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Surrey Against Domestic Abuse Strategy 2024-2029

In Surrey our vision is for every adult and child experiencing domestic abuse to be seen, safe and heard, and free from the harm caused by perpetrator behaviour.

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Surrey Against Domestic Abuse Strategy 2024-2029

In Surrey our vision is for every adult and child experiencing domestic abuse to be seen, safe and heard, and free from the harm caused by perpetrator behaviour.

The strategy will align and drive all action against domestic abuse in the County. It will influence change and secure the commitment of all to prevent harm, which devastates victims' lives, no matter how old they are, and has a disproportionate effect on the lives of young people. Surrey's ambition is 'no one is left behind' and domestic abuse services play a key role in achieving this ambition.

The strategy has been developed in partnership to support the delivery of recommendations from the Domestic Abuse Needs Assessment 2023, Survivor Voice, and partnership workshops. This is a five-year strategy that will be reviewed by the Domestic Abuse (DA) Executive Group annually.

Contents:

Foreword

'You will never know the destruction of a survivor's soul unless you hear it from them'. This is a quote of mine which lays out the reality of what domestic abuse does to survivors that can take many years for them to recover from, but which many professionals and agencies don't hear.

On behalf of the Domestic Abuse Surrey Expert by Experience Network (SEEN), we welcome this five-year strategy. Over the three years since our inception, we have worked hard to forge strong working relationships with local statutory agencies. Our role in amplifying voices of survivors and children cannot be underestimated in embedding lived experience into the heart of all services and training.

Survivors don't often have things done with them, they have things done to them which reduces their healing capacity and their ability to regain agency over their lives and that of their children. The Surrey data is stark, with increases in every area. Whilst this makes grim reading, it means that more survivors are coming forward and reporting which is testament to the awareness raising across the county by the specialist services in place to support them.

To ensure the vision of 'no one being left behind', it is really important to commit to giving voice to those survivors who will lose their life over the course of this five-year strategy. They too will deserve to be seen and heard.

To see our words cited in the strategy, to have survivor voice and survivor collaboration as priority one demonstrates how seriously our work is being taken across the county, and this must continue for this strategy to be successful in achieving its vision.

I would like to end on a quote by my son, a child and young adult survivor of domestic abuse. He was invited to speak at this year's Women's Aid conference. He said 'From a survivor's point of view, it is impossible to completely eradicate domestic abuse. What we can do is adapt our response and handling of cases so we can end it's accepted invisibility to society.'

Kerry, Leader of DA SEEN

Putting survivors at the heart of what you do

As Survivors we deserve:

  • To be in control of our own lives
  • To be treated as human
  • To be treated with empathy
  • To be believed
  • To be listened to
  • To have our own voice
  • To heal at our own speed
  • To feel safe
  • To be safe
  • To be treated with respect
  • To be treated with an understanding that we have experienced real trauma
  • To be treated with an understanding that the impact of trauma lasts
  • To be treated without judgement

See survivors as a whole person:

  • Who are they, what makes them unique?
  • What relationships and connections do they have?
  • Respect, believe and validate them.
  • Recognise they are more than their experience of domestic abuse and what you see/is presented to you

Talk to and liaise with other agencies:

  • What parts of the puzzle are you missing?
  • What other information would help you understand the survivor and their situation?
  • Does their reporting challenge what you know or your attitude towards them? If so, can you reflect on this in supervision, who can you talk to about this?

Engage with specialist domestic abuse outreach and the survivor steering group:

  • Do you know each of the four Surrey based DA Outreach services and the areas they cover?
  • Recognise the experience and specialist knowledge that outreach has.
  • Don't be afraid to seek their advice.
  • If there is a specific area about survivor experiences that you want to explore further, engage the survivor steering group.

Challenge victim blaming language:

  • If you feel you have used victim blaming language with someone, a recognition of this and an apology can go a long way.
  • If you overhear or read victim blaming language, do you feel able to challenge this? If not, where can you take this, supervision/manager?

Aims

As a partnership, we will focus on preventing domestic abuse (DA) for all children, young people and adults affected across their lifespan.

  • We will focus on preventing domestic abuse and challenge attitudes and behaviours which foster it through early intervention.
  • Reduce the risk to victims, hold perpetrators to account, and support them to change their behaviour.
  • Work in partnership to provide appropriate levels of support where abuse occurs.

You said we did

What we have achieved from the DA strategy 2018-2023.

Community

To break the silence about domestic abuse within our local communities and remove the barriers that make it hard for survivors and perpetrators to reach support, we have implemented:

  • A county-wide Sanctuary Scheme to make survivors safer within their own homes
  • Hospital & Housing Independent Domestic Violence Advocates
  • Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Prevention Workers
  • Jointly commissioned and monitored community outreach services to ensure good quality DA support is available for Surrey communities
  • Hope for Change perpetrator accommodation
  • Implementation of specialist roles e.g. lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer (LGBTQ+) and Disabilities Advocates

Expert support

To empower specialist expert support to work with survivors, children and perpetrators in a way that achieves safety, with minimum reliance on external resources, we have implemented:

  • Domestic Abuse Related Death Reviews Central Support
  • Domestic Abuse outreach support which offers an independent and confidential service to anyone in Surrey affected by domestic abuse
  • Southwest London Law Centre (SWLLC) Immigration Project which provides specialist casework required to support individuals who experience both domestic abuse and complex immigration, nationality, and asylum challenges, supporting women with no recourse to public funds
  • Youth Using Violence and Abuse (YUVA) project
  • Refuge for All Refuge accommodation for any survivor for whom existing refuge is not suitable.

