Children and Young People
Specialist support for children bereaved by domestic abuse
Children who have lost a parent through fatal domestic abuse will receive specialist support from AAFDA (Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse) thanks to a grant of £60,000 from Wiltshire Freemasons.
Last year in the UK there were 134 domestic homicides, 84 of them women (ONS) and at least 115 people took their own lives as a direct result of domestic abuse. This project will help 12 children to start to come to terms with the trauma of having lost a parent in uniquely tragic circumstances.
The needs of children bereaved through fatal domestic abuse are varied – many have witnessed domestic abuse throughout their lives and some will have actually witnessed the death itself. They may have experienced the upheaval of being placed with an alternative family member/carer (meaning a change of school and loss of their whole social network), and all of these experiences are compounded by grieving the loss of a parent. Often – and tragically – children must come to terms with the fact that one parent has been murdered by their other parent; their grief in such circumstances is unimaginably complex.
Around 20 per cent of children in the UK have lived with domestic abuse, which increases their vulnerability to a wide range of negative social, developmental and health-related outcomes. Two women a week in the UK are murdered by a former or current partner, leaving behind children whose whole worlds are turned upside down and whose lives can be blighted in ways that will cause lifelong harm if they are not offered the right support at the right time. The project empowers AAFDA to fulfil its mission to help those left behind after fatal domestic abuse.
We’re extremely grateful to Wiltshire Freemasons for their generous grant. The children AAFDA supports have in many cases witnessed domestic abuse for most, if not all, of their lives, culminating in something no child should have to experience – the loss of a parent in the most violent of circumstances. This grant means that we will be able to provide specialist advocacy to help children as they navigate the aftermath of the tragedy.
I’m very pleased we’ve been able to help AAFDA with their hugely important project to help children who’ve had a parent snatched away from them as a result of domestic abuse. In truth they’ve often lost both parents in the sense that one is dead and the other one may be responsible for the crime.