Domestic violence and conflict are a matter of degree

In Social Care, there are different provisions in place for addressing high conflict and domestic violence in social care in England:

1. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 introduced new requirements and duties for local authorities regarding domestic abuse support:

- Local authorities must assess the need for accommodation-based support for domestic abuse victims and their children in their area.

- They must prepare and publish strategies for providing such support.

- They must appoint a multi-agency Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board to consult on these functions

2. The Act explicitly recognises children who see, hear or experience the effects of domestic abuse as victims in their own right.

3. Local authorities have a duty to provide support to all victims of domestic abuse and their children in safe accommodation, regardless of their characteristics.

4. There are new provisions around secure tenancies for domestic abuse victims fleeing their homes.

5. The government has established Domestic Abuse Best Practice Leads in Family Court areas to drive cultural change and improve practices around domestic abuse cases.

6. Social care practitioners are expected to use standard resource tools like the DASH risk assessment, Severity of Abuse Grid, and safety planning templates when supporting domestic abuse cases.

7. Multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARACs) are used to manage high-risk domestic abuse cases.

8. There are provisions for working agreements with perpetrators and tools to assess their risk.

These measures aim to improve support for victims, recognise the impact on children, and drive more consistent and effective responses to domestic abuse across social care and the family justice system in England.]

Conflict is inevitable but what makes one conflict a matter for safeguarding and child protection and another a matter of skills training and awareness?

Assess the balance / imbalance of power to know whether to treat a case as one of domestic violence or as a case of parental conflict.

The abuse or misuse of power or coercive control can often sit somewhere along this continuum between conflict and high conflict families

The partner who is the object of abuse often feels on alert, ‘walking on eggshells’

careful not to set the partner off.

The partner who abuses their power often feels like a victim too:

‘my partner made me do it’

‘my partner’s behaviour is intolerable’

‘my partner needs to learn how to behave’

It is helpful to foster a deep understanding of the dynamics of domestic abuse within the community. Recognising the signs of abuse, helps us to interrupt it. Are you familiar with the signs of abuse?

To create a supportive environment where each individual can feel understood and empowered to seek help, should they need it, we need a community to approach domestic violence as a collective issue and not an individual or family issue.

Parents have a crucial role to play in breaking the cycle of domestic violence. And, to enhance parental involvement and empowerment, we also need the community as a whole to take shared responsibility for prevention of domestic violence.

There is less pressure on individuals to hide its occurrence, less need for blame and guilt to get cycled and recycled, when there is distributed leadership and responsibility for it across the community enabling multiple interventions.