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Children’s services and police are struggling to respond to an ‘overwhelming’* number of domestic violence cases involving children, a new report by the NSPCC and the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) indicates.

The report is the first in-depth study to look at how children’s services and the police respond to domestic violence since the Adoption and Children Act 2002. Section 120 of the Act, implemented in 2005, provides the first legal recognition in England and Wales that seeing or overhearing violence in the home can cause significant harm to children.

Children’s services provided no assessment or service in 85 per cent of domestic violence cases brought to their attention by the police in two English areas in 2007. In 10 per cent they were already working with the family and in only 5 per cent of cases referred to them did they provide a new service.

The findings add to concerns that children’s services are being overwhelmed by the high volume of police notifications of incidents of domestic violence in families.

NSPCC Head of Policy and Public affairs Diana Sutton said: “An estimated 750,000 children are harmed by domestic violence every year in the UK. Many will carry the emotional scars long after any physical injuries have healed.

“Children who have seen or overhead domestic violence can face problems at school, mental health problems and long-term difficulties in relationships. These children are the forgotten victims of domestic violence.

“However, our report indicates that large numbers of children may be falling through the local agency safety net despite the many positive changes that have already been adopted by children’s services.

“More needs to be done by the government and agencies to ensure that services are available to support and safeguard children when families are referred to children’s services because of domestic violence“.

Many young people and survivors said they would have liked the police to talk to them when they attended a domestic violence incident and to have removed the perpetrators of the violence from the home immediately.

One young person said: “When they (the police) come straight away, they could like take him away straight away. They should take him away because a mum or a child wouldn’t call 999 just for no reason.”

UCLan professor Nicky Stanley lead report author said: “The children in the study made it clear they needed help. Front line police officers are families’ first port of call to stop the violence at home and they have a unique opportunity to offer children reassurance and information at a time when the home is an unsafe place. They need to be equipped with the appropriate information for children and trained alongside children’s social workers on domestic violence.”

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