Domestic violence definition change paves way for better help for victims

Domestic abuse is a hidden issue. Young people are not traditionally considered to be affected by the problem, but according to the British Crime Survey, 16- to 19-year-olds are more likely to suffer abuse from a partner than all other age groups, with 13 per cent of young women and six per cent of young men falling victim, compared with seven per cent of women and five per cent of men in the rest of the population.

The official definition of domestic violence is limited to people over the age of 18 who are in abusive relationships. But from March next year, the government wants to widen it to include 16- and 17-year-olds and victims of psychological abuse such as “coercive control”.

Eleri Butler is chief executive of Advance, a domestic violence charity that works with victims in London. Last year, the organisation supported 29 young women aged between 15 and 17 who were victims of abuse.

She believes a change in the definition will send a clear message that young people who experience abuse deserve support, while raising awareness among police and other agencies that young people can be isolated, exploited financially or sexually, or controlled by their partner to make them feel subordinate. These experiences are “just as serious as physical and sexual violence in relationships”, Butler says.

But she argues that a change to the definition alone will not be enough to transform support. “Despite evidence which shows that up to three quarters of young women experience abuse in teenage relationships, many still don’t know what help there is available and many agencies already working with young people don’t have a good understanding of domestic violence or of the risks young people face,” she says.

“There aren’t enough services out there for the thousands of children and young people affected by domestic violence. Many services, like ours, are overstretched and under-resourced.

Falling through the gap

“Changing the definition of domestic violence doesn’t mean more young people will be able to access safety and there’s a danger they’ll still fall through the gaps between children’s and adults services.”

Butler insists that the widening of the definition must be accompanied by training programmes for professionals, a requirement that schools raise awareness of domestic violence, and a network of support services that work directly with young people to keep them safe, help them recover from the abuse and re-educate abusers.

Diana Barran, chief executive of the charity Co-ordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse, agrees that a change in the definition paves the way to better respond to and identify young people in abusive relationships.

But she argues that a cultural change is necessary to really tackle the issue.

“Experience to date tells us that when young people do talk to a teacher, social worker or family member about violence, abuse or control in a relationship, they often find that people don’t expect that to happen to younger teenagers, and might be slightly dismissive,” she explains. “Actually, tragically there have been a number of recent murders of young girls who were in abusive relationships. When you look at the details of those cases, it is hard to believe that everybody missed what was going on.”

Barran says all young people need to be educated in “what healthy relationships look like” and “what constitutes abuse”, adding that specialist domestic violence services need to be trained in specific ways of working with young people.

“Very few domestic abuse services have experience working with young people, so we need to plug that gap to make sure that they can respond,” she says.

“Systems and training need to be put in place. Also, the justice system has to adapt. Just a handful of cases involving teenagers in violent relationships went through the criminal courts last year – less than 100 – so it just isn’t something they’re dealing with every day. We need funding to make all of this happen.”

Tackling the problem

Westminster Council is one area attempting to deal with domestic abuse head-on. It has developed a strategy dedicated to the issue, aimed at 16- and 17-year-olds as well as adults.

Nickie Aiken, lead member for children in the London borough, says the council and its partners are investing £760,000 in addressing the issue this year.

“We decided that we needed to focus on domestic abuse because it is one of the root causes of family problems, but it gets ignored,” she explains. “Our strategy aims to work across all agencies including schools, children’s centres, health and housing. We want people to know where they can go for help.

“We’re also introducing a befriending service so that people who have survived it and come out the other end can support victims to make a complaint and see it through. We’ve also just started a new dedicated domestic violence court.”

Aiken says the change in the definition is a vital first step, adding that the council’s efforts on domestic abuse will form a key part of its work to reduce the number of so-called “troubled families” in the area.

“I was at a meeting of our multi-agency gang panel talking about the top 20 gang members that we were concerned about,” she explains. “It struck me that so many of these young men, from the age of about 14 to 18, were experiencing domestic violence at home.

“Not long after, a social worker told me that a four-year-old boy had said to her that it was okay for daddy to hit mummy, because she wouldn’t give him any money. If you are a child in a family and you see that violence is the way to resolve your issues, it’s no surprise that when you get to 14 or 15, you think violence is the way forward.”


EXPERT VIEW: YOUNG PERPETRATORS OF ABUSE

Ben Jamal, chief executive, Domestic Violence Intervention Project

Our core work is running an adult programme for perpetrators of domestic violence and support services for their partners. As part of that, we provide therapy for children and supervise child contact sessions with parents. But we now also run an intervention project called Yuva, for young people who are perpetrating violence.

Yuva came about because we had started to get a significant number of referrals of young people from London boroughs. Social workers would tell us that they had a 14-year-old who is being abusive to their partner, and ask if the young person could come onto our programme.

The answer would have to be ‘no’, because we don’t take anyone on our adult programme who is under 18. The second question from the local authority was always: ‘Where can we refer them?’ But we didn’t know of anywhere to pass the young people onto.

The only work that was being done with young people at the time was around
education on the issue. There were no direct interventions with young people who were already perpetrating violence.

We were worried that a number of young people had the attitude that this kind of
behaviour is acceptable, as well as a sense of entitlement, reinforced by messages from society that say men need to be in control in relationships and it is okay to use abusive behaviour to maintain that control. So that was the starting point for the Yuva project.

At the same time, Respect – which is the membership organisation for domestic abuse perpetrator programmes in the UK – had begun to develop a toolkit to work with young people. That was happening simultaneously with us seeking funding to develop Yuva. They were looking for places to pilot that toolkit, so we worked with them and developed it further.

Many of the young people referred to Yuva have incredibly complicated cases. Huge proportions of the young people are referred for being abusive to their partners, but are being abusive to their mothers as well. You have really complex dynamics about how you protect the victims.

For example, in the cases of mothers, how do you also enable them to have the type of parental authority they need to have? You are dealing with young people who are perpetrating abuse, but are likely to be victims as well.

A significant proportion of the young people have grown up in domestically abusive households. Some are still living in homes where their father is perpetrating abuse as well. So you can imagine that dealing with all that appropriately really demands close co-ordination between the key agencies, which requires time, effort and knowledge.

Government plans to include coercive behaviour and widen the age range in the definition of abuse are welcomed.

Including 16- and 17-year-olds acknowledges that we have a problem with the younger generation and that there is an issue of domestic violence in that age group. But it’s not enough by itself. If we’re going to respond appropriately to that age group, we really need to look at how we’re going to establish better partnerships between statutory agencies and specialist domestic violence services.

The domestic violence sector is really under siege in terms of funding and struggling to be able to respond adequately to the current client load because of cuts. But actually, agencies that work with adult perpetrators are going to be expected to respond to young people as well as a result of the government’s changes. That is going to need additional resourcing.

The other thing is that the interactions between children’s services and the adult agencies aren’t always working effectively. With the widening of the definition, it will be crucial that this improves. At the Domestic Violence Intervention Project, we are working to address that, because we get about 70 per cent of our referrals from children’s services. We know how well we work with social workers is crucial.

We’ve started to put our staff into children’s services settings, so that they’re actually working with social workers. That way, we have a much better chance of responding to the issues.