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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the issue of carers as victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse. The issue of carers as victims, and sometimes perpetrators, of domestic abuse is being overlooked by statutory organisations because they often do not fit the traditional patterns of abusive relationships, and the complexities of the caring role can make typical safety options unsuitable. However, caring responsibilities are a feature of an increasing number of domestic homicide reviews, and current statutory safeguarding options exclude most carers from support and risk not identifying perpetrators.

This short paper highlights some of the shortfalls around identifying the needs of carer victims/survivors of domestic abuse and carer-perpetrators of domestic abuse and explores ways in which identification and support could be improved.

Carers as victims/survivors of domestic abuse, and as abusers, is an issue that requires more attention from researchers and Adult Social Care, NHS, Carer Support Organisations and Domestic Abuse specialists need to work together to explore these issues and offer workable options.

Little data or research exists around carers as victims or perpetrators of domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse presents significant challenges for legal systems around the world. In England and Wales, victims of domestic abuse sometimes find that they are pulled in different directions by multiple legal interventions in the criminal, civil, and family justice spheres. This is often due to inadequate information and evidence sharing but also inconsistent approaches and court orders. The “Harm Panel” report published in 2020 examined the approach of the family justice system in child arrangement cases involving allegations of domestic abuse. It found “silo working” was one of four structural barriers contributing to unsafe processes and outcomes. The Harm Panel provided renewed impetus for a policy to introduce integrated domestic abuse courts (IDACs) to address the problems of fragmented legal responses. There has previously been one unsuccessful attempt to introduce an IDAC in England Wales. This chapter will explore what went wrong and whether the evidence base for IDACs in other countries supports another attempt.

Purpose: The chapter aims to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on levels of domestic abuse at the global level; examine the responses of international and regional human rights bodies; and identify lessons which can be learnt with regard to responding to domestic abuse in a post-pandemic context.

Methodology/Approach: The chapter discusses the increase in rates of domestic abuse since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and proceeds to examine this form of abuse as an issue for international human rights law. The chapter then focuses on the responses of international and regional human rights bodies to the increased levels of domestic abuse in the context of the pandemic.

Findings: There is a danger of viewing the recent issues surrounding domestic abuse as simply being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in reality the pandemic has served to expose and exacerbate pre-existing difficulties with the responses of States to this form of abuse.

Originality/value: The chapter adds to the literature on domestic abuse as a human rights issue by focusing on the specific context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper aims to offer a profile of domestic abuse of older women and its impact on their health and well-being; explore some of the conceptual tensions that exist in this field; and discuss current policy and practice responses to this group of victim-survivors.

It is a review paper drawing on material from a range of sources; it has policy, practice and research implications.

Although there is growing recognition that older women are victims of domestic abuse, it tends to be regarded as a “younger women’s issue” and to be subsumed under the umbrella of elder abuse. This not only removes the gendered element, but it also uncouples it from the lifecourse where, for many, its roots lie. It also tends to foreground “old age” as the primary dimension of risk. There is a tension between the justice-oriented approach of the domestic abuse system and the welfarist approach that imbues the safeguarding system. There is a need for integration between the two systems. Also, for the health and care system to be more alert to the needs of older women at risk, we need to achieve a more effective balance between protection and justice, accord a greater level of agency to older victim-survivors and ensure they have access to domestic abuse law, policy and appropriate support services.

More research is needed with older victim-survivors: listening to their lived experiences, coping strategies and pathways out of abuse. The issue also needs to be more visible.

Developing appropriate domestic abuse services for older women is critical. Practice lessons can be learnt too: especially greater integration of the safeguarding system with the domestic abuse system. Training is needed too for frontline health and social care staff about the distinctive nature of domestic abuse of older women.

Domestic abuse of older women needs to be spoken about and made more visible in society and inside services, including older people’s third sector services.

This paper adopts a critical lens and makes a number of new arguments.

In March 2020, the UK entered its first lockdown responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the same month, the Domestic Abuse Bill had its first reading in Parliament. Charities and non-governmental organisations critiqued the Bill for failing to protect migrants from domestic abuse, and not complying with the Istanbul Convention. Drawing on interviews with staff from Southall Black Sisters, this paper aims to foreground the experiences of practitioners within the women’s sector to explore the unique experiences and challenges migrant and racially minoritised women encountered when seeking support from domestic abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic. It highlights how the pandemic-related lockdowns created barriers to accessing support services and housing, creating an epidemic within the pandemic, and how minoritised women and the organisations that supported them had to overcome structural barriers and racism.

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff from a leading women’s organisation that supports migrant and racially minoritised women. Four participants were asked questions within four themes: domestic abuse before and during the pandemic; accessing support from and reporting domestic abuse; accessibility of resources; and post-pandemic challenges. A phenomenological approach was used to analyse the transcribed interviews.

Participants consistently highlighted the unique threats and barriers migrant and racially minoritised women faced when seeking support. Barriers included racism, language barriers, cultural constraints, the triple threat of destitution, detention, deportation, and political resistance to protect migrant women from destitution/homelessness.

This paper provides a unique insight into the experiences of staff members within a specialist by and for women’s support organisation in England and their perspectives on the barriers racially minoritised and migrant women experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. It offers rare insights into how service users’ needs changed during the lockdowns and how the pandemic affected their ability to operate.

