Draft Report- DAPHNE 2003-2004

West Sussex Daphne Research Project 2004

DAPHNE 2003-2004

“DOES WITNESSING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE DETERMINE A CHILD OR YOUNG PERSONS PATTERN OF OFFENDING AND ARE AVAILABLE INTERVENTIONS EFFECTIVE IN REDUCING THESE PATTERNS?”

WEST SUSSEX DAPHNE RESEARCH PROJECT TEAM

Contents

1. The research team
2. The YOT
3. The Community safety and Domestic Violence Team
4. Aims and Objectives
5. Executive summary
6. Literature review
7. Methodology
8. Participants
9. Measures
10. Procedures
11. Statistical analysis
12. Results
13. Demographic information
14. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics
15. Qualitative information (interviews)
16. Case studies
17. Main conclusions/discussion
18. Cohort data
19. Qualitative data
20. Case studies
21. Future plans and activity
22. Future research
23. Practical applications
24. References
25. Appendix
26. Questionnaire Appendix a
27. Copy of ASSET form- Appendix b
28. Forms of violence- Appendix c

The Project Team

The West Sussex (U.K) project team is multi agency and is composed of the four main project workers listed below:

The Youth Offending Team

Since 1987, West Sussex has adopted a partnership approach to meeting its responsibilities in the area of juvenile justice provision. A partnership between the Social Services Department and the Probation Service, in the form of the Juvenile Offenders Team, later the Youth Court Services Team, has provided a range of services in the areas of crime prevention, diversion from prosecution, court services and the post sentence supervision, including supervision of young people in custody.

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 has as its principal aim for the Youth Justice System, the preventing of offending by children and young people. The Act recognizes the various agencies involved in this system and makes it clear that all those agencies have a shared responsibility in meeting the principle aim. The Chief Executive of the County Council has overall responsibility, together with the police, the health authority and the probation service to establish a Youth Offending Team and to work in partnership.

The West Sussex Youth Offending Team was established in 1999, under the strategic management of the now, West Sussex Strategic Community Safety Partnership. The Youth Offending Team Management Group, under the chairmanship of the Director of Social and Caring Services, has the responsibility for the day-to-day management of the Team.

The Head of Youth Offending Services has the overall management of the multi-agency team, comprising staff and resources from the statutory agencies – Sussex Police, West Sussex Social Services, National Probation Service - Sussex, West Sussex Education Department and the West Sussex Primary Care Trusts.

An annual Youth Justice Plan provides the strategic and operational framework for the activities of the Team, clearly driven by the six National Objectives laid down by the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales.

National Objectives for Youth Offending Teams

Swift administration of justice so that every young person accused of breaking the law has the matter dealt with without delay.

To confront young offenders with the consequences of their offending

Interventions which tackle the particular factors which put a young person at risk of offending

Punishment proportionate to the seriousness of the offending

Encouraging reparation to victims by young offenders

Reinforcing the responsibilities of parents

Community Safety and the Domestic Violence Development Team

The Domestic Violence Development Team was set up as a result of the expansion of the Community Safety Unit within West Sussex County Council. Community Safety is a statutory responsibility placed on all local authorities. This means that when delivering services to the community, agencies must do all that they reasonably can to prevent crime and disorder in its area. The ethos behind Community Safety is:

‘The protection of everyone’s right to live without fear for their and other people’s safety’ (National Community Safety Network)

Traditionally community safety has been perceived as only relating to issues affecting the public domain, however it is now widely recognised the damage that violence and abuse within the home has on both families and communities.

The Domestic Violence Development Team is a small part of a complex web of people, organisations and partnerships working together to reduce domestic violence. The team provides a focus for the partnership agencies and can offer facilitation, expertise and opportunities in order that change can be made.

The team is multi-agency funded and has commitment from all district and borough councils, the police, Social Services and the County Council. The main aim of the team is to work with the seven areas in West Sussex to increase reporting, reduce repeat victimisation and to deliver on local strategies and targets by working at strategic, operational and community levels.

The members of the core DV Development Team consist of the Community Safety Co-ordinator (DV), 2 x DV Partnership Officers, a Community Based Services Co-ordinator, and Partnership Support Officer. However the team is responsible for a number of projects and personnel that are directly delivering in the community.