Professionals

To maximise every opportunity to identify and respond to domestic abuse for survivors and perpetrators.

  • Strong and Robust Partnership Working i.e. successful joint funding bids and development of services
  • Implementation of Domestic Abuse Support in Safe Accommodation Strategy
  • Controlling Coercive Behaviour (CCB) Gold Standard Framework
  • Secured funding for a Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Hub – Steps to Change
  • Implementation of Surrey's partnership Anti Victim Blaming Guidance

Why it is important to us

We must provide strong local leadership to transform the way we tackle domestic abuse.

What we do in Surrey contributes to creating a society that protects people from controlling, coercive, degrading, threatening and violent behaviour. Abuse can be both physical and emotional, and include sexual violence, stalking, harassment, financial control, and harmful traditional practices. These crimes shatter lives and have a long-lasting effect on adults and children. We must prevent and stop such abuse at the earliest opportunity before it has a chance to escalate.

Domestic abuse has a huge impact on the economy, health services and the criminal/ civil justice system. The scale of the challenge is recognised at the highest level and the Government is seeking to provide better protection to victims and bring more perpetrators of these crime to justice.

This Domestic Abuse Strategy 2024-2029 has been informed by, and will work alongside and support, the work of these other key documents and strategies:

Surrey Domestic Abuse Needs Assessment 2023

The Needs Assessment which was completed in October 2023 aims to inform the delivery of domestic abuse services by exploring the needs of survivors, their children, and perpetrators of domestic abuse. This document provides a series of recommendations to guide the future of domestic abuse provision. Presenting a snapshot in time, the needs assessment captures the level of needs across the Surrey County, an overview of the current offer, and feedback from current service users, practitioners, and partners.

Domestic Abuse Support in Safe Accommodation Strategy

This strategy is due to be updated but has supported the new duty on relevant local authorities introduced by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 with the aim of ensuring all survivors of domestic abuse have access to the right support within safe accommodation when they need it.

Domestic abuse facts and figures

Surrey DataNational Data
  • 10,125 domestic abuse related crimes were recorded by Surrey Police in the year to 31st December 2023, an increase of 2.5% over the previous year, down from 10,302 in the calendar year, 2022
  • There was a total of 912 Coercive and Controlling Behaviour (CCB) crimes reported in 2023, up from 773 in the calendar year, 2022
  • 5,224 calls were made to the Surrey domestic abuse helpline in 2023, up by 24% from 2022
  • 8,784 referrals were made to Surrey domestic abuse outreach services in 2023, an increase of 18% compared to 2022
  • There were 848 referrals to Surrey safe accommodation services (e.g. refuges) in the year 1st April 2022 – 31st March 2023. A total of 405 survivors (183 adults and 222 children) were supported in safe supported accommodation commissioned by Surrey County Council
  • There were 656 referrals to the Surrey Health Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (HIDVA) service in 2023, of whom 298 engaged with the service
  • Between April 2022 – 31st March 2023 there were 82 referrals from HIDVA to Surrey domestic abuse outreach services
  • The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated that 2.1 million people aged 16 years and over (1.4 million women and 751,000 men) experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2023[i], equating to roughly 5 in 100 adults. In Surrey, 5 in 100 adults would represent 48,000 adults
  • Nationally, one in five homicides is domestic homicide. And the social and economic costs of domestic abuse are estimated to be approximately £78 billion (2022/23 prices) over a three- year average period of abuse
  • Every £1 spent on domestic abuse support services saves at least £9
  • Over 827,000 children are estimated to have experienced domestic abuse in 2023
  • 1 in 3 pregnant women experience domestic abuse
  • 1 in 2 people who have experienced domestic abuse in England and Wales may be living with a brain injury. This compares to the prevalence of traumatic brain injury in the general population of the UK which is approximately 1 in 8
  • 1 in 4 perpetrators are repeat offenders. Some have as many as 6 different victims
  • Acts of omission as a form of
  • abuse account for half of all Section 42 enquiries (Where there is an investigation into the abuse or neglect of an older person). The average age of abuse for these enquiries is 85

What we will do 2024-2029

Priority 1: Provide appropriate support and services to victims and survivors of domestic abuse.

Survivors and children at the heart:

  • Collaborate with survivors to enable safety, choice and empowerment and ensure survivors are at the heart of the service we deliver
  • Survivor voice is the key to all decision making and service planning
  • All work with survivors of domestic abuse will be undertaken with a trauma informed approach
  • Partner with survivors to build trust, stability and promote healing

Priority 2: Reduce the harm from perpetrators by holding them to account and reinforce behaviour change.

Lens on the perpetrator:

  • We will intervene with perpetrators to reduce risk and harm to survivors
  • We will engage with perpetrators to ensure accountability and promote behaviour change
  • We will end victim blaming through changing our language, attitude, and collective culture

Priority 3: Work in partnership recognising a whole system response in order of preventing domestic abuse.

Partnership development:

  • We will continue to work and develop our partnerships and ensure they are built on a foundation of meaningful communication and action

Culture change:

  • We commit to creating a kinder, equal, inclusive, and respectful community in Surrey and will ensure no one is left behind
  • We recognise freedom is a fundamental human right and is most restricted by perpetrators

Communication and engagement:

  • We will raise awareness of domestic abuse in all its guises through all means possible to deliver strong and consistent messages that are appropriate to the target audience

Education, awareness and prevention:

  • We will ensure individuals understand the difference between healthy and abusive relationships and raise awareness through schools, colleges and universities and ensure domestic abuse training is available to all professionals across Surrey.

Request a PDF version of the Surrey Domestic Abuse Strategy

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