Commissioning: Tackling domestic abuse

Dealing with domestic abuse is a rapidly-expanding area of work within the children's sector. Responding to the government's Strategy to End Violence against Women and Girls and forthcoming Domestic Abuse Bill, local authorities and commissioning partnerships are increasingly recognising this as a key policy area and strategic priority, and are developing ways to reduce demand and help families who struggle with abuse to move on.

The Adoption and Children Act 2002 recognised the impact of this type of abuse and amended earlier definitions of "significant harm" requiring safeguarding intervention by local authorities to include impairment suffered by seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another. Charity SafeLives estimates that 62 per cent of children living with domestic abuse are directly harmed by it, but nearly half of those experiencing domestic abuse are unknown to services and receive no support.