From Awareness to Practice: Children, Domestic Violence and Child Welfare

• NCJ Number: 215727
• Journal: Child Abuse Review Volume: 15 Issue: 4 Dated: July-August 2006 Pages: 224-242
• Author(s): Mark Rivett; Shaun Kelly
• Date Published: July 2006
• Length: 19 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This article examines the development of social care practice and policy regarding the care of children who witness domestic violence in the United Kingdom.

Abstract

The main argument is that it is problematic to automatically assume that domestic violence should invoke a child protection response. Overall, the author calls for a more complex understanding of the needs of child witnesses of domestic violence than the current perspective in the United Kingdom which is grounded in the child protection system. In the United Kingdom, child witnesses of domestic violence have traditionally been placed into the child protection system due to the reasoning that this response was necessary to mitigate the negative consequences of witnessing domestic violence. The author reviews the legal and policy initiatives in the United Kingdom that have linked domestic violence with child protection, highlighting and critiquing the changes in policy ushered in by the Labour Government, which made domestic violence a top priority. The author also criticizes the child welfare system for failing to adequately respond to the needs of children despite the legal initiatives on behalf of domestic violence survivors. In analyzing the automatic yet inadequate connection between domestic violence and child protection, the author asserts that this connection creates its own problems. For example, the sheer numbers of children who witness domestic violence in the United Kingdom cannot be served by the child protection services and the current assessment tools are inadequate for determining the needs of child witnesses of domestic violence. The assumption that children share a universal experience of domestic violence, which is implied in the child protection response, is also problematic, as is the assumption that the child protection services in the United Kingdom are even capable of adequately responding to child witnesses of domestic violence. References