Response on Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report on children’s experiences of domestic abuse

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales has published a report on babies, children and young people’s experiences of domestic abuse.

Drawing on a survey of more than 260 domestic abuse services providing support to children, along with 168 statutory agencies responsible for commissioning domestic abuse services, the findings show the immense financial pressure specialist services are under and how children are paying the price.

56% of the support services surveyed by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner had experienced cuts to their funding over the past five years. This had left over a quarter (29%) needing to make the difficult decision to stop providing a specialist support service to children. Similar concerns came from organisations that commission services, who reported that funding will be at risk of being cut or reduced for over 40% of services when the current allocation comes to an end.

The full report can be read here.

Diana Parkes said: “This report is a stark reminder that children’s voices are often absent from the vital decisions that shape their futures — decisions about where they live, who they have contact with, and how they are supported to heal.

It is unacceptable that in the aftermath of such profound trauma, children are frequently denied a say in the choices that affect every aspect of their lives. This not only deepens their sense of powerlessness but risks further harm by keeping them in unsafe or re-traumatising environments.

Listening to children, believing them, and building services around their needs must be embedded across every stage in response to domestic abuse and domestic homicide.

It’s time to stop asking children to adapt to broken systems. It’s time for the systems to adapt to children – ensuring they are heard, empowered, and placed firmly at the heart of decision-making processes. Their recovery, resilience, and hope for the future depend on it.”

Hetti Barkworth-Nanton said: “The findings in the report from the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales reveal an urgent crisis – children who experience domestic abuse and domestic homicide are being left without the specialist, long-term support they so desperately need. Instead, they are met with long waiting lists, postcode lotteries, and services ill-equipped to meet the profound trauma they carry. Without dedicated investment in trauma-informed, specialist provision, we are compounding their pain and leaving them to navigate unimaginable loss alone.

The impact of domestic abuse on children is profound and lifelong, yet our societal and institutional responses have been fragmented, inconsistent, and woefully inadequate.

Too often, these children are treated as an afterthought — expected to fit into services that cannot begin to address the complex layers of grief, fear and betrayal they experience. We must recognise that domestic abuse and domestic homicide is not just an event – it is a devastating rupture that shatters a child’s entire world. Recovery is possible, but only if we provide the right support, at the right time, for as long as it is needed.

We know through work over the last decade that children bereaved through domestic homicide have no dedicated support or guidance, their carers are often left penniless and fighting family courts and the wider system, and nearly half of children are thrown into the social care system where they experience a number of different home settings just at the time when they need consistency and to feel save, secure and loved. We are failing these children and we must do better.”