Domestic abuse action update with councillors

An update on actions taken to combat domestic abuse in North Lanarkshire has been presented to councillors.

The report states that levels of domestic abuse in the region remain “stubbornly high,” with around 4000 incidents reported each year and significantly more going unreported.

The most recent of several reports on this subject was presented to the council’s education and families committee by head of families Alison Gordon.

Despite disruption relating to the pandemic, the Violence Against Women Strategic Partnership has now resumed meetings and are working on new plans, a review of current performance, developing a system to review domestic violence resulting in death, and in January a new Practice Development Plan was agreed.

In November the partnership also hosted several workshops for women ad children affected by domestic violence, which also helped attendees to access support services.

Referrals under MARAC – the system which manages the highest risk cases of domestic abuse – dropped to 70 in early stages of the pandemic but were soon back up to 137. More funding is being allocated accordingly.

The UP2U Family Intervention Programme, designed to help abusers change their behaviour, has been approved in the form of a 12-month programme and it will be rolled out over the course of 2022.

A steering group has been established for the Mentors in Violence Prevention programme which is designed to help young people challenge domestic abuse, bullying and other violence.

Ways to combine this with the Equally Safe at School initiative, which is aimed at preventing gender-based violence within school settings, are also being explored.

A successful funding application means that £220,000 has been provided over two years to support this work, both in training costs and creating a specific employment role for a coordinator. A job applicant has already been hired. Allocations have also been given to specialist local organisations including Women’s Aid, Rape Crisis and Say Women, the latter organisation will also meet with council officials to discuss further partnership opportunities involving work with homeless women who have been victims of domestic violence.

The council’s Aura service, which provides support for domestic abuse victims, now has a permanent manager following a contract award to SACRO who operate it on behalf of the council.

Referrals, including those from other organisations such as the police have grown since this was established with 68 new referrals in late 2021.

The committee endorsed the improvement activity and next steps, and also agreed that the new Violence Against Women Strategy and Action Plan is presented to a future meeting for approval.