What do they do?

Strategic: At a strategic level the team are developing a multi-agency countywide strategy for delivering services, ensuring that this is linked into other strategic plans e.g. Youth Justice Plan.

The members undertake briefings with key decision makers including elected members and chief policy makers so ensuring the issue is pushed forward and that resources are freed to develop projects.

The team is seen as a model of good practice and staff are regularly asked to speak at seminars both locally and regionally, raising the profile of DV and its consequences.

Operationally with professionals: The team works closely with professionals from a variety of backgrounds to ensure that issues are dealt with appropriately and knowledgeably. This is taken forward in a number of ways;

• training sessions are delivered and there is now a county network of trainers on DV.
• Raising awareness campaigns aimed specifically at professionals such as a project distributing drinks coasters to GP’s and Dentists.

• Supporting agencies to develop policy and practice e.g. working with Personnel departments to implement a staff policy on responding to DV and working with specialist agencies such as Women’s Aid.

The team undertakes research in conjunction with and on behalf of agencies e.g. the DAPHNE Project with the Y.O.T. and a project investigating the links between DV and alcohol misuse for the Drug and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT).

Delivering to the community: There have been many specialist services and projects initiated since the inception of the team, three years ago. These include the development of specialist, multi-agency drop-in centres and a new refuge in one area. There is a new pilot project providing specialist support within the Accident & Emergency and Maternity Units at a local hospital, and another pilot scheme that uses a community model to provide services.

There have been a number of support groups set up across the county to complement the work of the drop-ins and there have been mass campaigns to the public to raise awareness.

The Domestic Violence Development Team has been a valuable resource in delivering and improving services for victims of DV. The above examples highlight just some of the work in progress, however without the team it would have been much more difficult for individual agencies to bring some of this to fruition. It is, also, arguable that DV would not have such a high profile within the county. The essence of providing the right response to issues around DV is multi-agency working and the organisations within West Sussex have shown that this approach works.

Project Aims and Objectives:

The overall aim of the DAPHNE project is to assess levels of child abuse, differences in legislation and differences in intervention across France, Italy, Spain, Romania and England to learn from and better inform practice across the countries. The teams involved in the overall project are:

• Seine St. Denis- France

• Vercelli- Italy

• Frosinone-Italy

• Alicante-Spain

• Cordoba-Spain

• Isia-Romania

• West Sussex-England

The teams are multi-professional including psychologists, psychiatrists and researchers (i.e. France) whilst other teams include police officers and social workers (i.e. Frosinone).

The West Sussex project assessed the effects that witnessing domestic violence can have on patterns of offending during childhood and adolescence. The topic was chosen due to a distinct lack of research looking at the relationship between witnessing domestic violence and future offending. Most research on domestic violence has focused on the perpetrator or the adult victim and little has been done to assess the effects of domestic violence on children in the home and even less work has been done to assess the possible links to offending during adolescence.

The research was also commissioned in order to highlight any effective interventions that are currently being used and to address areas where future resources and services could and should be aimed.

Executive Summary

This research looked at the effects of witnessing domestic violence on offending patterns. Young offenders that were referred to the West Sussex Youth Offending Team over a 9-month period were split into those that had witnessed domestic violence and those that had not witnessed domestic violence.

From previous literature written on the effects of witnessing domestic violence it was hypothesised that young people that had witnessed domestic violence would be more likely to have violent offences in the past and also more likely to offend more frequently than a group of similar age, ethnicity and gender that had never witnessed domestic violence.

These findings were confirmed. Young people that had witnessed domestic violence were:-

• Significantly more likely to have more past violent offences

• more likely to be referred to the team for having present violent offences

• more likely to have both past and present violent offences

• more likely to have in total more offences than young offenders that had not witnessed domestic violence.

Interviews were also conducted with a small sample of witnesses to gain more detailed information on thought processes. Of those interviewed :

• all wanted the ‘violence to stop’

• most wanted to remain in the family home

• most identified the need for a ‘safe place’ to go

More of these findings have been included in the results section and are discussed in more detail later in this paper.

