Domestic violence or abuse can happen to anyone.
Domestic violence, also called domestic abuse, includes physical, emotional and sexual abuse in couple relationships or between family members.
Domestic violence can happen against anyone, and anybody can be an abuser.
You do not have to wait for an emergency situation to find help. If domestic abuse is happening to you, it’s important to tell someone and remember you’re not alone.
Domestic abuse can include:
- coercive control such as being told where to go and what to wear or being isolated from friends and family
- physical abuse such as being punched, kicked, cut, or being hit with an object
- emotional abuse such as being constantly undermined, sworn at, intimidated, ridiculed, harassed, or threatened with harm or death
- sexual abuse and rape including within a relationship or being made to have sex with other people
- stalking and harassment such as being repeatedly followed or spied on, being regularly given unwanted gifts or receiving unwanted communication
- economic and financial abuse such as having access to money controlled or withheld or being prevented from earning money
- technology-facilitated abuse such as having messages and emails monitored or deleted, constantly being sent messages or calls, or being tracked via device location
(Women’s Aid, n.d.; Surviving Economic Abuse, n.d.; Refuge, n.d.)
Witnessing and experiencing domestic abuse
Domestic abuse always has an impact on children. Being exposed to domestic abuse in childhood is child abuse. Children and young people may experience domestic abuse both directly and indirectly.
Children and young people may experience:
- not getting the care and support they need from their parents or carers as a result of the abuse
- hearing the abuse from another room
- seeing someone they care about being injured and/or distressed
- finding damage to their home environment like broken furniture
- being hurt from being caught up in or trying to stop the abuse
- being denied access to parts of their home, such as rooms being locked
- being forced out of or losing their home
(Holt, Buckley and Whelan, 2008; NSPCC 2023).
Responding to domestic abuse
If you think a child is in immediate danger, contact the police on 999. If you’re worried about a child but they are not in immediate danger, you should share your concerns.
Please contact the school’s safeguarding team through the email safeguarding@shaftesburyschool.co.uk if you wish to report any concerns
If you are a child in school, please speak to a trusted adult or a member of the safeguarding team
Contact the NSPCC Helpline on 0808 800 5000 or by emailing help@nspcc.org.uk.
Contact your local child protection services:
Dorset Children’s Advice and Duty Service team, (ChAD): 01305 228558 (daily Mon-Fri 8-10pm, Sat + Sun 9-10pm)
Wiltshire Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) – 03004 560108 (Mon-Thurs 8.45-5pm. Fri-8.45-4pm). Out-of-hours service: 0300 456 0100 (Mon – Thurs: 5pm-midnight and Fri 4pm – midnight. Weekends/Bank holidays – 9am-midnight).
Other ways to get support:
- women can call The Freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge on 0808 2000 247 for free at any time, day or night. The staff will offer confidential, non-judgemental information and support
- talk to a doctor, health visitor or midwife
- men can call Men’s Advice Line on 0808 8010 327 (Monday to Friday 10am to 8pm), or visit the webchat at Men’s Advice Line (Wednesday 10am to 11.30am and 2.30pm to 4pm) for non-judgemental information and support
- men can also call ManKind on 0182 3334 244 (Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm)
- if you identify as LGBT+ you can call Galop on 0800 999 5428 for emotional and practical support
- anyone can call Karma Nirvana on 0800 5999 247 (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm) for forced marriage and honour crimes. You can also call 020 7008 0151 to speak to the UK Forced Marriage Unit
- You can also email for support. It is important that you specify when and if it is safe to respond and to which email address
- women can email helpline@womensaid.org.uk.
- men can email info@mensadviceline.org.uk
- LGBT+ people can email help@galop.org.uk
- The Survivor’s Handbook from the charity Women’s Aid is free and provides information for women on a wide range of issues, such as housing, money, helping your children, and your legal rights.
- If you are worried that you are abusive, you can contact the free Respect helpline on 0808 802 4040.
Operation Encompass is every child’s right.
It is a unique, charitable, early intervention safeguarding partnership, (set up in 2011), which relies on strong communication and information-sharing between the police and schools, to enable support for children and young people who are experiencing domestic abuse.
It has the support of the Home Office, the DfE, Ofsted, HMICFRS and the College of Policing and has recently been awarded winner of The World Class Policing Award 2019
Police forces will effectively share a notification, prior to the morning of a school day with the Key Adult within schools. This notification will inform the school that one of their students has been impacted by domestic abuse.
It is the Key Adult’s job to then cascade necessary awareness and information to relevant staff in the school who may have contact with that child or young person. By being aware that a child has had this experience, the school is in a better position to be able to understand and respond to the student’s needs and/or behaviour and in so doing, provide the appropriate level of support.