Support service provisions for domestic abuse victims have typically focussed on the immediate risk and etiological factors associated with abuse. Consequently, there is limited research exploring more persistent and pervasive factors involved in this cycle of abuse, such as subjective experiences and beliefs held by victims of domestic abuse. The purpose of this paper is to preliminary explore individual experience of domestic abuse including the belief systems of participants. Increasing our understanding of key factors and beliefs in the experience of domestic abuse could enable support services to create more long-term sustainable support for victims.

In total, 12 women with a history of domestic abuse participated in an exploratory interview about their general beliefs and thoughts surrounding their domestic abuse experience. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.

The thematic analysis identified four belief themes: personal responsibility, antisocial attitudes, environmental factors and negative attitudes towards police.

The paper highlights the value of understanding subjective, personalized experiences and beliefs of domestic abuse victims; identifies the importance of belief systems as potential treatment targets for domestic abuse victims; and acknowledges an avenue for more effective support provision for victims of domestic abuse.

This preliminary study offers new insights into the role of belief systems amongst a sample of domestically abused women. Understanding the significance of personalized, subjective experiences of domestic abuse victims is a step towards designing and implementing effective interventions. The findings further emphasize the need for more empirical research and theory development within the area of beliefs and domestic abuse victims.

Domestic abuse or intimate partner violence is a term that describes a pattern of abusive behaviours, often experienced concurrently and linked to gender-based violence. This study aims to explore through the literature the potential to design effective digital services that work for victims, survivors and those who provide domestic abuse support services.

This study is based on a systems or service design thinking methodology which was adopted during a Scottish Government-funded Technology Enabled Care (TEC) pathfinder project on domestic abuse. This methodology is the basis for the Scottish Approach to Service Design which is based on the Design Council Double Diamond. During the first phase, known as the discovery phase, desk-based research is conducted by the service design team to inform their approach to the later phases (the second half of the first diamond is define whilst design and deliver form the second diamond). Time is spent during discovery to unpack the complexity whilst the approach takes a pragmatic worldview.

Technology has yet to be shown to provide an effective solution to any aspect of the victim or survivors’ experience or support services albeit these are often over-stretched and under-funded even without the Covid-19 pandemic. Digital abuse is increasing with perpetrators adapting new technologies. Digital developments should be grounded on ethical design principles.

This study is the result of the desk-based research during a TEC project considering the potential role of technology in tackling domestic abuse. Limitations include only including evidence from the literature; interviews were conducted but are not reported here. Another limitation is the pragmatic rather than academic nature of the approach; it was to be a foundation for service re-design. So hopefully useful for new practitioners to immerse themselves in the topic area but with no claims to be reproducible as would be the case in a formal review.

All the evidence shows the authors need to keep trying different approaches, different forms of engagement and ways to empower survivors. Could technology support health-care practitioners to consistently use sensitive routine enquiry? Perhaps enable independent domestic violence advisors to attend more multidisciplinary team meetings in local community settings? Meanwhile, digital abuse is increasing with perpetrators adapting new technologies. Technology has not yet provided a digital solution which is practical and meets the needs of the broad intersectional population affected by domestic abuse nor those who provide support. If the future is to be based on digital developments it must be grounded on ethical design principles.

This desk-based review collates the current national and international policy and research literature whilst focusing on digital developments which support those affected by domestic abuse.

This paper focusses on the role of trade unions in policy and practice designed to address the workplace impact of domestic abuse. The paper aims to examine this union remit through the lens of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

In-depth interviews were conducted with 39 union representatives in a region of England to capture their views on and experiences of supporting members experiencing domestic abuse.

There is a clear ethical model by which the unions might articulate the key moral, legal and business drivers in determining effective domestic abuse policy and practice. Furthermore, the degree of “proximity”, in terms of union deliberation with employers and particularly joint action following disclosure, suggests that unions could play a key part in achieving “substantive” domestic abuse policy and practice within organisations.

Despite unions' capacity to offer significant support to employers and employees, the role of unions in addressing the workplace impact of domestic abuse is under-researched. With reference to the concept of CSR, the article adds to the knowledge of how to address the workplace impact of domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse continues to be largely hidden phenomenon. For older survivors this invisibility is further compounded by conceptual confusion surrounding domestic abuse and other forms of family violence. The purpose of this paper is to explore service responses to abuse among older people from across a range of sectors. Where possible the perspectives of older people themselves were explored.

A mixed methods approach incorporating postal questionnaires and semi-structured telephone interviews. Agencies and organizations from both the statutory and voluntary sector who provided specific domestic abuse support services or general services and support for older people (aged 59 years and over) and older people, either as survivors of abuse or with an interest in the development of services for older people within one region of the UK were invited to take part in the project. In total, 18 individuals from a range of agencies and three older women survivors agreed to take part in the study.

The findings highlighted three main themes, first, lack of conceptual clarity between domestic abuse and elder abuse, second, complexity of family dynamics and abusive relationships, and third, deficit in dedicated service provision for older survivors. The findings are discussed within the context of the existing literature and key recommendations include wider recognition of the significance of inter-professional education, training and working practices.

This paper identifies the complexities and challenges that continue to face organizations in terms of recognition and provision of services for older survivors of abuse.