Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve child protection for families where there are allegations of domestic abuse.

We are committed to delivering long term, sustainable improvements to the children’s social care system. Putting Children First: Delivering our vision for excellent children’s social care (July 2016) sets out the government’s reform programme for children’s social care in England for the next five years.

The government recognises the life changing impact domestic abuse can have on the lives of children. That is why we have expanded the Troubled Families Programme until 2020 to work with an additional 400,000 families, including those affected by domestic abuse.

The government’s Violence Against Women Strategy (April 2016), stresses the importance of taking an integrated whole-family approach to addressing and stopping violence and abuse. The government has provided £2m in funding to support new models developed by Safelives and Women’s Aid to identify and support victims and their families at an earlier stage and provide effective wrap-around support.

The Department for Education is funding four grants, totalling around £900,000, from 2016 to March 2018 to Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations working on issues concerning domestic abuse. Further details of the VCS grants can be found here; https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-backs-projects-to-help-safeguard-vulnerable-children