CC(3) DA51

Communities and Culture Committee

Scrutiny Inquiry : Domestic Abuse

Response to: Committee Inquiry into Domestic Abuse

• The availability and accessibility of support for different groups; including counselling services for – men, women, children, people from ethnic minority communities, older people and disabled people;

The access to support for adults is primarily through Colwyn Women’s Aid and Aberconwy Women’s Aid, however they do not provide a counselling service.  Unless services such as Social Services become involved because the care meets specific eligibility criteria e.g. there are children involved. Therefore there is a gap in services provided by Conwy Council for adults who do not have children, although high risk victims who do not have children are discussed in Conwy through the Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC). Women from an ethnic minority community can be supported in Conwy by BAWSO (Black Association of Women Step Out Association) based in Wrexham but covering North Wales and funded through the Welsh Assembly Government.

Support for men is either through the Dyn helpline unless they have children and therefore receive services from Children’s Social Services. In the case of High Risk male victims they can be supported by the Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA), however the IDVA is currently on a temporary contract due to funding limitations and shared between Conwy and Denbighshire. High Risk male victims will also be discussed at the MARAC. In Conwy we also have the Safer Home Service which is a specialist target hardening service for male or female victims of Domestic Abuse. The Conwy and Denbighshire Domestic Abuse Forum recently facilitated a seminar with the Dyn Project for practitioners.

Throughout North Wales there is a gap in services for parents who are being abused by their children. The TULIP project based in Liverpool has a telephone helpline however there is no service currently in North Wales. Although in Conwy there was an “awareness” training session facilitated by The Tulip Project the feedback from this was that practitioners feel that they don’t have the skills to deal with this complex situation.

• The provision of services for adults and children who have suffered sexual abuse within a domestic context;

Services are provided by Social Services departments, where children have suffered abuse.  Core funds and Wanless grant have supported this; otherwise there is only a service if adults meet adult Social Services’ Eligibility Criteria.

In Autumn 08 a Sexual Assault Referral Centre will be opening in Colwyn Bay for victims of sexual abuse in North Wales.  There is currently a steering group for the SARC in North Wales which is feeding in to the North Wales Domestic Abuse Forum. The Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre North Wales based in Caernarfon provides information, support and face to face counselling for victims of sexual abuse who are 14 years and older. There are currently no Independent Sexual Violence Advisors in place for North Wales.

• The response of different sectors to domestic abuse, including, criminal justice, health and social care agencies;

Issues

Children’s Social Services have by default picked up domestic violence, demand has grown phenomenally and no extra resources have been given in 2006/2007 Conwy received 1600 Domestic Abuse referrals.  The deluge of referrals is a diversion of resources away from children towards adults.  There is insufficient service for adults unless they have a child in need.  

A response aimed specifically at adult victims of domestic abuse needs developing; the response should be targeted, accessible and confidential.

Available resources in the area:

There are two Women’s Aid groups in Conwy - Aberconwy Women’s Aid and Colwyn Women’s Aid. They receive a mix of grant funded and Supporting People grant. For example Aberconwy Women’s Aid recently had a withdrawal of the Transitional Housing Benefit money which was the equivalent of losing 52 hours of paid work a week or 1 full time member of staff and 1 part time.

Butterflies Project

This is a Conwy project and funded for two years by the Community Safety Partnership for children who are at risk of becoming involved in the Youth Justice System. Butterflies Women and Children Group aims to provide a safe and positive environment where women and children can explore the impact that Domestic Abuse has had on them and their families. Conwy Children’s Services also provided funding a Butterflies group in Conwy. Note the butterflies programme can only be used when the perpetrator of abuse has left the household.

Caring Dads

Conwy are one of the Pilot areas for the Caring Dad’s Programme. This is a NSPCC project funded for 3 years by WAG funding. Note the perpetrator can remain in the home while on the programme.

Conwy Domestic Abuse Coordinator

WAG funded until March 2009.  Grant funded positions lead to instability and poorer service provision as the posts are harder to recruit to and workers have to start looking for posts part way through grant with all its consequential disruption.

