Things we don't like to think about

Being a councillor often brings with it an insight into issues you would avoid knowing about in real life. I am Vice-Chair of the "Children and Young People's Local Area Group" which is a multi-agency group which will eventually commission services for young people in North Cornwall and had to chair a very heavy meeting on the 18th of July.

This group has defined that Domestic Violence is a big issue affecting the work of many different agencies in our district so we have been looking into starting a project that could help children affected by the issue. We initially looked at all the stats that we have and descriptions of the services already in existence, but on the 18th this issue was brought to life with an extremely brave presentation by victims and their support workers.

The experience that these women had was extremely sad and shocking. I won't go into detail here, but will say that the violence that some of the women described was nothing short of cruel or barbaric.

And then you learn about the effect on the children. Children who are unable to talk to anyone about their experience for fear that it will result in Mum getting thumped again. Children who are isolated in their world because they know that any adult they talk to has a responsibility to report it, therefore no-one is a safe pair of ears. Children who grow up either in fear of becoming violent themselves or do start to display the behaviours on the playground. Children who, because they have to keep it all bottled up inside, start to believe that it is their fault or even worse that it is normal.

Little things that I take for granted as a parent - like birthday party's, play days for your children's friends, having them round for tea, are completely out. Mums who are struggling to deal or hide with what is happening to them are not in a good place to help their kids. The children are isolated and lonely - often as a result of the very measures that have been put in place to protect them.

Domestic violence is an issue that is uncomfortable, taboo and hidden. Domestic Violence affects an extraordinary number of people from all backgrounds. For the cycle of Domestic Violence to be broken the first step has to be to start talking about it. Hence this post.

The meeting was heavy, but necessary. As a result, the project we had suggested from looking at the stats and paper based reports completely changed. We were looking at training teachers to recognise the signs and to deal with it. Instead we are now looking into providing a telephone support line for children, possibly support groups and looking at how the "Common Assessment Framework" (agencies responsibility to share information that endangers children with other professionals) is actually a barrier to this issue. It's a difficult one, but what was very clear was that children need to feel safe and need to be able to talk about this.