Nacro recognises that domestic abuse has a serious effect on people’s lives, both emotionally and physically.
We are committed to taking all reasonable steps possible to combat the impact of domestic abuse, for the individuals being abused, children and other family members affected by domestic abuse; as well as challenging the behaviour of perpetrators.
We recognise that any form of domestic abuse is not acceptable and do not expect our employees to tolerate or condone such behaviour whilst delivering our services.
The purpose of this policy and procedure is to help staff, service users and other stakeholders to understand our approach to dealing with domestic abuse and to ensure we deal with any incidents in a consistent and fair way.
Nacro has a ‘survivor-centred’ approach to domestic abuse. Survivor’s views and experiences will inform prioritisation and delivery of services.
We are mindful that many service users will have experienced abuse in their childhood or past. Nacro will take a trauma- informed approach to working with service users, providing choice and control wherever possible. We will support service users who are the survivors of non-recent domestic abuse to access appropriate support from specialist agencies.
In some cases, our service user may be perpetrators of domestic abuse. To reduce the incidence and impact of abuse, Nacro will challenge the behaviour of perpetrators of domestic abuse and will signpost and refer perpetrators to appropriate interventions to address their behaviour.
Where we are working with service users who have a history of perpetrating domestic abuse, we will collaborate with criminal justice agencies and/or seek support from external agencies to help house, accommodate and manage service users who are perpetrators of domestic abuse.
We will maintain robust risk assessments to effectively manage the risks that the service poses to victims and or the community.
The Nacro Domestic Abuse Procedure supports this policy and the two documents should be read alongside each other.
Download our domestic abuse policy to learn more