Domestic Abuse

Part of 2. Questions to the Leader of the House – in the Senedd at 2:59 pm on 28 February 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:59, 28 February 2018

We're very aware that benefit changes are causing some difficulties in some of the refuges in Wales, and we've been working very closely with providers to make sure that we can understand exactly what the issues are. We have provided £5.4 million in 2017-18 in the violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence services grant to local authorities and to third sector organisations for implementation of the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, and we've also given £376,000 in 2017-18 for Hafan Cymru's Spectrum project, which is teaching children about healthy relationships and about abuse, its consequences and where to seek help. 

I was very privileged to attend a session of that programme very recently to see for myself the effect that it has on the children and their ability to understand what constitutes a healthy relationship and what might constitute a not-so-healthy relationship. I was very impressed indeed by the quality of the programme and how it was raising awareness not only in the group of children receiving the tuition but right across the school and its teaching staff. So, I was very pleased with that.

As I said in answer to an earlier question, we're running the This is Me campaign, because we're very aware that gender stereotyping is, according to all the research, one of the main drivers of domestic violence and domestic abuse, as people try to live up to personalities and traits that simply aren't natural to them, and the stress that that engenders within the domestic setting. So, we're sponsoring that programme, which I'm very proud of, and the young people were very responsive to some of the messages in that programme also.