Children and Family Services

Children in Need services through Conwy Children’s Social Services, also offer a wide range of Services.  Conwy Social Services also have a dedicated Domestic Violence Worker in the Duty and Assessment Team, supported by the core budget; there is a congruent post in the Public Protection Unit of the North Wales Police.  The case load as it stands is too great for one worker.  Conwy received 1600 domestic violence referrals Last year.  This is the highest level of domestic abuse referrals to a Children’s Services in Wales, Referrals have to be filtered; Child Protection cases go to workers other than the Domestic Violence Worker.

Older People Social Services

Older Peoples Social Services deal with domestic violence within their existing teams such as Mental Health, Physical Disability and Sensory Impairment Team (PDSI), Learning Disabilities, HOST (Housing Options Support Team.

The Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) Coordinator screens referrals and then passes them on appropriately.  There are costs associated with the processing of referrals for example each referral to Social Services takes a minimum of 15 minutes to process.  There are no posts within Adult Services specifically to deal with Domestic Violence.

Social Services only provide post abuse services only for CIN (Child in Need) / POVA etc – not for others.

IDVAs

This is Home Office funded this is part funded and temporary and requires rigorous and monitoring for further funding. This is a shared post between Conwy and Denbighshire. Conwy Community Safety Partnership has the reduction of repeat incidents of domestic abuse as a priority, however due to financial conflicts were not able to fund the IDVA for 08/09.

Safer Home Project

A steering group is in place to maintain the quality of the Safer Home Service in Conwy and Denbighshire In Conwy Pennaf are the service providers of the Safer Homes Project. The Safer Home Service is a specialist target hardening service for example door and window locks. The, Safer Home project is funded from Community Safety Partnership 07/08.

The Dyn Project

This is an All Wales helpline for male victims of Domestic Abuse which is WAG funded.

Conwy and Denbighshire NHS Trust

In the Conwy and Denbighshire NHS Trust there is no specific Domestic Abuse post.  

The Antenatal Routine Enquiry Pathway is in place within the Trust area all midwives have been trained and monitoring of the ‘Pathway’ is in place. There is training ongoing for the Accident and Emergency Pathway and Gynaecology Pathway.

Conwy Social services previously hosted a weekly Domestic Violence Panel; it was a multi agency meeting with senior representatives from Education, Social Services, Police and Conwy and Denbighshire NHS Trust. This meeting has only recently been suspended although this will be reviewed.  The Conwy and Denbighshire NHS Trust feel this is an important meeting as all incidents (low, medium and high risk incidents of domestic abuse) and CID 16 referrals are discussed at the meeting and information is appropriately passed to the Health Visitor or Midwife involved.  Note High Risk victims are discussed at the MARAC Children’s Services feel concerned that all this extra work of low level referrals carries a cost and has had the effect of potentially diverting resources away from other areas of work. Unfortunately there is no spare capacity within Children’s Services and the increase in the amount of low-level reporting leads to the potential risks of hiding the more severe cases.

• How the national strategy is delivered at a local level, the ways in which different bodies and agencies work with each other to ensure the best response;

Conwy Domestic Abuse Forum

Following the Conwy Domestic Abuse Forum AGM (held in December 2005) the forum had been divided into two tiers (Practitioners’ Forum and the Strategic Forum) as set out in the Conwy Community Strategy 2005-2008. It had been decided that the previous structure was failing to fulfil the intended role and there was no forward movement in developing a strategy within Conwy in line with the All Wales National Strategy.

The Conwy Domestic Abuse Practitioners Forum consists of members from a wide range of organisations, such as Women’s Aid, Health, Housing, Police, Social Services, Education, Youth Services, Drug and Alcohol and Voluntary sector. At the meeting there presentations, information exchange and updates from the field of domestic abuse are provided. The meetings are once every 2 to 3 months and are an open meeting.

