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New toolkit launched to improve support for families experiencing domestic abuse

A new toolkit has been developed to help services work together more effectively when supporting families affected by domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse can cause serious harm to adults and children. Many children who live with domestic abuse experience long‑term mental health difficulties and are at greater risk of being harmed by, or involved in, domestic abuse later in life.

Because domestic abuse affects the whole family, both adult and children’s services need to respond. For over twenty years, UK policy has encouraged professionals from different agencies to work together to keep children safe and support families.

‘Whole family approaches’ are one way of doing this, where teams from adult and child health and care services work together to support families.

However, this approach can sometimes bring challenges, with different ways of working across teams making it difficult to integrate services and maintain consistent practice, sometimes leading to gaps in support.

Toolkit offers step-by-step guidance

The Whole Family Approaches to Responding to Parents and Children in Families Affected by Domestic Abuse: Implementation Toolkit has been developed to support professionals who work with families in this context.

The toolkit explains how organisations can put them into practice. It provides simple, step‑by‑step guidance on planning, delivering and reviewing the approach. It also includes practical tools for strategic leads, operational managers and practitioners. The toolkit can be used on its own or alongside existing local models of practice.

The resource was co‑developed as part of a study funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), which looked at what helps or hinders the implementation of whole family approaches. The research found that successful implementation depends on professionals having a shared understanding of the approach and regular opportunities to learn and work together.

Improving support for parents and children

Professor Ruth McGovern from Newcastle University led the development of the toolkit. Professor McGovern is also Co‑Director of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East and North Cumbria (NENC), which supported the study that underpins the toolkit’s development.

Professor McGovern said: “Our research shows that effective support for families experiencing domestic abuse requires coordinated action across adult and child services, but achieving this in practice can be challenging. This toolkit provides teams with a structured and evidence‑informed resource to help them develop a shared approach and improve support for parents and children who experience domestic abuse.”

Access the toolkit and read more about its development

This work was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) National Priorities Programme for Adult Social Care and Social Work, led by ARC Kent, Surrey and Sussex (ARC KSS) and the University of Kent. It was supported by researchers from the NIHR ARC North East and North Cumbria, ARC Kent Surrey and Sussex, ARC North West Coast and ARC West Midlands. The research team also included practice colleagues from Cumberland Council and Gateshead Council.