A case study was also identified and compared to a similar French case study. It was concluded that both countries had benefits and disadvantages as far as the care systems in place were involved. It was concluded that the outlook for the British case would have been very different had he been French!

The findings from this project have highlighted areas for future research with smaller groups of participants and some suggestions have been made as regards this in the discussion. Main points are:

• Further qualitative studies to gain personal insight from young ‘witnesses’ regarding their experience of DV

• Further qualitative studies to gain personal insight and case history information from young ‘witnesses’ regarding other factors that influence violent behaviours

• Further work is needed to examine the causes of violent behaviour in the groups that have witnessed DV and also those who have not

The findings have also highlighted areas for practical change and possible new developments within the agencies dealing with youth crime prevention and community safety. Main points include:

• Improved links between the DV team and the Y.O.T., including training, advice and support

• Specific, specialist intervention with children and adolescents, including a full evaluation of ‘what works’ and best practice

• Improved links between specialist DV outreach workers and Y.O.T. case managers

Literature review

Domestic Violence (DV) is a complex issue with a relatively short research history, the first prominent studies in the UK taking place in the mid 1970’s with the advent of the refuge provision. Whilst there is a plethora of current research, this mainly focuses on the prevalence of domestic violence and the effects it has on women. (It is recognised by the authors of this study that men can be victims of DV, however as statistics show DV is more likely to be perpetrated by a male towards a female partner.)

There is little to demonstrate what should be done to prevent it occurring or what effects it can have on both, direct victims or young people that are forced to watch, hear or partake in domestic violence. Where this research does exist, the subjects have mainly been drawn from children in refuges (Hester, Pearson, & Harwin, 1998).

There are few longitudinal studies looking at the effects of DV on children and young people, and none that examines the effects of witnessing DV on the offence patterns of young people, so this is an area that needs investigating.

The definition of domestic violence that shall be used throughout this research is the home office definition:

‘ Any violence between current and former partners in an intimate relationship, wherever and whenever the violence occurs. The violence may include physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse’. (

This includes family members which are defined as mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, grand-parents, in-laws and step-family.

Children are very much the silent victims of domestic violence. Given that research indicates that a woman experiencing violence may have been abused as many as 35 times before seeking help (McGibbon and Kelly 1989) and that in 90% of incidents, children are either in the same room or an adjoining room it is likely that children are witnessing DV on a regular basis. Witnessing domestic violence in any form can have severe short and long-term effects on the health and behaviour of a child and studies have shown this can also take the form of direct abuse. Jaffe, Wolfe and Wilson (1990) found that in 33% of families where the mother is abused, at least one child is also being directly abused.

Research by Jaffe, Wolfe and Wilson (1990) assessing the effects of domestic violence on children’s behaviour demonstrates that the adverse psychological effects include problems with anxiety and depression, low self esteem, a desensitisation to violence, anger management issues and an underachievement in school.

The cycle of violence, which can occur, has been demonstrated in research by Walker (1984). In a longitudinal study Walker assessed the childhood experiences of men who batter their wives. 44% of the men that had been beaten by their mothers went on to the physically abuse their wives, 61% that had been beaten by their fathers went on to commit violence against their wives but most interestingly 63% of men that had witnessed their father beat their mother went on to commit domestic violence once they were married. This is an extremely large figure. The research demonstrates the importance of preventing children from witnessing domestic violence.

There are however, certain protective factors that have been researched as being important in preventing the cycle of violence from continuing. Moore, Pepler, Weinburg, Weddell and Weiser (1990) assessed a number of children that had witnessed domestic violence and discovered that protective factors against desensitisation to violence include having advanced emotional development, having strong relationships outside the family, seeing shorter bouts of violence and less severe forms of violence.

In further longitudinal research based in Sweden, Weinehall (1997) assessed older children’s experiences of domestic violence. It was discovered that whilst they took a passive response to their experiences when they were younger, the older the children got the more likely they were to not go to school, to use drugs and to abscond from home.

The research reviewed demonstrates a link between domestic violence and future violence and a number of related risk factors have been highlighted in the research around children and domestic violence. This research aims to look at the effects witnessing violence in the home has on offending patterns in the 3.5% minority of 10- 17 year olds that do commit crimes and are referred to the youth justice system.