The Conwy Domestic Abuse Strategic Forum consists of management level members from (for example, Education, Drug and Alcohol services, Health, Housing, Mental Health, Social Services, Voluntary Sector and Women’s Aid). The Strategic Forum would follow the ‘All Wales Domestic Abuse Strategy’ in Conwy and develop its strategy and priorities in line with the Welsh Assembly Government targets.

Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference

The MARAC monthly meetings began in July 06. The aim is to discuss ‘high risk’ domestic abuse victims. Present at the meetings are representatives from Conwy County Borough Council, North Wales Police, Conwy and Denbighshire NHS Trust, North Wales Probation, Victim Support and Women’s Aid etc.  The aim of the MARAC is to offer services to protect the victim (and any children) from further abuse.

The Domestic Violence Panel is over 6 years old and there is of course a multi agency approach to Child Protection cases.

• The allocation of resources to tackle domestic abuse and any potential conflict between the aims and objectives of different funding sources;

There is a problem with the funding for domestic abuse services which leads to instability and uncertainty within the sector.  This can cause a problem in the recruitment of high quality workers as the majority of posts are grant funded and are on short term contracts.

Conwy Children’s Services feel that the recognition of other abuses of children is diminished due to limited resources being diverted to deal with massively inflated levels of Domestic Violence referrals; Conwy has received the highest levels of Domestic Violence referrals from the Police across Wales.

There is strategic movement from within the Police to report all domestic violence even minor incident to Social Care; this will put further strain on Social Services departments.

Social Services involvement is only as a consequence of meeting the relevant agencies eligibility criteria however an enormous resource is required to sift non-relevant referrals.

Large conflicts exist for Children’s Social Services because the work undertaken with is with adults rather than directly with the children.  There are false positives and false negatives in identifying the potential for escalation.  It is not easy to identify the highest risk domestic violence cases.

Funding allocated to Community Safety in Conwy is not currently targeted at Domestic Abuse.  Reporting domestic violence is seen as a priority; however there has been no opportunity to invest in treatment or prevention due to a lack of resources and the nature of the funding received.

• The impact of isolation exacerbated by, geographical, cultural and individual factors; and

There can be a barrier to accessing services in Conwy due to language or culture. In some parts of the county it is very sparsely populated area finding translation services can often lead to interpreters being brought in from up to 100 miles away due to immigrant/migrant populations.

The problem also exists where a Welsh speaking victim has to move to refuge due to a domestic abuse situation as they can be placed in England.  These problems are exacerbated for children with disabilities due to changes in care package provision.

The Education Social Work Department are reporting a tenfold increase in the number of foreign languages being spoken by the children in schools.

Processes for monitoring and evaluating outcomes.

The monitoring and reporting of Community Safety projects such as Safer Homes, IDVA, and Quarterly Reports are facilitated through the Domestic Abuse Coordinator who sends the reports to the Home Office and Welsh Assembly Government. The Community Safety Partnership Analysts collates information on police incidents and monitoring. MARAC statistics are collated by Denbighshire CSP Administrator and given to the Community Safety Analyst.

Conwy and Denbighshire NHS Trust are collating and monitoring the information from the Antenatal Routine Inquiry Pathway.

Butterflies and Caring Dad’s are monitored using Behaviour Inventory Forms or Strength and Difficulties measures from the Children’s Assessment Framework.

A new web based database IAMF (Inter agency monitoring form) for the MARAC has been purchased form Conwy and Denbighshire.

Some of the outcomes of work undertaken by therapeutic staff in Conwy Children and Family Services have given some worrying results.  A high proportion of children and young people treated by Conwy Social Services show an expectation, of a certain degree of domestic violence in a relationship, being inevitable.  This is something that should be easily tackled with appropriate education and there are services available, however these are not being used within a large age range of secondary education.  This can only be resolved if it were to be enforced upon the schools, possibly through the National Curriculum as some schools currently difficult to engage with Spectrum Project, theatre work or other input around domestic abuse.