming generations. In September 2020 Relationship Education became compulsory in all state funded schools.

Further opportunities to reinforce messages occur in youth club issue-based sessions. There is a clear link to the work that is happening relating to eradicating sexual harassment in schools.

We want to encourage major employers in west Cheshire to adopt a common approach to supporting employees who experience domestic abuse and introduce a common challenge to their employees who are abusers. This involves creating safe spaces for employees to disclose with confidence that they will be supported. All statutory partners of the Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board (DALPB) commit to having a Domestic Abuse policy in place.

West Cheshire Children's Trust adopts a trauma informed approach to working with people impacted by domestic abuse.

A more effective and compassionate response to families facing conditions of adversity will improve the lives of many children and families and remove them from unnecessary and intrusive levels of state intervention.

The Early Intervention Foundation reports a significant lack of evidence around what works to support families experiencing domestic abuse. However, there is emerging evidence that there is a link between spending on help for families and reduced demand on children's social care. The Supporting Families programme (previously Troubled Families) is the model used in Cheshire West and Chester Local Authority early help services; it promotes a whole family working model. It is delivered through a lead worker, allowing locally available services and specialist support to be drawn together for the family in a coordinated way, through a Team Around the Family assessment and plan.

We are committed to ensuring support is not limited to those at high risk of harm. People harmed due to domestic abuse use health care services more than non-abused individuals and are admitted to hospital and issued more prescriptions than the general population. They identify healthcare workers as the professionals they are most likely to speak to about their abuse (Safe Lives, 2015). Health care professionals are in a prime position to create the opportunity for disclosure of domestic abuse and identify any needs. If someone asks for help or there is a concern or suspicion of domestic abuse the person being spoken to are met with a caring, understanding, and informed response that gets them the help that they need within an environment where they feel safe.

Pregnancy is an additional risk factor in situations of domestic abuse as research demonstrates that 30 per cent of domestic abuse starts or escalates during pregnancy. The Royal College of Midwives recommends that at every contact every pregnant woman is asked a routine enquiry question around domestic abuse. Furthermore, NICE Guidance advises all health and social care staff use domestic abuse routine enquiry as part of their practice to assess risk

Operation Encompass aims to support children, by ensuring police communicate directly with schools to inform them that an incident of domestic abuse has happened in a child's home enabling schools to provide appropriate emotional and wellbeing support to the child. We will further develop Operation Encompass to ensure that pre-school settings are reached.