Found: for victims of domestic abuse that are being brought forward through the Child Support Collection (Domestic

Found: understood and reflected in the Bill in order to strengthen protections for child victims of domestic

Found: Funding to tackle increased risk some are facing as they stay home, including adolescent exploitation, domestic

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether all police forces in England, including the Metropolitan Police, work with independent schools in implementing Operation Encompass, through which schools and police work together in safeguarding children at risk from domestic abuse.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

Operation Encompass is currently active in all 43 police forces across England and Wales. Implemented on a voluntary basis by police forces, the scheme works by directly connecting the police with schools. When officers have attended a domestic abuse incident, police share the information with a school’s trained Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) before the start of the next school day, so that appropriate support can be given at the earliest possible opportunity.

Aligned with police forces’ operational independence, each police force operates the scheme differently, in terms of the notification pathway and which institutions receive notifications. Importantly, the scheme does not discriminate on what type of schools these notifications should be sent to.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help ensure specialist support is available to children with mental health needs who are victims of domestic abuse.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

We are investing at least an additional £2.3 billion a year in expanding and transforming mental health services in the National Health Service by March 2024 compared to 2018/19. As part of this, an extra 345,000 more children and young people, including those who are victims of domestic abuse will be able to get the NHS-funded mental health support they need.

We are also continuing the rollout of mental health support teams to schools and colleges in England. While these teams deliver interventions for mild to moderate mental health issues, they can also liaise with external specialist services to help pupils get the right support. There are currently around 400 mental health support teams in place, covering over three million children, which is approximately 35% of pupils, and we are working to increase this coverage to 50% of pupils by March 2025.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many cases involving allegations of parental alienation or alienating behaviours have been heard in private law family proceedings in each of the past five years; and how many findings of parental alienation or alienating behaviours were made in those proceedings.

Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

Transfers of residency orders, incidences of findings of child sexual abuse in private law proceedings, and cases involving allegations of parental alienation or alienating behaviours are not recorded centrally. Such information could only be obtained by analysis of individual case files at disproportionate costs.

Regarding the term “parental alienation”: as part of his judgment in the case of Re C, the President of the Family Division outlined that most family judges regard the label of “parental alienation”, and the idea that it “may be a diagnosable syndrome” as being “unhelpful”. He noted that instead the courts should focus on identifying any specific “alienating behaviours”.

Found: overlapping vulnerabilities, such as: financial or housing insecurity, poor mental or physical health, domestic

Found: This includes how best to respond to domestic abuse, children at risk from harm from outside the home

Found: to those provisions you may also claim payment when a particular Aspect of a case has concluded – Domestic

Found: children who experience complex family circumstances (e.g., young carers; children with experience of domestic

Found: In relation to domestic abuse, Children Services Social Work should be cont acted around any issues

Found: In relation to domestic abuse, Children Services Social Work should be contacted around any issues relating

Found: findings of the evaluation were: children, young people and mothers developed a greater understanding of domestic

Found: aggravator as currently drafted does not reflect the full experience of harm done to children through domestic