Violence in the home can’t be prevented if funding continues to be cut, says a charity worker
“I’m a domestic abuse duty worker at a charitable organisation in the South-East of England. My job is to take all the incoming referrals and enquiries, offer advice, and help people to access services. The calls may come from public sector professionals who want to make a referral for a family in need, or from someone suffering from domestic abuse who wants to leave their partner. It is mainly women – often seeking help moving to a safe house, support in their own property or legal advice – but we do get some men too.
We have been really busy so far this year. In the first quarter alone, we received 500 referrals: that’s half as many as we received throughout 2011. In part, this is down to our recent expansion, which is due to our winning a grant. We also have good links with the safeguarding teams within the police, who make lots of referrals.
We often find that domestic abuse isn’t reported to the police, because the women are scared; and even if it is reported, they’re often too frightened to press charges. Recently, though, the police have started pressing charges without the women’s consent, and that’s made things better: because the decision is out of the victim’s hands, they don’t get blamed by their partner. And if the police begin a prosecution, the abuser can start to receive help: perpetrator programmes, which offer counselling and exercises to help people learn non-violent behaviour, are only really available to those who have been charged.
It would be helpful to have more voluntary programmes that can help people before the situation becomes violent – for example, offering help with anger management issues or support to address other problems that may lie behind offending. Maybe this is something social workers could do? It should also be the case that the whole family is supported and that the abusive partner is made to take more responsibility. Often, following social services’ involvement, the onus is on the woman to leave; but it’s unfair to uproot her and leave the man in the family home. Also, if women are told to leave before they’re ready, they may be more likely to return to abusive partners.
We deal with lots of cases of women who have been brought to this country on spouse or family visas, and then find themselves being abused by their husbands or in-laws. However, if they leave their partners they have no status within this country, so they end up trapped in a really horrible situation. To help with this, the Home Office has put together a provision called ‘Leave Outside the Rules’, which gives people three months to get through the immigration process. During this time they can access services such as housing benefit, so they’re able to move out of their house and away from the abuse. This is very welcome, but the backlog in immigration services means that three months simply isn’t long enough to get everything sorted, and some women are forced to return to their home countries. The provision would be much more helpful if the time limit was removed.
Recently, job losses and changes to benefits have meant that many families’ finances have got very tight. When we go through the risk assessment process with people we ask them about their money worries, as we know that intense financial pressures can have a damaging effect on home life.
Meanwhile, the cuts mean there are a lot more support organisations bidding for a lot less money. We have been lucky – we’ve won funding – but not everyone has been so fortunate: lots of centres have lost out and had to close. This has a massive impact on local women and children who need help, as people leaving abusive relationships can’t remain close to their support networks unless there’s a safe house nearby. Children often have to move schools, which obviously is really disruptive – particularly if they are older, and studying for GCSEs.
The government needs to put more money into local services, as it’s organisations like ours that pick up the slack and do the jobs that local authorities don’t or won’t take on. Ministers and civil servants need to make sure that our funding is protected, and that the importance of our services is recognised.
Take the impact of domestic abuse on children. If people have grown up seeing dad hit mum, there’s a far higher chance of boys becoming abusers themselves, and of girls putting up with that type of behaviour from their own boyfriends and husbands. If we don’t break the circle now, it will never stop.”