16 May, 2025
At The For Baby's Sake Trust, we welcome the recent Public Accounts Committee (PAC) calls for a comprehensive governmental response to the unsustainable pressure on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) support services.
After a decade of delivering frontline support for families experiencing domestic abuse, the report echoes what we know and have evidenced through our work: that prevention, and in our case, early intervention too, must be prioritised to protect those most in need.
The report recognises the vital work of Encompass, who highlight that “the likelihood of becoming a perpetrator of domestic abuse in the future is increased if you experienced or witnessed it as a child”. 1 in 5 children will grow up in homes where they experience domestic abuse, and are victims in their own right. It is vital that we fund services for families that help to break cycles of intergenerational abuse.
PAC highlights the number of children and young people aged 11 to 20 years who have experienced violence in their relationships; 27% of these respondents reported being in a romantic relationship over the past year, with nearly 49% having experienced violent or controlling behaviours. Our new pilot programme, For My Future, speaks directly to this need. Through it, we’re working with care-experienced young people aged 16 to 25 to develop a trauma-informed programme that helps build healthy relationships for life.
A driving force behind For My Future is the significant lack of support for emotional health and well-being among young people leaving care – many of whom have experienced significant trauma in their own childhoods. It is preventative, not reactive; an opportunity to address trauma, heal harm, and empower young people with the knowledge and skills to develop healthy relationships and support their emotional well-being.
We believe all children, regardless of gender, need parents, teachers and other adults who are role modelling healthy relationships. We are concerned that the report doesn’t take a trauma-informed approach to understanding the impact of domestic abuse on all children. We will continue to advocate for trauma-informed, whole-family methods of working to address VAWG and the broader domestic abuse crisis.
There is also a missed opportunity in the report to address pregnancy as an escalation period for abuse, with 30% of domestic abuse beginning or escalating during this time. Not only is the impact and high risk of domestic abuse in pregnancy excluded from the report, but the impact on babies is also overlooked.
Babies under 1 are at the highest risk of infant mortality, and at The For Baby’s Sake Trust, we are proud to be a voice for the most vulnerable in our society. We hope the new children’s social care prevention grant, worth £270 million, will include ring-fenced support for services that work directly with families during this high-risk period.
