Barnardo’s Cymru awarded Home Office funding for new, whole-family approach to overcoming domestic abuse

Barnardo’s Cymru awarded Home Office funding for new, whole-family approach to overcoming domestic abuse

Children’s charity Barnardo’s Cymru has been awarded £950,000 of Home Office funding to help families across Gwent overcome domestic abuse.

The funding for the Opening Closed Doors project will allow the charity to support children and young people affected by the trauma of abuse which could otherwise impact on their schooling, mental health and long-term wellbeing.

The new whole-family approach will mean that parents who are victims will also receive support while the perpetrators of domestic abuse take part in programmes designed to change behaviour, rebuild relationships and keep families safe for the future.

The Children Affected by Domestic Abuse (CADA) funding is part of an £8m investment by the Home Office in projects across the country and Barnardo’s Cymru will run the only project in Wales.

Marisa Moon, Assistant Director of Barnardo’s Cymru, welcomed the funding. “We recognise that domestic abuse is an epidemic with devastating effects on children and their families.

“Children who live in a home with domestic abuse often blame themselves and live in a state of fear which negatively impacts their ability to learn. They often begin to identify with either the perpetrator or survivor of the abuse, without having a template for healthy relationships. The Opening Closed Doors project will work with the family as a unit to support each person’s needs to ensure children are safe.”

In the year ending March the 31st, 2018 there were almost 600,000 incidents of domestic abuse recorded in the England and Wales crime figures, an increase of 23% on the previous year, with a further 600,000 not recorded by police as crimes. The figures are believed to be the tip of the iceberg.

Barnardo’s Cymru will be partnering with Gwent Police and Torfaen, Monmouth, Blaenau Gwent, Newport and Caerphilly local authorities. A range of services will be provided, from early intervention to high level child protection. The aim will be to improve relationships and, wherever possible, keep children at home with their parents in a safe environment.

Witnessing domestic abuse is one of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) which can impact on a child’s adult life, from shortened life expectancy to risk of imprisonment and mental health problems.

The Opening Closed Doors project which will launch on March 1 and run for just over a year will deliver evidence-based interventions to children and young people. Their key worker will work alongside Social Services and the Police to achieve long term outcomes for the wider family.

A study by Public Health Wales into ACEs showed that children who experience stressful or poor quality childhoods are more likely to develop health harming and anti-social behaviours.

Opening Closed Doors will deliver a spectrum of services across Gwent based on local need to enable children and young people to recover from their experiences, build resilience, strengthen parenting capacity and support system change to improve outcomes for children and their families.

Barnardo’s has already had success with interventions in Gwent, such as the 10-week Star Programme in Newport which supports children who have witnessed domestic violence or been victims themselves, The children may be traumatised, have feelings of despair or anger and be struggling at school.

They receive help to talk about their feelings, develop coping skills and build positive relationships, they also have chance to meet other children who have been through similar traumas.

Opening Closed Doors will have a cross border policy so families can access support within Gwent but outside their own county borough. It will be evaluated by the Institute of Public Care (IPC) and learning will be shared with statutory partners, local government boards and through development events.