Introduction

These briefings summarise the learning from the three-year Rethinking abuse in child protection project. They outline key principles to improve policy and practice responses across social care to domestic violence and abuse. They share learning on:

• How intersecting inequalities shape families’ experiences of social care and how an intersectional understanding of domestic abuse violence (DVA) can be incorporated into service design and delivery.

• How whole-person and whole-family approaches can improve outcomes for families and children.

• How to develop evidence-informed responses to DVA across social care.

The resources include one briefing written for strategic leaders and one for frontline practitioners across children’s social care. They are accompanied by case studies that are intended to be reflective resources to support supervision and team discussion.

Why it matters

Domestic abuse is a significant feature in child protection work, yet responses often focus narrowly on individual incidents rather than building a fuller picture of a family's circumstances and the wider factors shaping their lives. Responses also focus disproportionately on the behaviour of the non-abusing parent, with those causing harm remaining largely unengaged.

Without change, children's services will remain unable to get upstream of the conditions that drive DVA and child protection demand.

The resources aim to support leaders and practitioners to address inequalities, engage whole families and develop more effective, evidence-informed responses to DVA, that improve outcomes for children and families.

Key messages

• Services should adopt holistic, whole-person and whole-family approaches, engaging those who cause harm as well as those experiencing it.

• Children’s experiences must remain central, with sustained attention over time.

• Building trust with families and communities is essential to effective engagement and long-term change.

• Better data systems are needed to capture the complexity of domestic abuse and inform service development.

• Practice must move beyond incident-driven casework and address structural inequalities such as poverty and housing.

• Practice should be grounded in evidence-informed understanding of domestic abuse, including coercive control and intersectionality.

Resources

This is a quick-read introduction to each resource. You can download and read the full resources, which include references, from the digital downloads options.

Strategic briefing

This summary of research findings includes recommendations for senior leaders and safeguarding partnerships. It focuses on system-wide change, including commissioning, workforce development, data systems and community engagement.

The responsibility for keeping children safe is still disproportionately placed on non-abusing parents (most often mothers), while those causing harm are rarely engaged in meaningful ways. At the same time, families often report feeling judged and fearful of services, which undermines trust and makes engagement more difficult.

Improving responses to domestic abuse in child protection requires a fundamental shift in how services operate. Moving beyond reactive, individualised approaches towards more holistic, evidence-informed and inequality-aware systems has the potential to improve outcomes for children and families and reduce pressures on child protection systems.

Frontline briefing

This briefing translates the findings of the research into guidance for practitioners working with children and families where domestic violence and abuse is a concern. The resource encourages practitioners to think critically about how they assess risk, engage families and make decisions, and to move towards approaches that are more holistic and reflective.

The research underpinning the briefing found that practice continues to place significant responsibility on non-abusing parents, while those who cause harm are rarely meaningfully engaged. Although children’s experiences are recognised in assessments, they are not always followed by sustained support. Their voices can become less visible as work with families progresses.

The briefing stresses the importance of improving how information is gathered and recorded, so that assessments reflect the full context of people’s lives and support better decision-making.

Practitioners are encouraged to build on their engagement with the evidence base on DVA, in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of domestic abuse including awareness of concepts such as coercive control.

Case studies

Practical tools and reflections

• Reflective questions are included to support people to improve their practice or leadership.

• Case studies illustrate how whole-family, trauma-informed approaches can improve outcomes in real-world scenarios.