The end of April 2022 marked the one-year anniversary of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 receiving Royal Assent. The historic legislation provided a legal definition of domestic abuse for the first time – incorporating a range of abuses beyond physical violence, including emotional, coercive or controlling behaviour and economic abuse. The Act also included key measures affecting children and young people – including identifying children who live in a home where domestic abuse takes place as victims in their own right rather than witnesses.
Within this context, the Home Office is keen to understand frontline responses to domestic abuse involving children – the perceptions, experiences and training of police responding to these types of incidents – as police called to the scene have a critical role in identifying children experiencing domestic abuse. They have therefore commissioned Ipsos UK (an independent research organisation) and the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) to conduct a multi-strand research project into domestic abuse involving children.
The research includes “deep dive” case studies into five police force areas (interviewing police, social services, schools and other professionals) and an evaluation of Operation Encompass (a scheme set up by David and Elisabeth Carney-Hayworth OBE to connect police to schools where there has been a domestic abuse incident with children involved).
As part of the research, Ipsos UK and UCLan have designed a short survey for all those working for a force in England and Wales. They are really keen to hear from as many officers as possible – of all ranks – about their experiences responding to or coordinating the response to domestic abuse incidents with children in the household.
The survey takes only 10-15 minutes and will be open until Friday 20th May. It includes questions on how officers respond, the types of information they tend to record, perceptions of working with other services and any training received on how to respond to these types of incidents.
The survey does not ask your name and all answers are confidential. Responses will only be used for research purposes only and there are no right or wrong answers. If there are any questions about the survey or the research, please contact: [email protected]
We would love to hear from you. To take part, please click the link:
https://surveys.ipsosinteractive.com/mriweb/mriweb.dll?i.project=S22007617&id=
