17 Oct, 2025
At the For Baby’s Sake Trust, we are committed to supporting parents to break the cycle of domestic abuse for the benefit of their babies and themselves. We welcome the Government’s response to the Education Committee’s Report on Children’s Social Care. It is especially commendable that the response is “based on evidence-led practice” and takes into account the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report on babies, children and young people’s experiences of domestic abuse.
The shift towards “supporting more children at home – with their families” is a positive step, but should be framed within the context of trauma-informed, consistent, long-term support for parents, relatives, and children. Investment into “family help, kinship care and preventative services” is urgently needed, and we hope that funding will be increased and sustained for these areas, especially through the Families First Partnership Programme.
Additionally, we welcome the Department for Education’s efforts to examine early intervention funding data, in order to build a clearer understanding of the funding available and its impact on families. We look forward to the release of the commissioned practice guide for reunification, due to be published by Foundations next summer.
The Government’s commitment to working alongside organisations in the domestic abuse sector in relation to Family Group Decision Making is positive, particularly in light of concerns about risk intensification. We believe that FGDM has the potential to be an effective tool when applied appropriately and safely, and we support ongoing monitoring to ensure its effectiveness.
We appreciate new actions taken to protect children and young people from harm, though we note with concern the lack of specific reference to babies and their unique needs. The introduction of a “consistent identifier” to strengthen multi-agency child protection and information sharing is a promising development towards recognising and responding to domestic abuse and other harms to children.
Enhanced data collection on children and young peoples’ experiences of harm will be instrumental in identifying areas for further support and investment. We therefore welcome the Safety During Childhood survey from the Department for Education and the Office for National Statistics. We strongly urge that the survey explores children’s experiences of domestic abuse – both within their families and homes, and within their own relationships, given that 13–17-year-olds experience the highest rates of domestic abuse of any age group [SafeLives].
Similarly, we want to push for a more robust response to Recommendation 12: The Department for Education must put in place a strategy for supporting children and young people at risk of extra-familial harm. Stronger RSE guidance around intimate partner violence and online grooming is needed, as well as consideration of Make It Mandatory’s call for RSE to be extended to 16–18-year-olds.
We also recognise the heightened vulnerability of care-experienced young people to domestic abuse. Our pilot programme, My Future Me, was developed by care-experienced young people to provide trauma-informed guidance for healthy relationships. A Government review into the “statutory guidance on promoting the health and wellbeing of looked-after children, with a focus on improving access to mental health services” is very welcome, particularly the commitment to trauma-informed care.
Finally, we commend the Government’s recognition of the link between domestic abuse, poverty, and perinatal care through the upcoming Child Poverty strategy and the existing Healthy Child programme. We are calling for stronger perinatal support for parents of any gender, in line with our new research showing a concerning gap in professional help for parents in the early years. You can read more about our findings here: New Research Suggests that Parents’ Mental Health is in Crisis During the First 1001 Days of Parenthood – For Baby’s Sake
You can read the government’s full response here.
