Moving on from domestic abuse
NSPCC
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
The latest in a series about emerging safeguarding practice looks at how an NSPCC programme supports mothers and their children who have been victims of domestic abuse to move on together.
The NSPCC works with children, young people and families who need help across the UK. Its services aim to protect children today, prevent abuse tomorrow and support wider efforts to make child cruelty a thing of the past. To improve understanding of best safeguarding practice, the NSPCC publishes evaluations of its services and interventions, and undertakes research and literature reviews. These are published on the NSPCC website to contribute to the evidence on what works to protect children and families.
Around one in five children have been exposed to domestic abuse (Radford et al, 2011). Abuse can happen in any relationship and both males and females can be abused or be abusers. However, there is a strong body of evidence demonstrating that females are more likely to be affected by the most extreme forms of domestic abuse than males.
The lives of those recovering from domestic abuse can sometimes be chaotic or complicated. The impact of a child witnessing domestic abuse can be forgotten and the resulting behaviours a child might display can be misidentified. Research shows that mothers are not always in the right place to support their child due to the effects of abuse, which can also damage the mother-child relationship, and they may both struggle to talk about the abuse they experienced as they are worried about upsetting one another by revisiting these experiences.
Once a child is in a safe and stable environment, and crucially with the right support, they are likely to be able to move on and live a life that isn't defined by their past. However, given the complexity of these cases, families often need extremely focused and time-intensive support to achieve sustainable positive outcomes. Too often specialist support services face resourcing issues that prevent them from being able to provide the level of support that children need to recover.
Impact on children
Children who have lived with domestic abuse are at risk of a range of negative outcomes and are more likely to be abused themselves. Even if this does not happen directly, witnessing domestic abuse has been found to be equally damaging psychologically. Research over the past 20 years shows that such children are more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression.
The NSPCC has developed a programme for mothers and children who have experienced domestic abuse called Domestic Abuse, Recovering Together (DART). The NSPCC evaluated the effectiveness of DART between 2011 and 2016. The evaluation by Smith (2016) found that of the children that attended the DART programme, many were experiencing a range of difficulties.
The majority had "some" or "high" levels of emotional and behavioural difficulties on the strengths and difficulties questionnaire before they received the service. In interviews, mothers said they had struggled to manage their child's behaviour before DART, with some children mirroring the perpetrators by being aggressive and intimidating towards their mother. Other children were suffering from anxiety. Some mothers were also concerned that their children had "normalised" the abusive behaviours they had witnessed.
DART support programme
DART is delivered over 10 weeks and takes a group work approach, with mothers and children meeting weekly for a two-hour group session, working together and in separate groups.
An evaluation of DART by the NSPCC showed that the programme can have positive results. They found that as a result of completing the programme, substantially lower levels of need were reported by 51 per cent of children originally assessed with "high" or "moderate" behavioural and emotional difficulties.
Almost two thirds of mothers with low self-esteem also showed substantial improvements. Improved relationships were also reported by 88 per cent of children who originally said that their mothers struggled to show them affection.
Learning from DART
Time and resource intensive
Research shows that child outcomes are better if the non-abusive parent is involved in their recovery (Humphreys et al 2006). The evaluation of DART showed how beneficial this can be too. However, this approach can be time and resource intensive. Four DART practitioners are needed to run the programme; two to work with the mother, and two to work with the child. As well as group work sessions, support is also offered to families in between sessions, over the phone or through home visits. This focused and intensive work means those delivering DART are able to achieve sustainable results for families. However, managing this requires a high ratio of staff to family members. That's why the NSPCC made changes to DART so volunteers can now deliver the programme alongside trained practitioners.
Managing risk
In cases that involve domestic abuse, identifying and managing risk is a priority; professionals must always ensure that children are safeguarded. Sometimes this can be hard as children may have ongoing contact with the perpetrator of abuse. Any risks associated with continued contact with the perpetrator must be carefully managed between the organisation delivering DART and children's services.
Overcoming logistical issues
Sometimes it can be difficult to foresee additional costs associated with delivering a programme like DART, such as paying for taxis for mothers and children to travel to and from the venue, particularly in geographically dispersed areas. Initial set-up costs for items like paints and paper and finding a suitable venue that has two rooms and good transport links can also be costly. The NSPCC has developed an implementation support package that provides guidance for organisations taking on DART, to help them to manage some of the logistical issues associated with setting up the service.
Implementing DART
The NSPCC's Scale-up Unit is supporting others to take on DART through an implementation support package that combines training and consultancy. The package they developed was informed by their own experiences of delivering DART in their service centres, and of supporting others to implement and deliver the programme themselves.
What have they learned?
1. Groundwork is essential. Organisations must be sure they're ready to take on and deliver the programme. A pre-implementation assessment looks at strategic and operational issues, literature and operational experience, to avoid stumbling blocks and lay the foundations for success.
2. Training is important. DART licence-holders have consistently reported how they value training from facilitators who have a wealth of experience in delivering the model. Learning from others about real-world issues and practical ways of overcoming them helps them to move past challenging elements.
3. Training may be important, but it isn't enough. Training is just one part of a blended support package. Opportunities to share learning and troubleshoot problems with other adopting organisations are invaluable for ensuring implementation is successful and delivery is sustained.
4. Post-training support cultivates success. There can be a gap between receiving training and delivering an intervention, and at times it is only at the point of "doing" that implementation queries arise. To counter this, the NSPCC works with partner agencies to provide telephone consultation until the end of their first DART group. This can tackle practical queries such as sourcing resources, or more contextual challenges such as how to tailor a session to a specific group's needs.
5. It is an ongoing relationship. The NSPCC want as many children and families as possible to benefit from DART. This means that they are in a relationship with their partners for the long-term; true implementation isn't a quick process. To help with this they conduct visits annually with their partner agencies, because they want to understand how the model is working in their context.
Helping shape future policy
As well as working at a local level to support others to take on DART, the NSPCC recently responded to a Home Office consultation that sought views on the government's proposals to improve protection and support for the victims of domestic abuse nationally. The consultation will inform a draft Domestic Abuse Bill and the creation of a package of practical action.
To inform their contribution to the consultation, the NSPCC drew on the research and evidence they have amassed, which included the experiences of staff working on service delivery and working with children living with, or at risk of, domestic abuse.
The NSPCC also ran a consultation event in May for the Home Office that brought together organisations from the domestic abuse and children's sectors, research and government officials, to share their experience of supporting children and families experiencing domestic abuse. Importantly, young people were also given a voice. A steering group of young people came together to help the NSPCC identify the most important aspects of living with domestic abuse, bringing first-hand experience and challenge into the conversation. This fed directly into the consultation to help ensure that children remain a focus in any changes to legislation.
DART is a programme trademarked by the NSPCC
FURTHER READING
Implementation evaluation of DART, NSPCC, 2017
Evaluation of DART, NSPCC, 2016
Child abuse and neglect in the UK today, NSPCC, 2011