Police to warn children's school about domestic abuse at home under new pilot scheme

'Imagine arriving at school after hearing or witnessing domestic abuse - you have not slept, had no breakfast, don’t have all your school uniform and your home is in disarray. Now you are expected to sit in your classroom and learn,' says headteacher

Councils and schools will be told before lessons start the next day to enable them to help and support the child (Getty)

Police will inform a child’s school about domestic violence incidents at their family home as part of a new pilot scheme.

Councils and schools will be told before lessons start the next day to enable them to help and support the child.

Gwent Police in Wales is trialling the scheme which was first set up by a primary school head teacher in Cornwall and her husband who is a former police officer in 2011.

Elisabeth Carney-Haworth, the head teacher behind the scheme, said: “Imagine arriving at school after hearing or witnessing domestic abuse - you have not slept, had no breakfast, don’t have all your school uniform and your home is in disarray. Now you are expected to sit in your classroom and learn.

“This is happening in our schools every day and the current procedures in many police forces do not allow for the reporting to schools of domestic abuse incidents in a timely fashion.”

David Carney-Haworth, her husband who was a police sergeant at Devon and Cornwall Police, said: “We know if you are a child exposed to domestic abuse then you will suffer emotional and psychological harm and it will have negative consequences on their health, education and wellbeing.”

The Home Office awarded charity Operation Encompass £163,000 for its initiative to support children who attend school following a domestic abuse incident in September.

Suzanne Jacob, of Safe Lives, said: "Our research indicates that at least one child in every reception class will have been living with domestic abuse for their whole life. Children do not just ‘witness’ domestic abuse, they experience it – and every child living with abuse deserves a response that meets their needs and keeps them safe.

"We’re supportive of Operation Encompass and the move towards a whole school approach to identifying and supporting children who are at risk. This must be part of a whole-system response to children living with abuse, which includes appropriate and comprehensive relationships and sex education."

Julie Simpson, headteacher of St Barnabas Multi Academy Trust in Cornwall, said: “It is such a simple concept, but it is so effective. It just requires one phone call from the police to a nominated Key Adult in a school, prior to 9am on the morning after a domestic incident has happened in the child’s home. Having that knowledge allows us to put support in place for the child immediately.”

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the scheme has “proved to be very successful in the schools it has been trialled in.”

Dyfed-Powys Police was the first Welsh force to go live with Operation Encompass in December and Gwent aims to have the scheme in place in all five council areas it covers in 2019.

Before this, the school might not be aware of an issue for several weeks until social services had become involved.

Statistics have found that as many as one in five children in Britain are witness to or exposed to domestic abuse and those affected by the crime are four times more likely to go on and experience or perpetrate domestic abuse later in life.

The scheme aims to offer support to children who have been exposed to adverse childhood experiences - also known as ACEs. These include sexual abuse, domestic violence or drug and alcohol abuse.

If a child is forced to experience any of these, they are at much greater risk of repeating the cycle in adulthood and are more likely to develop serious physical and mental illness.

Domestic violence charity Women’s Aid has called on the government to give the scheme a statutory footing, requiring police forces to report to the school before the start of the next school day when a child had been involved in or exposed to domestic abuse, as part of their forthcoming domestic abuse bill.

The organisation - which has been involved in rolling out the scheme - say this will ensure it is consistently implemented across the country.