Domestic Abuse Strategy

In this section

  1. About this strategy
  2. Foreword
  3. What is Domestic Abuse?
  4. National and local Context
  5. Our Expectation
  6. Our approach to domestic abuse
  7. Our Priorities
  8. Delivery and Governance
  9. Outcomes framework
  10. Conclusion
  11. Support organisations
  12. Appendix 1. Legislative Framework and national policy

Our Priorities

We will focus our work to eradicate domestic abuse in five main areas:

1. Preventing Domestic Abuse

  • Raising Awareness: We will ensure delivery of awareness campaigns through a range of channels linked to our community capacity building programmes to challenge societal norms, by informing residents and businesses about healthy relationships, the signs of domestic abuse, the available support services, and methods of reporting abuse.
  • Education for young people: We will ensure there are educational initiatives to help young people understand what constitutes healthy relationships and how to seek help if they are experiencing abuse.
  • Training for Professionals: We will ensure that there is training for frontline professionals, including healthcare workers, social services, education settings, community leaders, businesses, and police officers, in taking a trauma informed and adverse childhood experience approach, developing curiosity to better identify and respond to domestic abuse at the earliest possible stage, and recognising children as survivors and create safe spaces.

2. Support for Survivors

  • Early Help: We will ensure there is flexible and accessible early help services, providing preventative support to individuals and families experiencing or at risk of domestic abuse, aiming to intervene before issues escalate.
  • Specialist Support: We will aim to have access to legal, psychological, and social support for survivors, including safe accommodation and sanctuary schemes for effective recovery. This includes advocating for housing options that are safe and supportive, along with access to services to support and recover. This will include counselling and financial advice, with tailored support for diverse groups, including families, children, men, LGBTQIA+ individuals, those from global majority backgrounds and vulnerable groups including those with learning disabilities.
  • Children and Families: We will ensure that children and young people who experience or witness domestic abuse are provided with the appropriate support services, including safe accommodation that allows them to heal and thrive.
  • Safe Accommodation: We will ensure that survivors of domestic abuse can access safe, secure accommodation as soon as they need it. This includes:
    • Housing Security: Ensuring that survivors of domestic abuse are not evicted from their homes and can remain in their accommodation if they wish to do so, through sanctuary schemes.
    • Emergency Accommodation: A network of refuges and temporary housing that provides immediate shelter to survivors and their children.
    • Move-on Housing: Support for survivors who are ready to move out of emergency accommodation and into suitable longer-term independent housing.
    • Supportive Housing Options: Bespoke housing solutions that cater to the individual needs of survivors, including those with complex needs such as mental health support, substance misuse services, and those with disabilities.

3. Accountability and behaviour change

  • Legal Consequences: We will work collaboratively with local law enforcement and the criminal justice system to ensure that perpetrators face appropriate legal consequences for their actions, including arrests, court orders, and convictions.
  • Perpetrator Programmes: We will offer perpetrators of domestic abuse access to behavioural change programmes that address the root causes of their abusive behaviour and work to prevent future harm.
  • Integrated Tasking and Coordination: We will work towards developing a dedicated approach to perpetrators to ensure monitoring and support through multi-agency collaboration to reduce the risk of reoffending.

4. Collaboration and Community participation

  • Collaboration Across Agencies: We will strengthen our partnerships with housing providers, the police/criminal justice system, health services including mental health, alcohol and drug services, community voluntary and social enterprise sector, and local communities to deliver a coordinated understanding and response to domestic abuse, promoting learning, innovation, transformation, and best practice across the city and pan Staffordshire.
  • Community participation: We will actively work with our local community to provide a strong voice for children and adults, ensuring the voice of children and adult survivors are amplified and heard, through the development of local solutions and by fostering a culture of zero tolerance, raising awareness, reducing stigma, changing attitudes, and encouraging reporting of domestic abuse.

5. Ensuring a positive impact

  • Intelligence development and Analysis: We will collect and analyse data to better understand the scope and scale of domestic abuse in Stoke-on-Trent, ensuring our approach is tailored to the diverse needs of the community.
  • Impact Evaluation: We will continually evaluate the effectiveness of our domestic abuse approach to ensure it meets the evolving needs of survivors and their families and perpetrators.  This will be monitored through our outcomes framework, by listening to survivor voices, assessment of the full causal pathway, and learning from best practice and from domestic abuse death reviews.