What is domestic abuse?

Domestic abuse is any type of controlling, bullying, threatening or violent behaviour between people in a romantic or intimate relationship. Witnessing domestic abuse (seeing or hearing) causes serious emotional harm to children, even if they are not the direct target of any abuse themselves.

It’s important to remember domestic abuse:

• Can happen inside and outside the home
• Can happen over the phone, on the internet and on social networking sites etc
• Can happen in any relationship and can continue even after the relationship has ended
• Both men and women can be abused or abusers
• Can involve psychological and emotional manipulation
• Gaslighting is a form of Domestic Abuse

Types of domestic abuse

Domestic abuse can be emotional, physical, sexual, financial or psychological, such as:

• Physical assault including kicking, hitting, punching, cutting, biting, burning, poisoning etc
• Rape or other non-consensual sexual activity that occurs within the context of an intimate relationship
• Controlling someone’s finances by withholding money or stopping someone earning money themselves
• Controlling behaviour; E.g. telling someone where they can go, who they can see and what they can wear
• Not llowing someone leave the house
• Reading emails, text messages, letters etc without the consent of the person they were sent to
• Threatening someone, including threats to life, physical safety, financial security, reputation / humiliation, threats to the relationship status
• Threatening to another family member, loved one, or pet.

If a child is living in a family where domestic abuse is present, this is a mandatory report to children’s social care.

These videos may be useful to give insight into the impact of domestic abuse on children. It is a little out of date and the programme to involve schools has now been rolled out nationally, however, the insights are useful.

This video gives an insight into teenage relationship abuse