ADVANCE programme – substance use and IPV

A report into a father who shot dead his wife and daughter has said it is “vital” for all professionals to recognise signs of coercive control.

Lance Hart, 57, killed his wife Claire, 50, and daughter Charlotte, 19, before killing himself, in Spalding in 2016. The sons of the couple Ryan and Luke Hart are now campaigning for more awareness and believe that there were missed opportunities for GPs and other professional staff to identify their fathers controlling behaviour and take some action to address it.

A council-led domestic homicide review has been published which recommends staff receive more training and a public awareness campaign is undertaken.

you can read more about this story here.

A blog has been posted on the ADVANCE programme by Manchester University by Professor David Gadd and collaborators focuses on the domestic violence (DV) agenda and perpetrators. This coincides with the 16 days of action for violence against women.

This blog emphasises the UK government is considering introducing court orders that require DV perpetrators to abstain from using substances and questions the feasibility of this approach by drawing on the evidence from a report Transforming the Response to Domestic Abuse.    This report highlights an ‘association between complex needs’ and ‘drug and alcohol misuse, offending, mental illness and poverty’ and  emphasises the need to focus on the ‘dynamics of power and control which are present in many abusive relationships’.

The blog also discusses that many models of drug treatment assume that there will be some relapse which is incompatible with DV policy that may promise ‘zero tolerance’ for domestic violence reoffending behaviour.

You can access more information on the blog and the ADVANCE programme here. 

Originally published on the Policy@Manchester website. http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/featured/2018/11/transforming-the-response-to-drug-and-alcohol-dependent-perpetrators-of-domestic-abuse/