Report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods)

This report details a summary of recent work to address Domestic Violence and Abuse, including the Domestic Violence and Abuse Strategy and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

The Committee received a report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) which detailed a summary of recent work to address Domestic Violence and Abuse, including the Domestic Violence and Abuse Strategy and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

The main points and themes within the report included:

• Background information;
• Domestic Abuse Act readiness and implementation work;
• Domestic Abuse and Covid – Response into Recovery;
• Other service developments; and
• Current and emerging issues and challenges.

Priya Chopra from Saheli outlined the work of her organisation, which had been set up to support south Asian woman and children experiencing domestic abuse and was now supporting women from a range of ethnic minority backgrounds.  She explained the challenges in getting these women’s views and experiences across to policy makers and how Saheli had worked with Council officers to look at issues these women were facing, including the barriers they faced in accessing services.  She outlined how they had ensured that these women, including older women from these communities, were included in the consultation on the new strategy.  She also outlined some of the challenges that the pandemic had presented, as women had had less opportunities during lockdown to be away from the perpetrator and other family members in order to access support.  She explained how Saheli had worked with other organisations to address issues this group of women faced, for example, ensuring that women living in predominantly white areas could access their services and enabling women to access foodbanks.  She advised that Saheli was working with the commissioners to ensure that the action plan for the strategy addressed the issues that these survivors of domestic abuse were dealing with.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• Promoting the new strategy, especially to marginalised communities;
• That the Council should model good practice, including working to achieve White Ribbon accreditation;
• That financial abuse should be explicitly referenced in the strategy;
• That the term “gender reassignment”, used in the “Ensuring Equality” section of the draft strategy, while taken from the Equality Act 2010, was considered outdated and “gender identity” was the preferred term;
• What work would be done with partner organisations to address domestic abuse within LGBTQ communities;
• Work to prevent domestic abuse, including considering the objectification of women in advertising around the city and what could be done to address this and the teaching of healthy relationships in schools and how to work with men who were abusers or at risk of becoming abusers;
• The link between gambling and domestic abuse;
• To thank officers for the way the consultation had been conducted;
• How would the voice of the survivor continue to be heard through the implementation of the strategy; and
• What plans were there to ensure that teams across the Council were aware of the strategy and understood their responsibilities.

The Community Safety Lead reported that raising awareness was a key strand of the work on domestic violence and abuse and that officers would work with partners, providers and communities to ensure the right approach to communicating this issue with the public.  She advised that, following its launch, work would also take place to raise awareness of and embed this work across the Council and partner organisations.  She informed Members that the Domestic Abuse Partnership Board was looking at what needed to be done to achieve White Ribbon accreditation and that this would be progressed.  She confirmed that the terminology in the equality section of the strategy would be amended. In response to a Member’s request for more information on the Domestic Abuse Partnership Board, she advised that she would share the Terms of Reference of the Board, which included its membership.  She recognised that the voice of domestic abuse survivors needed to be incorporated throughout the implementation of the strategy and advised that work was taking place to identify the most appropriate way to do this.

The Domestic Abuse Reduction Manager advised that the strategy covered economic abuse which recognised a wider range of issues than financial abuse, such as issues in accessing work or benefits.  She confirmed that gambling had been raised as a key area under economic abuse, that links were being made with Gamble Aware and other relevant organisations to progress this work and that officers could report back on this at a later date.  She also outlined work to address domestic abuse within LGBTQ communities, including working with the LGBT Foundation.  In response to a Member’s question, she informed Members about the Sanctuary Scheme to enable victims of domestic abuse to stay in their own homes where it was safe to do so.  

The Community Safety Lead reported that early intervention and prevention was one of the main strands of the strategy.  She advised that the Council had invested in a number of early intervention services which had started this year, including work with children and young people   The Domestic Abuse Reduction Manager informed Members that significant investment had been made in behaviour change programmes, which would now be available to a wider range of perpetrators.  She reported that a pilot project was taking place in south Manchester, as part of the Home Office’s Drive programme, to work with high risk, high harm, repeat perpetrators of domestic abuse.  She informed Members that there were now Domestic Abuse workers in Early Help Hubs and she reported that the Council was working closely with schools to ensure consistency in teaching about relationships and to ensure that they were aware of therapeutic interventions available for children affected by domestic abuse and children who were starting to display similar behaviours.  In response to a question from the Chair, she reported that, at present, referrals to the perpetrator programmes mainly came from services for children and families but that these programmes were being promoted to other partners such as housing providers and Greater Manchester Police and that people could also self-refer.

The Executive Member for Health and Care supported a Member’s comment that this work was everybody’s responsibility and advised that this point would be emphasised in communications about the strategy.  She suggested that the Committee receive an update report at a future meeting to monitor progress.

Decision

To note the report.